Vocabulary Manager is a program that helps users learn new vocabulary words by associating them with images, sounds, and videos. It allows users to organize words into folders based on categories. The summary walks through how to install the program, create a new language database, add vocabulary words to different folders with their meanings and files, and practice the words through tests involving association, comprehension, production and spelling. The goal is to provide an interactive way for users to build large vocabularies in an organized fashion through exposure to various media types associated with each word.

1. Vocabulary Manager
User's manual

2. What is VM?
One of the most difficult parts about learning another language
is learning the hundreds and, realistically, thousands of
vocabulary items necessary in order to understand what you
hear (comprehension) and be able to express what you want to
say (production).
What VM offers is a way of learning new words by associating
them with sounds, images and even videos, to make easier this
task.
New entries can be organized in folders to structure your lists
the way you want them to and satisfy your needs.

3. How to begin
First of all, we have to have the program
To do so, follow this simple steps:
Access to this website www.sil.org
Go to What we provide/software
Click on All list and search for Vocabulary Manager
Unzip the file VMSetup.msi, and double-click on it to run the
installer
This installer works on Windows XP and newer

4. Step by Step
Once we have installed the program, we are going to learn how
to use it
We are going to create a new language database for our
personal use
Although there is an option to install an existing one, we are not
going to do so, just see how the program works and how useful
it turns out to be
The first window you will
find is this one
The first thing to do is to
give a name to our
database
In this case I have used
the word English, as it is
the language we are all
trying to learn

5. Once we have chosen the
name, we have to define a
user for the database.In this
case, I will be the user
One last step before
using the program is
to define the
directories where
you want to store the
information you are
going to insert in
your database, such
as pictures and
sounds.

6. You can also insert orthographical representations and phonetical
symbols to add useful resources to your work. But now that we have
prepared the field, the time has come to test it. This is the window you
are going to find.

7. As a piece of advice, I suggest
you should organize your
database in different folders. It
makes easier the task of finding
the words your looking for if they
are associated with different
categories. Even the "Help"
section of the program tells you to
do so, and personally I think it is a
great idea. In this case I am
creating different folders with
different labels. To do so just
right-click on the main folder on
the left side on the window and
select "New folder". You can
repeat this action as many times
as you want, adding as many
categories as you want.

8. This is what I have done, just to give you an example
Now that we have organized our database, let's add words (technically
referred to as utterances in this program). Without them, our database
is empty and there is nothing to learn from.

9. In order to add new utterances, we are going to repeat the
process that we followed with the folders: right-click, "New
utterance" (but this time on the folder where you wish to place the
word!). You can add as many as you want, to end with a huge
database full of new words. Here you can see what I have done.
Right-click on the folder
you want to add the
new word

10. VERY IMPORTANT!!!!KEEP READING!!!!

11. This is the window that will pop out when you click on "new
utterance". This is a very important step. Here is where all
the information you want to provide about the word is going
to be introduced (reference, meaning, orthographical
representation, phonetical representation, an image to
recognize the word, its pronunciation and even a note for
yourself if you wish to). We should bear in mind that, in order
to add images, sounds or videos, it is recommended to use .
bmp or .jpg files for pictures, .wav or .mp3 for sounds and
AVI or MPG video clips.

12. This is what I have done:
As we can see, new utterances have
been added to the "shapes" and the
"family members" folders. The idea is
to add as many as possible so that
you can practice with them later. The
program even has this option.

13. Let's practice with the words we
have! As you can see, this is the
program's toolbar. In order to
practice, choose the words or the
folder with which you want to practice
and click on the folder with a tick in it.
This button is called "Practice
selected utterances", situated at the
right of the button called "Project
options". These two will be of great
importance as you develop your
work.

15. TESTING TIME!
The window shown before is the testing procedure this program
has. It allows you to see all the information you have entered
about the word. As we said before, we can also see its
phonological representation (but I wasn't able to install the IPA
font in my computer - anyway, that does not mean you cannot
do it!). The testing window is also divided into 4 different types
on practice: association, comprehension, production and
spelling (once again depending on your needs!). Here you can
see the association tab, where we can see a picture of a
triangle, to make easier the identification of the word.

16. the time has come....
Now it is up to you to explore and try using the program. Bear in
mind that these are only the basics. The program offers much
more, but this is a useful guide to start with. Hope you have
followed the instructions clearly! For more information, click on
the toolbar Help/Tutorial.
On behalf of sil.com and the one in charge of writing this
introduction guide, we thank you for using the program. Hope
you find it useful!