How to Use the Loopy Dictionary: Look Up Words, Listen to Pronunciation, and Save with One Click
Looking up words is something almost everyone has done hundreds of times, yet very few do it "effectively." You open a dictionary, see a translation, keep the meaning in mind for three seconds, and then close it—only to be completely blank the next time you encounter the same word in a text or conversation. Forgetting right after looking it up is the most common and time-consuming learning trap.
Where is the problem? Ordinary dictionaries are only responsible for "telling you what a word means"; once they give you the translation, they are done. They don't care if you can pronounce it, or if you will remember it in the future. As a result, looking up words becomes a one-off action: you understand it in the moment, but return it to the dictionary a few days later.
Three Things You Should Do When Looking Up a Word
To truly make a word stick, you need more than just "seeing a translation." The Loopy dictionary designs word lookup as an all-in-one process of looking up + listening to pronunciation + saving directly for review: when you look up a word, you don't just see the meaning, you also hear how it's pronounced; once done, you can easily save it to your wordlist, letting it automatically be scheduled for spaced repetition review.
The logic is very simple: a word you looked up must be seen a second and third time to truly become yours. Words looked up only once are destined to be forgotten; only words scheduled for a few rounds of review will slowly take root in your memory.
How to Use It in Loopy: Three Steps
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Look up the word, check definitions, phonetic symbols, and example sentences: Enter the word you want to look up in the Loopy dictionary, and the system will list multilingual definitions of the word (so you can understand it in your native language), IPA phonetic symbols, and example sentences. Read the definition first to grasp the meaning, and then check the example sentences to see how it is actually used—combining meaning with usage is much more solid than just looking at a translation.
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Listen to native speaker pronunciation: Next to every word, there is a native speaker pronunciation you can play. Click to listen once, and read it aloud once. You can only remember words you can pronounce—you cannot remember a word you cannot say. Listen while looking at the IPA phonetic symbols, so the next time you encounter it in listening or conversation, your ears will recognize it.
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Add to your wordlist with one click to schedule reviews: Don't rush to close it after looking it up. Click once to add this word to your wordlist, and it will enter your forgetting curve review schedule—the system will push this word back in front of you right when you are about to forget it. You just need to click once more when looking it up, and Loopy will take care of the rest of the review schedule for you.
Summary
There is nothing wrong with looking up words; the mistake is letting them slip away right after. By turning "looking up a word" from a one-off action into a seamless flow of checking the definition, listening to the pronunciation, and saving for review, the words you look up will accumulate one by one, saving you from looking them up over and over, and forgetting them again and again.
Next time you encounter an unfamiliar word, don't just glance at the translation and close it. Open the Loopy dictionary to look it up, and save it to your wordlist along the way.