How to read a word card in Vocabulary

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A card in Vocabulary gives you more than a translation. It shows the word's parts of speech, meanings, forms, related words, and common collocations. Start with the movie line where you found the word, choose the meaning that fits that line, and then check which form you heard.

Start with the line

Take the card for Mind. The labels Noun, Verb tell you that mind can work as either a noun or a verb. Its level label describes the word in the Vocabulary list, not the particular movie line where it appears.

Under Definitions, a vertical bar | separates distinct uses. One definition covers the mind and the ability to think, feel, and remember. Another covers the verb meaning to pay attention or care about something. These are different uses of the same spelling, not two interchangeable translations.

The surrounding phrase tells you which one you need. In state of mind, mind refers to thoughts or a mental state. In mind your manners, it is a verb. The word looks the same, but the matching definition changes with the line.

Check the form you heard

The card lists forms separately for each part of speech. For the verb mind, it shows v1: mind, v2: minded, v3: minded, ving: minding, and vs: minds. Here, v1 is the base form, v2 is the past tense, v3 is the third verb form, ving is the -ing form, and vs is the form used with he, she, or it. The noun has its own plural, minds.

Clicking minded puts that form into the search field and opens lines that contain it. This is useful when the line sounds familiar but the form on the page does not look like the headword you learned.

Use the neighboring sections for the next search

Domains lists subjects associated with the word; the mind card includes education, health, and relationships. Its Register is marked spoken. These labels help you place the entry, but they are not additional forms of mind.

The Lexical family section offers related words that can become new searches. For mind, the list includes mindful, mindfulness, mindset, and remind. They are not interchangeable forms of the headword. If you want examples of mindful, click it and Playphrase.me will search for lines containing that word.

Read entries under Common collocations as complete units. state of mind, mind your manners, and make up your mind do not mean the same thing. Clicking a collocation opens it in Search & Learn, where you can hear it in movie lines.

Open Playphrase.me, go to Vocabulary, and choose a word. Then click a form, related word, or collocation to open examples in Search & Learn.