[I am studying Swedish and I developed Plugghäst just for fun and also a drive for my study. It will be totally FREE forever :)]
TO FORGET OR NOT TO FORGET: that is the question, especially when you are learning a new language, such as Swedish :(
In a sense, learning is just to struggle against forgetting. According to Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve theory, repetition is probably the most important tool for vocabulary acquisition in the course of second language learning.
Plugghäst is designed based on "Forgetting Curve" theory and attempts to facilitate learning Swedish words in your time fragments (such as on the bus/metro and in the toilet:)). The functions of Plugghäst are organized in following four main parts:
- Online Swedish/English dictionary based on Folkets Lexikon: here you can get detailed information (pronunciation, inflections, synonyms, …) of a Swedish word and add the word to your new words database if you want.
- Online Swedish/English Translation based on Google Translate: here you can translate Swedish sentences to English or get the translation of the words which can not be found in the dictionary. You can also add the sentences or the words to your new words database.
- My Words: all of your new words and sentences will be listed here. Thus you can make full use of your time fragments to review the words and sentences.
- Review Notification: Plugghäst will push daily notification (it will be shown in the notification area of your device) to remind you to review the words and sentences in your database at optimal time intervals to make your Forgetting Curve “flatter”.
Every day we may have many time fragments and the fragments can be utilized to review words. Plugghäst offers the facilities for reviewing in short time slot. If you are learning Swedish or plan to learn Swedish, Plugghäst would be your personal learning assistant! When you see a new word anywhere, please do not forget to look up the word in Plugghäst and add it to your database immediately. Then Plugghäst will keep on pushing you until you really remember the word!
About the app name, Plugghäst (pronounced |ploog hest|)
Literally, the first part of the name, plugg-, is a slang word for study, and the second part of the word, -häst, means horse. According to sv.wiktionary.org, the name has two meanings in Swedish:
- The first meaning is a student who is studying well-intensive and does not indulge themselves any appreciable time (elev som studerar väl intensivt och inte unnar sig någon nämnvärd fritid). It would essentially be translated to English as nerd or swot
- The second meaning is a kind of library chair over which they usually sit astride when reading facing a fold-up table top where the book is located (slags biblioteksstol över vilken man brukar sitta grensle när man läser vänd mot ett uppfällbart bordsskiva där boken ligger)
Hope that with the help from my app, you will be a plugghäst in Swedish learning. And also hope when you are learning Swedish, the app will be your comfortable plugghäst :)