Words
you read,
words you keep.
Vocalabra is a browser extension that gathers up the words you stumble on while reading, drops them in a jar, and hands them back to you — one at a time, exactly when you'd otherwise forget.
The whole thing lives in a side panel.
Open it once. Forget it's there. When you highlight a word it perks up, writes a definition, and drops the word into your jar — without taking you off the page.
Le bruit du fleuve, et autres pensées qui ne mènent nulle part
Il aimait flâner le long du quai en fin d'après-midi, sans montre ni intention, écoutant le bruit du fleuve qui semblait toujours en train de raconter quelque chose d'à peine audible.
Ce n'était pas de la paresse, plutôt une forme honnête de la flânerie
Quelques pages plus loin, un mot qu'il n'avait jamais rencontré le ferait s'arrêter net, juste le temps d'un battement.
Four tiny moves.
You only do the first.
- 01
See a word you don't know.
On any page in any language. Highlight it — context menu or the side panel. We never bounce you out of the tab.
- 02
It gets translated, in-browser.
A short, clean gloss and one example sentence. All AI runs locally, so no servers see your reading.
- 03
It enters the jar.
Spaced repetition handles the schedule. Intervals stretch when you remember, shrink when you don't.
- 04
It comes knocking later.
A desktop notification inside your daily window. One prompt, two seconds, and the jar quiets down again.
The flashcard app, retired.
Spaced repetition only works if you actually do it. The trick isn't to build a better deck — it's to remove the deck entirely.
Built for people who quit Anki in 2023.
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Zero-friction capture
Right-click any word, or open the side panel for a batch. The extension lives where your reading lives — no app to context-switch into.
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Spaced repetition, on rails
Right answers push the next review further out; wrong ones bring it back sooner. No deck management, no daily target.
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Reminders that come to you
Desktop notifications fire inside your daily window. Pause on weekends. The toolbar badge shows how many cards are due.
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Meaning-aware grading
Type your answer freely. Synonyms and close variants are accepted — no penalty for translating well instead of word-perfectly.
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All AI runs locally
Translation, examples and grading happen in your browser. No accounts, no servers, no telemetry, no monthly bill.
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A real dictionary view
Search, edit, delete. Per-word accuracy, the next 7 days of load, consistency over the past week. The jar, on a shelf.
Whatever you read in.
30+ languages on day one, more added on request. Translation runs locally, so adding a language is just enabling the model — no per-language fee, no quota.
Quick answers.
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How is this different from Anki or Quizlet?
They're vocabulary apps. Vocalabra is a vocabulary habit. You never assemble a deck — words enter on their own as you read, and reviews show up as ordinary desktop notifications. There's no separate app to open, and no streak to lose.
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Where does the AI actually run?
Entirely in your browser. Translation, example generation, and meaning-based answer grading all use a small on-device model. No accounts, no servers, no telemetry, no third-party calls. Your reading stays on your machine.
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Will this slow my browser down?
No. The extension idles unless you select text or a review is due. The model runs only when called, and the side panel mounts on demand. Memory footprint sits well under a typical tab.
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Can I export the words I've saved?
Yes — anytime, as JSON or as a CSV that imports straight into Anki. The dictionary view also lets you search, edit, or delete any entry individually.
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Does it work inside PDFs, Twitter, Gmail, and so on?
Anywhere your browser can render text and let you select it. PDFs in-browser, social feeds, web mail, GitHub — all fair game. Native desktop apps are out of scope (by design — Vocalabra is a browser thing).
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What does it cost?
Free. Forever. There's nothing to host on our end, so there's no monthly bill on yours. We may add an optional paid tier later for cloud sync across machines, but the core extension stays free.
Start a jar.
Let it fill itself.
Install once. Read like you already do. Come back in a month — your vocabulary will have grown without anyone making you study.