There are plenty of flash-card applications around, including the amazing AnkiDroid. But while AnkiDroid is an incredible app, it’s not a game. I’m a big believer in education through games. I think learning should be as fun and engaging as possible, and that the more interested you are, the better your retention will be.  So, if you like your study mixed in with a bit of fun, keep reading for two fine picks from the Market.

Word Jam

Word Jam is composed of several different games, all aimed at helping you learn and retain new words. Above you can see “recall words”, a mode that gives you a word and has you guess the meaning. And here’s Match Words, where you stretch lines between words and their meanings:

There’s also a Hangman game:

If you don’t know what the word is, you can give up and reveal it (or just “die”, in which case the game would show you the word).

Another game mode worthy of mention is the crossword puzzle:

There are better crossword puzzle games for Android (which I may cover in a separate post), but Word Jam is not just a crossword puzzle, and can engage you in six different ways. Apart from the four we’ve seen, the game also offers Word Jumble and Word Search.

In Word Jumble, you must reorder letters to create a word. Word Search provides you with a collection of related words around a theme (“Groupings of people or objects”), and then you must find those words on a board. All in all, a fun collection of games with a simple aesthetic.

Wordaholic

Wordaholic is actually two different games: Wordaholic – Free Word Find and Wordaholic – Free Word Search. Pretty confusing (why not make it into one app?) but still fun. Both games let you play a hexagonal board full of random letters, where your goal is to create words. The “Find” variant gives you just the board, and you find any words you already know. The “Search” variant, more relevant to this post, is more like a crossword puzzle. That’s the one you see in the screenshot above. The game gives you a little riddle, and you need to figure out the word first, and then find that word on the board. Pretty challenging, because it involves switching between two different modes of thinking every turn.

Some of the questions are very tricky, such as “???? is an atomic element with the atomic number 10”. This is where the Hint button comes in handy: Tap it once for a tiny hint (“Four letters, starts with N”). If you still can’t figure out what it is, tap it again and the game will reveal the word (“The word is NEON”).

The game also offers an Easy mode, in which the words are already listed at the bottom of the screen and you just need to find them. This mode is still useful for learning new words, because you can tap a word to get its definition within the game:

Quite a lovely game for picking up some new words. I like the form factor. Hexagons always remind me of strategy games.

Your Own Favorites?

When it comes to word games on Android, the most popular ones are Words with Friends and Wordfeud. That’s why I didn’t include them in the post (I did include them in the Best of Android list). But do you play anything else that has to do with words? If so, do share in the comments.

Image Credit: ShutterStock

Online dictionaries aren’t only about words and their meanings. They also bring in other cool features which make for a fun learning experience for both children and adults alike.

Dictionary.com and its resources make it almost a portal that takes you on a journey of word discoveries. Word has it that it is probably the most frequented of online dictionary and reference sources on the web. Why not – after all you can do much more than merely look up a word here. Try these 8 for starters.

The Hot Word

Words are never one-dimensional. There’s always an interesting story behind them or you can create an interesting one around a word. The Hot Word shows just how interesting the English language is. The blog not only dives into the origins of words, but also discusses their present context. Even a casual read through the blog gives you interesting tidbits like the language that’s only spoken in one tiny part of Portugal.

Words!

This is a weekly compilation that picks up interesting definitions from areas of medicine, gardening, cooking, and more. Browsing through them takes you to entire word lists and in turn to their meanings. The compilation perks up interest because you might thing that you know all about a specific area, but the word list tells you that you still have some learning to do. Dictionary.com comes with comprehensive listings on medical terms, abbreviations, cultural words, idioms etc.

Solve a Daily Crossword

I can’t get to the Times crossword or solve it, but I do try my word associations and recall with the Daily Crossword here. You can time yourself, pause and save your progress, and even print the puzzles though it’s much better to solve them online. The game also gives you letter and word hints if you are stuck at a square.

By the way, if you are attempting to solve the Times crossword, you can take the help of the Crossword Solver here at Dictionary.com. Just a helpful tool to bookmark if you are into crosswords.

Fun ‘n Free Games!

The fun doesn’t end at crosswords but continues with the cool word based puzzles and games in the Games section. Making words starting with a provided letter sounds lame, but some interesting rules make the game a bit more challenging. There are more ‘complicated’ games like Word Kingdom which is like playing Age of Empires with words. Word Games has a lineup of nice games that should set up someone who is trying to get better with English.

