Word families in Lute

09 Sep 2024

In language learning, a “word family” is a group of words that are based on a common word. For example, in English, the word “hospital” could be in a family like “hospital, hospitalize, hospitable, inhospitable, hospitality …” etc, ignoring conjugations. In Spanish, “sondar” (to sound, as in measure depth) could be in a family “sondar, sondear, sonda, insondable, sondaje …”. As I read more, I see more connections between words that are similar forms. It would be nice if Lute supported such a thing.

Why bother

Today I read “No, no era posible calcular la hondura del silencio que produjo aquel grito.” – it would be nice somehow to link the idea of “hondo” with “hondura”, if only to build the connections for that word with other words.

How would this work?

Just like the “word parents”, maybe Lute could have a “word family” text box, where I can enter in related words. If I remove a word from the family, would it be removed from the family? If I add a word, and that word is already part of a family, are all of the other words pulled in? That feels messy … it feels like there should be another way to make families, another screen perhaps.

Can a word be part of multiple families? Probably, but I can’t think of an example at the moment.

What kind of feedback would Lute give me as I read? Show up on the popup (with links to see more data)? In a new tab of “word details” or something, like the “sentences” tab?

Is this worth it?

I don’t know. This could become a data management thing with little ROI for me as a reader … but then again, it could be fun to somehow link “hondura” with “hondo”, and explore things that way, or even have such links be importable for me and other learners to discover new stuff.

If I read “No suporto eso”, and “soporto” has parent term “soportar”, does it help to see that “soportar” is in a family with “insoportable”?