English Trainer

Learn English words right inside Obsidian — on desktop and on mobile. Type or select a word and the plugin fetches its Russian translation, transcription, part of speech and example sentences, saves a tidy word card into your dictionary, and turns your words into spaced repetition quizzes. A reading mode imports EPUB, FB2 and PDF books so you can collect unknown words into a separate dictionary for each book, with a link back to the exact place in the book.

The interface is in Russian and translations are English → Russian: the plugin is made for Russian speakers learning English. Русская версия описания: README.ru.md.

Features

• Add a word in one step. Click the ribbon icon (or run Добавить слово), type a word or phrase, check the preview and save. Inflected forms are handled (shambling → shamble). A word already in the dictionary is opened instead of duplicated.

• Word cards are ordinary Markdown notes with properties: translation, transcription, part of speech, meanings, examples, synonyms, status and the next review date. An index note lists every word, newest first.

• Books. Import a book with the book ribbon icon (Загрузить книгу):

  • EPUB and FB2 (including .fb2.zip, UTF-8 or windows-1251) become one note per chapter;
  • PDF opens in Obsidian's built-in viewer;
  • every book gets its own dictionary.

• Words from a book. Select a word in a chapter or in the PDF and press the floating «+ в словарь книги» button. The card stores the sentence from the book and a link to the paragraph or PDF page. In other notes the button adds the word to the general dictionary.

• Learning mode. Pick a dictionary (general, one book, or all) and run a 10–20 word session. Formats go from easy to hard:

  1. flashcard — know / don't know;
  2. multiple choice — English → Russian and Russian → English;
  3. typing the word;
  4. filling the gap in an example sentence.

  Reviews are scheduled with a simplified SM-2 algorithm (as in Anki), and progress is stored in each card's properties.

• Mobile friendly. Large buttons, 16 px inputs, all commands can be added to the mobile toolbar.

Usage

Folders are configurable in the plugin settings. Defaults are English/Словарь/ (general dictionary), English/Словарь.md (index) and English/Книги/ (books).

Network use

The plugin works with your vault offline, but looking up a word requires an internet connection. Only the word being looked up is sent; nothing else from your vault leaves your device. There is no telemetry and no account is needed. The services used:

If a service is unavailable, the others are still used and you can always type the translation yourself.

Installation

• From Obsidian: Settings → Community plugins → Browse → search for English Trainer (once it is published in the directory).
• Manually: download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release into <your vault>/.obsidian/plugins/english-trainer/, then enable the plugin.

Development

npm install
npm test        # unit tests (Vitest)
npm run lint    # eslint-plugin-obsidianmd rules
npm run build   # main.js
LIVE=1 npx vitest run tests/live.test.ts   # checks the online sources

Releases: npm version x.y.z, then push the tag; the GitHub workflow builds and drafts the release.

Credits and licenses

• Word data comes from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA), Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR), the Free Dictionary API (Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA) and MyMemory. Content copied into your notes keeps those licenses.
• Bundles fflate (MIT) to read EPUB and zipped FB2 files.
• The plugin itself is released under the MIT License.