Become a Word Millionaire with Word Dynamo

Word Dynamo is a beta feature but it already looks useful as an educational tool. Word Dynamo is about learning words in an engaging way. Word challenges are arranged according to grade levels and topics. You have to progress up by unlocking the levels as in any game. Quizzes, word lists, and word games make up Word Dynamo. You can also learn a bit about French, Spanish and Latin.

Which Word Is The World Searching For Today?

A small section that is tucked away near the foot of the homepage shows what the world is searching for on Dictionary.com. Capturing trending words from the whole web would be too much to ask for, so let’s do with what the nearly 50 million visitors landing here are making popular each day. You can look at Popular Searches, Words in the News, and Where Is It.

Rave on Quotes

There are many places you can go in your search for quotable quotes. Dictionary.com happens to be one more. There’s the Quote of The Day right on the homepage and more quotes beyond that. You can cite the quotes or choose to embed them in your blog.

Simply Translate

Last but not the least; Dictionary.com includes a very handy translation engine that can handle 50 languages. The translation is limited to 100 characters, but that should suffice for short bursts. One limitation is that the translator does not detect the language when you insert it into the field.

Dictionary.com goes beyond being a simple online dictionary. What sets it apart are these add-on learning features which make this a complete ‘word portal’. Which is your favorite online dictionary? If it’s this one, tell us what appeals to you here when you come looking for some meaning.

I know I’m not the only one around here who loves word games. Well, today I’d like to share two free, fun Android word games. One involves a bit of fast action, while the other mainly involves looking and hunting around. Ready? Here we go!

Letter Rip

The first game I’d like to share, Letter Rip, supports Android 1.6 and up. It has a 4.0 rating with 813 reviews, which isn’t bad at all, and you’ll soon see why. Here’s what the board looks like early on in a game:

The board starts out empty, and the tiles fill in gradually, about one per second. Your job is to drag tiles around to make words. Much like Scrabble, every letter has a point value, shown as a small number on the bottom-right corner. If you don’t make words fast enough, pretty soon the board looks like this:

Meaning, it is now completely full. In the screenshot above, this happened because I simply didn’t play – I wanted to let it fill up. The game is far from over: You can still make plenty of words, and they don’t even have to be in a single line. Take this, for example:

As long as the letters are somehow next to each other, the resulting word is acceptable. Personally, I really like this – it allows for a great deal of flexibility. Gameplay is very calm, and there are no stressful timeouts. Once I found “JET” above, I cleared those spaces on the board and got my 50 points:

Now, I can drag any letter from the top row into the empty space, and I can also move other letters around. Let’s do this in two steps: First, let’s use the free space to shuffle things around a bit.

With this shuffle, I just made a new word, “WISH”, without using any of the letters above. With a quick swipe through those letters, I can claim it, earn my points, and clear those tiles.

Now I’d like to use the letters from the top bank, to make a new word:

Can you guess what word I made? I would not usually do this so early, but it shows what the top tray is for. Note that after I empty it out, it does not magically refill – you’d best save those letters for when you really need them.

After a while, it looks like all of your options are out:

Not much to do without vowels. Now, you can either surrender, or buy new letters:

Buying letters looks like this:

Again, this is another very relaxing part of the game. You don’t buy random letters in hope you’ll get something good. You actually get to pick and choose the letters you want, and pay their price with the points you’ve accumulated so far. Of course, not all letters cost the same (just as not all letters are worth the same amount of points when used in a word).

Last but not least, I’d like to show you the generous options screen:

As you can see, you get to control the board size, game speed, and even the minimum amount of letters that count as a word.

I really like Letter Rip! because I feel the designers went out of their way to create a calming game. Where in other games I would expect to have a timer, Letter Rip! just lets me keep on playing to my heart’s content. And where other games only let me create words from top to bottom or left to right, Letter Rip! doesn’t care about directions. Very enjoyable, and captures the feel of a crossword puzzle while providing something you can’t do with paper (move letters around).

Word Search

The second game I’d like to share with you is called Word Search, and it also runs on Android 1.6 and above. It’s a much simpler game, really:

What you see is what you get; it’s a large grid of letters, in which you have to hunt for the words listed. Once you find a word, just draw a line through it, and it becomes highlighted. It’s an extremely simple game, but is also nice and relaxed. I only wish there was a way to hide the list of words. As it is, the game doesn’t involve much thought, but mainly looking and hunting around for those words. That’s also a mental skill, however.

