@joelrendall I’m not an on-the-go kind of guy, but what you suggest would work provided that I could also filter for the ones marked. So, perhaps where the shorties filter has a “hide completed” button you could have a “only show marked for review” button as well.
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Hello. Yes, being able to create our own custom smart review phrases with (http://deepl.com/) would be fantastic. I’ve been attempting to make extra cards with Anki, but it can be quite time consuming and then you have two decks to work with. I really appreciate your algorithms for the smart review, Joel. Hopefully you can patent them so you can eventually sell the rights to practicespanish.com, practiceenglish.com, etc. and become millionaires (and help many more people master foreign languages quickly and effectively.
Another reason to listen to lower levels for aural comprehension is that these shorties are actually serving as beginning stories to read at the same time. In many curricula students would be reading lots of short stories or dialogues before attempting aural comprehension. Here it’s not necessary because there are so many shorties. But then students need to remember that they shouldn’t feel bad if they only understand 60%. That’s actually a successful level whenever the dialogue contains new vocabulary and grammatical structures.
In my experience, developing aural comprehension is about practicing listening to mostly familiar words being put together and making some sense out of that. It takes practice at a lower level in order not to get too discouraged. That might be a response to pwsteele’s suggestion of making smart review cards with just the sound. I personally think students would get more benefit from listening to more very easy shorties. If someone runs out of A1 shorties, they could always for more :>)
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Yes I’d definitely like to add my own vocab to my Smart Review cards. And yes to audio only cards, especially with phrases from the Shorties. I do much the same as other people with the Shorties but would like to go back to them more often. I’m a bit too focused on working my way through the whole programme. Perhaps you could do a podcast talking about ways to get more out of the Shorties, including members" ideas about this. If they were used in a class situation, they would be material for a whole hour - shadowing, working from the English only, acting it out, improvising, working from a text with words and phrases blanked out etc.
Hi Tomas, I’m one of the developers here at Practice Portuguese. Just wanted to thank you for your suggestions and let you know I’ve gone ahead and implemented some keyboard shortcuts to make your life easier: you should now be able to use the space bar and arrow keys, to play/pause, fast backward/forward on our audio player. Hope it helps 
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Thanks for the time putting this response together, Jon, I like everything you’re saying. It’s also on us to do a better job of education the rest of our members to have this same light approach, since I think a lot of them (especially without much experience in learning other languages) probably feel discouraged when they don’t understand a lot of the episode, either while reading or listening. As language learners, we have to try to zoom out a bit and not get too stuck on any one word or sentence we don’t understand.
Of course, if it’s a Shorty filled with things that seem useful for you to learn more deeply, that’s one thing, but overall I’d say that getting through as many different Shorties as possible will keep things interesting and allow you to see the same words in different contexts. But that’s a challenge for a lot of people since adults are perfectionists and are more likely to want to understand something thoroughly before moving on 
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I just tried it, so far so good! Anyone think the 10s interval is too big of a jump? (Pedro is going to block me from the forum pretty soon, I can feel it)
@Molly 3s or 5s would seem better to me, esp now that we have keyboard shortcuts, but you’ve probably seen feedback about this in the past…
Wow, that was quick and it works flawlessly! Thank you so much Pedro, it makes life so much easier!
I tend to agree with Joel, not just because he’s the boss, and 5 seconds would be even better. The 30 seconds forward, on the other hand, is perfect. But I’m a happy customer regardless of whether you also make that tweak
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Hi
Thank you for doing these shorties, they are a really great resource.
We do them together over “pre dinner drinkies!” What we do is listen without reading 3 times straight through then play a phrase at a time repeating/imitating as best we can. Generally we understand at this stage but if not we check any doubts.
We mark as complete when we have gone through all this, jotted down any vocabulary. I regularly go back to certain episodes which have key information that sometimes I can’t absorb all at one go or aI suddenly remember a useful lesson. Our approach is somewhat foresic- but we always find it enjoyable and informative.
If I could make one small suggestion, and it might not be workable, but I would really like more background to key words and phrases. When I check the references currently it only states what is already available in the translation. I know I get a bit obsessed about context and in depth detail - and I realise this would make the writing process much more involved.
Thank you to all your team. i often ask Joseph for clarification and he invariably sends a prompt really helpful answer.
Bom ano novo e tudo de bom para todos!
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I’ve come up with a way to do an audio smart review. I use the normal Smart Review and place a business card over the screen right where the text for the flashcard would normally be displayed, just above the button that’s used to flip the flashcard over. I then flip over the flashcard but keep the business card in place. This hides the Portuguese translation but plays back the audio clip associated with the Portuguese.
I then task myself with figuring out what was just said, and at the same time translate the spoken Portuguese to English. If I need to I can hit the playback button and listen to the clip again. Once I’m satisfied that I know what was said, I remove the business card to confirm my translation.
