A thousand words worth knowing
Coming to iPhoneAn asterism is a small pattern of stars, like the Big Dipper. Here, every word is a star. Learn a family of related words and it lights up as an asterism.
“I collected these words over a decade from books, conversations, articles, podcasts and friends. This game is how I finally learned them.” —JM
Asterism is built on well-established research into how memory works. See the studies
Every time you meet a word, it's a question. Pulling a word out of your own memory is what makes it stay.
Get one right and it returns in a day, then three days, then a week, then months. Spread-out practice lasts. Cramming doesn't.
Related words are grouped so you see how they differ and how they connect, the way an asterism joins its stars.
Recognizing a word isn't the goal. A word counts as yours once you can supply it yourself, in a real sentence.
Asterism is built on a handful of well-established findings about how memory works.
You're always answering, never just reading. Pulling a word out of memory strengthens it far more than seeing it again. That's why every encounter here is a question.
Words come back after longer and longer gaps. Get a word right and it returns in a day, then three, then a week, then weeks, then months. Practice spread out over time lasts. Cramming doesn't. This is why a thousand words takes a year or more, and why that's the point.
Recognizing a word isn't the same as using it. Knowing a word when you see it and being able to supply it yourself are different skills. Asterism tracks both, and a word isn't secure until you can do both.
You fill in real sentences. Producing a word in context gives it something to hold onto.
You find out right away. Multiple-choice questions can teach the wrong answers if you never learn you were wrong. Asterism always shows you the right one immediately.
It's mixed on purpose. A session jumps between words, question types, and asterisms. That feels harder in the moment, and the difficulty is what makes it stick.
Some words get a picture. A word stored as an image and a definition has two ways back.
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