My other feature request would be a way to make the board dark. This could be a great game to play at night right before I fall asleep, but the bright white board makes that impossible.

Every time you start a new Word Search game, you get a different grid with different words. You can swipe the list of words left to right – you don’t have to stick to the order they are listed, of course.

There’s not much else to say about this extremely simple Android word game, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun. If you like words, take it for a spin!

Your Turn

As usual, this is the spot where I ask you if I missed your favorite Android word game. I don’t mean Words with Friends; can you surprise me with an awesome free word game that not many people know yet? Tell me below!

Image Credit: ShutterStock

Enter Vifinition, a spiritual successor of the original Urban Dictionary that actually uses videos for its definitions. Better yet, they are videos chosen from the Internet by users themselves, putting a dual crowd-sourcing spin on the entire operation .

Vifine Just About Anything

The makers of Vifinition are all about letting you “vifine” your world, defining the word “vifinition” itself as “a video definition of just about anything”. Better yet, the alternate definition is “a consequence of being creative and unproductive simultaneously”. Sadly, that is the story of my life.

From the get-go, you’ll see Vifinition Of The Day as soon as you arrive on the homepage of this website (which has great potential to become something very big). For example, say that today’s word is “golf“. Well, based on what I found, the vifinition is an entire comedy routine by Robin Williams on golf. Seems pretty simple, right?

Furthermore, since you are (as far as I know) a user, you can submit videos to Vifinition. The way this is done is fairly simple. Browse YouTube, find something that correlates with the word at hand, and simply submit it. Heck, if you feel like getting a little crazy, you could actually make videos yourself. I don’t think that necessarily violates anything, and it may even make Vifinition a little more interesting.

Browse The Vifinition Video Dictionary

Alright, as with any review I do of a website, it’s time to decide whether or not the search function of Vifinition is usable. Well, what’s the verdict? Nothing fancy is added to it, and nothing is missing – Vifinition got it right. Right now, since the site is in its early stages, there won’t be as many results as I’d like to be, but that’s because the entire site is dependent on its users. You might want to get in there and help them out.

Along with the search function, there is an alphabetical legend that you can use to browse the site quite easily. Click the letter of the word you are looking for, and voila, you instantly have a video that defines your world. Furthermore, there’s also a random vifinition feature (which I believe every site like Vifinition should have).

Rate Your Favorites

In a similar fashion to Reddit, you can vote vifinitions up or down depending on how relevant they are. This is yet another feature that keeps the users in charge of the entire thing, and as far as functionality goes, it keeps all the definitions fresh and current. Speaking of current, a lot of the definitions seem to correlate with recent real-world events, so watch for that when you visit.

As a note, since the site is totally user-generated, you may or may not run across material that could be deemed offensive. However, as with the case of Tagdef and Urban Dictionary, this is not surprising. Furthermore, since the videos found on this site are from YouTube, it’s not like you wouldn’t be able to see them anyway. Vifinition does a very good job of keeping the site unbiased and embraces freedom of speech, but I’m not entirely clear on all of its moderation policies for more extreme cases.

Conclusion

As a video-maker myself, I think Vifinition is a pretty darn awesome little thing. It has great potential to go beyond the novelty of being a video dictionary, and it could actually become a resource that is incredibly extensive. As a reminder, Vifinition is still in the early stages of development, but it needs people like you to help it fulfill its own destiny. If all goes well, I envision it as becoming some kind of futuristic library (but we really need some holograms first… perhaps it could become Holofinition?)

What other sites do you know that are like Vifinition? How have you made use of Vifinition? Tell us what you think about it in the comments.

Writing is a key skill in the modern world, whether it’s directly how you make your living or not. Whether it’s writing memos or emailing clients, most jobs include at least some use of the written word. Even outside of work, more and more communication is moving to the written word. Don’t rush through these things – take your time and get them right. Develop writing as a skill, because it will reward you. But it’s a lot easier to do if you have the proper tools.

FocusWriter

Word processors are cool, and Linux users can use Open Office/Libre Office or AbiWord if a word processor is necessary.