This works quite well all things considered. I find it takes a little more thinking since don’t see the English to help with what’s being said. The only hint I get is the little picture that’s sometimes included with the flashcards. My business card doesn’t cover up that part of the screen. I personally would like to see the pictures removed from the flashcards. They’re often very creative but I’d prefer no additional hints at what’s on the flashcards. It feels like cheating.
That said, I suspect I’ll make this improvised audio Smart Review the go-to method for going through my daily Smart Review sessions.
Thanks for providing the feedback, and glad you have a workaround, but this clunky solution inspires me to really want to speed up making Smart Review more customizable! I agree what you’re saying about the photos too, since the photo is a hint that puts our mind into the correct context, and without it, it makes things much more challenging. I’ve added that to our list of considerations.
Thanks for the feedback, and I don’t think your method is out of the ordinary at all, I think that’s a great use of the Shorties, allowing creative learners to take things into their own hands. Some won’t have the patience to go through an episode that thoroughly, and on the other hand, we’ve even heard of people who translate the entire Shorty then compare their translation. Whatever motivates you to spend time engaging with the language in a curious way without it feeling like a chore is a total win.
Here’s one more to consider. It would be useful if the flashcards had a text entry field where you could enter your answer. I don’t mean for the text to be syntax checked necessarily, since I appreciate that opens another level of complexity. I will point out though that Duo Lingo does check the answers you enter in their review exercises, even suggesting alternatives in some cases.
That said, I’d be happy with just a place to enter my response. It would help reinforce the Portuguese instead of just visualizing the phrases in your head. Plus, it would probably be appreciated by people who have afantasia.
Peter
Thanks Peter, this would be relatively simple to add at the same time as some other planned features, so I’ll add it to the list!
Before I thank Practice Portuguese, can I thank everyone as I have learnt so much from how other people use shorties. Lots of ways to deepen my learning.
So next – thank you Practice Portuguese. For the first time I feel as though I am truly learning a language and establishing a foundation that I can build on. I use the app rather than the website. It may be that this facility is on the app and I haven’t find it but would it be somehow possible to put the Shorty, Podcast or video that one is currently listening to on the home page so it’s quite easy to continue where one left off? Currently, I’m having to go through quite a process to find it the next day if I want to return to it. I know that this feature is there for the lessons, but haven’t found it for the listening exercises. Bookmarks an option, but they don’t track where you were. If I’m just being dim, could someone tell me where it is please!
All the best
Since we’re on a roll here I’ll put in one more request. The lessons always include 2 or 3 exercises where we get to practice speaking Portuguese and have our efforts evaluated. It’s always very satisfying when I can nail a 100% on the first try, although typically it takes a few iterations, and in some cases I can never get it right. Nonetheless, I find these very very helpful.
Sadly, once a lesson is complete we never get to practice our speaking skills again except to an empty room with no one to tell us how we’re doing. It would be fantastic to have a practice module specifically geared to speaking using the same tool that’s used in the lessons. My goal would be to to nail that 100% for every phrase and see a monkey or chicken dance at the end. 
I’ve put in this request a few times over the past couple of years so I’ll throw it out one more time. Please? 
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@joelrendall I’d second this. Given that you have the speech recognition/evaluation technology already implemented, getting it to appear in more places would be fantastic. Just one phrase per shorty added on to the quiz would be immensely useful.
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Toggle button request if possible! I’m sorry, I have only just come across this section of PP, and am probably joining this chat when it has finished. To add, though, I would also like more phrases to be added to smart review. Also I listen several times to the shortie until I think I have understood as much as I can (usually at. 8 speed), then read the transcript, do the quiz etc and look up a couple of words. But the main thing I do is add the English translation and then use my finger to cover up the Portuguese, and practice translating from English to Portuguese. I would love a facility for toggling between english and Portuguese on transcripts. I find certain phrases stick better doing this. BTW I am not sure I would ever mark anything complete as bits drop from my memory over time so I review/redo old stuff periodically.
I’m of the school that believes in listening to simple audio for a long time before attempting production or reading of any kind. This was something the Swiss linguist Max Mangold suggested to me many years ago, though I really only understood how to apply his advice well after discovering Krashen’s work 40 years later. Two years ago I applied that to learn Spanish, and I very quickly surpassed the limited fluency I had fought to acquire in Portuguese for a decade.
Your shorties are at a similar or somewhat higher level than the material I used for Spanish, and I find them quite helpful to build confidence, despite the fact that I am forced every day to cope with conversations at a much higher level in medicine and politics. This simple stuff helps me a lot to distinguish words I have known for years but often miss in conversations. So really, I ought to be bookmarking my favorites in some way to return to them more easily.
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@Tomas
Yes, a sentence-by-sentence mode would be great for practicing.
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