How WordsTool works
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How WordsTool works
The rules that are not written on the screen
Language:
English
Russian
Sets and words
Moving a set to another source language
Localize copies a set to another source language with the translations emptied — what carries over, what does not, and why the taught language cannot change.
Importing words from a table
Paste up to 50 words at once, choose the separators, and mark the practised word in every example with double parentheses so exercises can find it.
Images on a word card
A word card crops every picture to 3:2 from the centre — the sizes that survive that crop, the formats it accepts and the ten-megabyte limit.
Who can see a set
A set is private until you say otherwise — what a link and the public level really grant, and why an assigned task gives a student no access to the set.
Your sets disappeared after removing a language pair
Removing a language pair hides everything that was created inside it. Nothing is deleted — add the pair back and it all returns.
Putting a set in Resources
There is no separate publish button: the access level that opens a set to everyone is what puts it in the catalogue.
Students and tasks
Entering addresses in an email invitation
The invite button activates as you type, a comma or a space separates addresses, and an address you have already invited is quietly skipped.
What happens to an invitation link
A shared link never expires but dies the moment you generate a new one; an emailed invitation lasts seven days. What a student sees on a dead one.
Your teacher account and your student account
Signing up as a teacher creates a student account beside it: one login, two separate libraries, and a switch that ends your other sessions.
A task link shows no results to the teacher
Work done through a task link is recorded nowhere: the person sees their own result and the teacher sees nothing. Assign the task when you need the result.
What a student sees
Student and teacher are two account types with different screens, and one person can hold both and switch between them.
A student with several teachers
Invitations add up rather than replace one another, and only the teacher can undo the link.
Doing a task again, and what happens if you close it
Progress is saved on the server as you go, but answers are final and a finished task cannot be retaken.
Studying on your own
Practising a set on your own
Any set you can open, you can practise: flash cards and five kinds of exercise, as many times as you like.
Does WordsTool remember which words you know?
No. There is no learned state on a word and no repetition schedule — self-study leaves no trace between sessions.
Using a set you took from Resources
An added set is the author's set, read-only: you can practise it fully, and to change anything you make a copy.
Can you assign a task to yourself?
No — a task is always sent to someone else's account. For solo work, practise the set instead.
Sources and licences
Dictionary sources
Which open lexical resources the English dictionary is built from, under what licences, and what we changed in each.
Licence notices
The notices some of our sources require to be reproduced word for word, printed here in full.