These free writing tools aren’t primarily for writing, though. They are for laying content out on a page to be printed. If you’re writing for a website or an email, or just aren’t yet concerned about layout, they do way more than you need. That’s why I like FocusWriter, which offers a minimal interface without sacrificing on features.

Artha: Thesaurus

Repeating the same word while writing is problematic. Add some variety by using a Thesaurus. A plethora of online options exist, but if you want something hosted locally on your computer check out Artha. This simple program runs quickly so you can get back to your writing after finding the word you need.

You can almost certainly find Artha in your distro’s repositories right now, so go ahead and install it. Ubuntu users can simply click here to install Artha. Users of other distros can find Artha installation instructions here.

TomBoy or Zim

It’s important as a writer to keep you thoughts organized. A personal wiki can help a lot, giving you a place to collect ideas and organize them with cross-links. TomBoy, a Linux note-taking app, is installed by default on Ubuntu and is an excellent application for storing ideas.

If you don’t like the way TomBoy works, check out Zim, a desktop wiki. It’s a desktop wiki, but different from TomBoy in many ways. If you like using wikis on the web you’ll love this tool.

Plus: it’s named after the single greatest cartoon alien of all time.

Dropbox

We mention Dropbox more than enough here at MakeUseOf, but there’s a reason for that – it’s awesome. If you’re a writer primarily using Linux, it or something like it is almost essential.

Dropbox can automatically sync your writing between your computers, making it essential if you own more than one device. Even if you possess only a single computer you’ll want to use Dropbox, because it automatically backs up your work to the cloud every time you save it. Even better is that you can revert to a previous version of the file, within the past 30 days, anytime. This is great if you accidentally delete a large chunk of text and click “save.”

Conclusion

I do most of my writing for this and other blogs on Linux, and find these tools indispensable. Together they make my workflow what it is, and I’m extremely grateful to the developers of all of them.

While researching this article I stumbled upon Writing On Linux, a blog dedicated to outlining Linux tools for writers. Be sure to check that blog out for more cool ideas, but be aware that updates are sparse.

Do you have any other cool free writing tools for Linux? Let us know about them in the comments below, because we love learning from our readers.

Web designers probably have a kitty of Lorem Ipsum tools saved close by that’s useful for their web development work. Lorem Ipsum generators come in various forms; some of them allow customizing the dummy text generation with variable font widths, font faces, and other design elements. But there’s just so much you can take of the mock content. After a while your own brain goes to sleep in a dummy mode.

So, if you feel like chucking away the pseudo-Latin mumbo-jumbo and replacing it with some other nonsense text, here are a few options for you to consider.

Fillerati

Fillerati is perhaps the coolest and most stylish of the alternative Lorem Ipsum filler texts. Coded with HTML5, it’s also educational to a degree because it pulls text from classical works of literature (Helman Melville, Jack London, Jules Verne’s and Lewis Carroll to name a few). Google Translation APIs are used to convert the English text into multiple languages. You can apply markup tags and use a smooth slider to change the number of paragraphs on display. You can click the center circle to copy the filler text to the clipboard.

Fillerama

Star Wars can have a bit of fun on the side with this filler text generator. Filler text is freely borrowed from TV shows like Dexter, Futurama, The Simpsons, and Star Wars among others. You can set the number of paragraphs, put in a few lists, and format with headers. You can copy the HTML on the left pane and use it to design your web site or blog (see Directory mention).

Adhesion Text

Type in your characters, set a few rules, and the dummy text generator spouts out sentences taking your characters and the language you selected from a dropdown. You can insert characters in English, French, German, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, and Dutch. You can also use Latin, Cyrillic, Greek and even Arabic characters (see Directory mention).

Gangsta Lorem Ipsum

This filler text generator takes a bit of a wild route by generating text in rap style. You might like it if you are a fan of rapper Snoop Dog. You won’t be able to make any sense of it, which pretty much makes it as good as Latin for most of us (see Directory mention).

Fuck Lorem Ipsum

This alternative to Lorem Ipsum has been definitely created by its haters, if you go by the name and the tag line. This is another of those little apps which takes its filler text from TV comedy, dramas, kids show, and other scripts. You can markup the text with paragraph, break, and hypertext tags (see Directory mention).

Bacon Ipsum

Generate ‘meaty’ Lorem Ipsum text that has more than a handful of meat (bacon) related words. This filler text generator is definitely not for the vegetarians.

