Learning random words is as useless as a chocolate teapot
Seriously, folks. Don’t just pick up random words and cram them; otherwise you will just end up knowing words such as “Floccinaucinihilipilification”, which you won’t be able to pronounce any way. Retaining such words is a pain in the brain if you don’t use them regularly.
How I scout for new words
I have a highly sophisticated word-scouting technique.
- Reading
- I note down any interesting word that I encounter while reading stuff.
- Listening
- Senior folks at my company use really interesting phrases such as “The next meet is going to be a real barn burner. So I just steal those phrases.
How I remember the words/phrases
I have a sophisticated workflow coded out (fr this time); whenever I encounter a new word or phrase I quickly jot it down in my Microsoft todo list (only todo list that I ever liked), then the program that I vibe-coded picks it up from the list, prompts an LLM model (Gemimi 2.0 flash, because it’s free), converts it to a structure that I want, and dumps it into Anki. And then it’s just a matter of me revisiting the word on Anki from time to time.
Here’s a sample Anki Card
