I understand that cloze tests focus on learning words in context, and mastering a word in one sentence doesn’t necessarily mean it’s mastered in all contexts. Given that, I see why the Mark as Known feature applies to entire sentences rather than individual words.
However, when I mark a sentence as known, it’s usually because I’m confident I’ve fully mastered the target word. It would save time if that word never became a target again, regardless of the sentence or collection it appears in.
I truly do see your point, but my own answer would be… no, I wouldn’t.
Why not?
Homographs.
I note that you are studying Spanish. I can’t give you an example from that since my own progress in Spanish consists of something like “Playing 3 sentences, mastered 0”, but indulge me while I choose a word from my own language of Italian to illustrate the problem:
Word and part of speech
Context
Meaning
piano agg
(che ha superficie uniforme)
even, level adj
flat adj
piano avv
(lentamente, adagio)
slow adv
slowly adv
piano avv
(senza far rumore)
quietly, softly adv
piano avv
(delicatamente, con cautela)
softly, delicately adv
cautiously adv
piano nm
(superficie piana)
flat surface n
(kitchen)
countertop n
piano nm
(zona prospettica) (perspective)
plane n
piano nm
(ente geometrico) (geometry)
plane n
piano nm
(parte di un edificio) (of a building, UK)
floor, storey n
piano nm
(livello)
level n
piano nm
(programma di un’attività)
plan, program, schedule n
piano nm
estensione (progetto, proposito)
plan, project n
piano nm
(disegno, schema) (design)
plan, blueprint, schematic n
piano agg
(percorso: agevole)
easy, flat adj
piano agg
(linguaggio: chiaro, comprensibile) (language)
plain, clear adj
piano agg
(grammatica: parossitono) (grammar)
paroxytone adj
piano agg
(musica: dalla sonorità tenue) (music)
soft adj
piano nm
(di gara di atletica) (athletics)
board, take-off board adj
piano nm
(elemento aerodinamico) (aviation)
plane, airfoil n
piano nm
(piana, pianura)
plain, flatland, heath, prairie n
piano nm
(strato geologico) (geology)
plane, stratum n
piano nm
familiare (abbreviazione di pianoforte) (musical instrument)
piano n
And don’t even get me started on the word “ci”.
Then in French we have the reverse problem where one small detail will stop you from ignoring the word. That is, the fact that you can have a word which may indeed be one that you know, but there are 19 different spellings of it depending on number, gender and wind direction. (All of which are pronounced the same way, incidentally. However adding random silent Xs at the end of some words really boosted the Scrabble scores of the medieval French monks who compiled the first French dictionaries.)
If you’re finding that a particular word is appearing too often in a collection, you can do a search for it in the collection and mark appropriate matches as “known”. This will at least give you the opportunity to do a quick scan for other meanings that you may not have been aware of. And in learning a new language… there usually ARE some.
You make a great point, and I would add set phrases and idioms as important variations/uses of words that would be missed if my idea were implemented as originally presented. It warrants further thought.
Expanded Idea: Flexible Filtering
There might be a nice opportunity to use AI here, not for dynamic generation of anything in the app itself, but for static cataloging purposes. Pipe the sentences from Tatoeba into a language model and have it create metadata which could include the variant of each word, whether the sentence is a set phrase/idiom, whether a word is a conjugation of a verb, etc. Then options can be presented such as I suggested, but more fine-tuned: e.g. mark word with this variation of meaning as known. In other words, it would allow a flexible way to filter which sentences get shown / auto-marked as learned.
Reasons for Consideration
Developing Word Sense
Personally, I would still rather focus on words I’ve never seen before than the same words used in different contexts. I can pick those other meanings up through my primary language learning activities, which are reading/watching native content and having live conversations. I often encounter words I “know” used in different ways, and it hasn’t been difficult to infer and integrate the new meaning. Over time, a deep sense of the word develops, and for me it’s easier to expand that sense than to create it in the first place. I think Clozemaster really helps develop that sense for brand new words, and it would be great to focus on those.
Completeness in Games
So far, most of my time on Clozemaster has been spent marking sentences as known on the fast track. I could probably skip to one of the later collections, but I don’t want to miss anything. A sense of “completeness” is a key motivating factor in many games, and since this is gamified language learning, I think it should be considered.The idea of marking words as known came to me when I realized that if I were to finish the fast track collections and move on to the most common words collections, I would be presented with many of the same words with the same meanings and have to spend many more hours marking those sentences as known. Of course, spending more hours honing known words is not a waste of time, by any means. It just feel less than optimal.
Clozemaster As Is
Clozemaster is a great app, easily one of the best I’ve used. I’ll happily continue using it as is. My suggestion is primarily for future consideration. The app will undoubtedly expand, and I offer one possible enhancement: flexible filtering.
I wouldn’t want it. I know when learning German, I have often come across a familiar word in a different context. I wouldn’t have realised the word could be used that way if I’d just marked the first time as ‘known’.
I may think I have mastered the target word - often I’ve just scratched the surface…
(I find the same thing when helping Ukrainian friends with their English - words are far more nuanced than we realise)
That’s true! I’ve even learned new uses for English words, which is my own native language.
I’ve been looking at this from the perspective of an advanced learner. At my level of Spanish, there are thousands and thousands of words I already know very well. It’s almost guaranteed there are uses for many of those words I haven’t seen. But there are so many more thousands of words that I’ve never encountered even once. When I come across such words in real content, I’m blocked.
I think at a certain level of advancement in a language, you can make the call that you know enough about certain words. Take the word “palabra”, which means “word” in Spanish. If you look it up on WordReference, you will find many examples of how it’s used, and it’s not always directly translated as “word”. But if you understand it as “word”, it’s very easy to understand in those other contexts. Ex. “tener la palabra” which means “to have the floor” (as in it’s your turn to talk). If I came across that in some content, I’m confident I’d understand it, and it would be subconsciously filed away as an additional usage of “palabra”.
Would I be better served by mastering that context of “palabra” in Clozemaster, or does it have deeper impact when I come across it in a book (or a show, or a live conversation) where I might be emotionally involved? If I’m at a level of Spanish where I know “palabra” pretty much always has something to do with words, I think the latter is better. And the time I saved by not practicing that context on Clozemaster would be spent mastering other words that I’m not so familiar with.
On the other hand, the uses for “piano” in Italian do not always relate to a “core” definition. So it really comes down to whether the learner is advanced enough to tell the difference between a word they can safely skip and a word they shouldn’t. If proper metadata were constructed as in my expanded idea above, this would not be a concern.
I wouldn’t make much use of a “known word” feature, personally. Although I’m always picking up new words from exposure here and elsewhere, I’ve found that I typically use the sentences here for listening comprehension practice in my Spanish. When I branch out into other languages, I’ll find myself going down that same path. Just hearing random sentences and being able to reliably know what I heard even without context helps me get a good idea of where my worst language skill is right now and make any adjustments to improve it.