Blind Text Generator

Here you have a dummy text generator with a variety of filler options, from normal English to Kafka. Advanced options include customizable font styles, letter spacing, text decorations, and alignment options. You can wrap the code around all your HTML designing needs.

Malevole

Set the number of paragraphs and click on generate. This handy and simple dummy text generator helps you do away with traditional Lorem Ipsum text and instead use text from classical English literature.

Multilingual Lorem Ipsum Generator

I wanted to try out Esperanto as a filler text, and I found it here which gives you quite a few multilingual ways of trying out your placeholder text. You can of course go for the traditional Lorem Ipsum text or choose from other languages (including Japanese and Chinese).

Duck Island

An alternate Lorem Ipsum generator that gives you filler text inspired from The Matrix? You can try it out here. Then, you have a few more options ranging from classical Latin to Techno Babble. The screenshot shows the output after your select The Matrix option.

Searching for alternatives to Lorem Ipsum generators might seem like much ado about nothing. But as a web designer or anyone who uses filler text day-in and day-out, the sight of the same stuff could start to get on your nerves and eyes. That’s where these interesting and varied options come in.

Which of these stand a chance of being your favorite? Or do you use a text generator that’s not on this list? Let us know.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Free website Vocabulary.com says it can help you improve your vocabulary by figuring out which words you don’t know, and then teaching you only those (without spending time on stuff you already know).

The first thing you’ll see on the site is a multiple-choice test aimed to assess your current vocabulary. Here’s what happens once you click one of the answers for a question:

That’s just the first question. Now let’s see what happens when you pick a wrong answer:

And let’s get the second one wrong, too:

And now let’s be totally dumb and get even the third shot wrong:

Okay, that doesn’t leave many options. Let’s pick the last one remaining:

“You’re a genius!“…..uh, right. False flattery aside, the site now provides you with a complete definition for the correct word, including a nice derivation (word origin). You can see it to the right of the main interface in the screenshot above. It comes from the dictionary integrated into the website, which we’ll get to in a moment. Once you’re done reading, click the “Next Question” button to continue the assessment.

There are also other types of questions:

As you can see, the question above doesn’t make you complete a sentence, but just pick the correct definition for a word.

Once you finish the first round, the site suggests you log in, either using Facebook or by creating a new account on the site itself:

Since I don’t have a Facebook account, I created an account on the site itself.

Some of the answers to the test can be a bit weird, because they use synonyms. Here’s an example for a particularly odd one:

While I agree “luxuriant” doesn’t mean “enhanced”, it certainly doesn’t mean “riotous” under any normal definition of the word. Sure, there is a definition that says “growing in extreme abundance“, but that’s a very rare definition of the word. So effectively, the game is asking you to define one rare word with another rare word, and they don’t exactly match in shades of meaning. Fortunately, most of the definitions do make sense.

Since we’re already speaking of definitions, now would be a good time to look at the integrated dictionary. Let’s look up the applicable definition for riotous:

Some of the definitions in the dictionary are very short. Personally, I prefer more comprehensive definitions, but these snappy and short definitions might help some people memorize the words better. There’s also an interesting usage meter and examples:

So you can see related words from the same family (not synonyms, though – those are shown under each definition), along with their frequency. Note that the meter isn’t perfect: In the screenshot above, “Riotous” appears twice for some reason.

Also, not all definitions are so short. Here’s an absolutely brilliant definition for “toady”, including a memorable word history:

I think that’s just fantastic, and many of the difficult words do have such in-depth definitions, which are written in a fun, easy-to-understand style.

Once you continue with the challenge a bit more, you’ll get to check out your progress:

There are also achievements you can unlock:

As you continue answering questions, pretty soon you start getting “review” questions with words you’ve already seen (and gave wrong answers for):

As you can see, each review question is worth only 75 points, as opposed to 100 points for an “assessment” question (containing a word the game hasn’t asked you about yet).

That’s pretty much all there is to it. The site provides you with a lovely opportunity to learn new words, both by looking up words you already know you want to learn (in the dictionary) and by randomly stumbling upon new words in the questions.  The only thing I would improve is the quality of some of the questions – I feel they could sometimes stand a bit more depth. Still, I feel it really manages to make learning into a game.

Image Credit: Shutterstock