CSV Import

Import words in bulk from a CSV or plain text file. Useful for migrating vocabulary from spreadsheets, Quizlet exports, or any other source that can produce a delimited text file.

Accessing the Importer

Tap the Import button from any word list or source section, then choose Import from CSV.

File Format

Language Den accepts .csv and .txt files. Files can be encoded in UTF-8 (recommended), UTF-16, or ISO Latin-1. The parser handles quoted fields and strips any HTML tags that some export tools include.

Lines beginning with # are treated as comments and ignored.

With a header row

Include a header row as the first line and name your columns using any of the recognised names below:

Data Accepted column names
Word word, text, vocabulary, term, vocab
Translation translation, meaning, definition, english, native
Part of Speech partofspeech, pos, type, wordtype, part_of_speech

Column names are case-insensitive and the parser ignores underscores and spaces when matching them, so Part of Speech, part_of_speech, and PartOfSpeech are all equivalent.

Any additional columns whose header name isn’t one of the above are imported as metadata on the word (for example, a romanisation or example column). This extra data appears on the word detail screen.

Example:

word,translation,part_of_speech,romanisation
สวัสดี,Hello,interjection,sawatdee
กิน,To eat,verb,gin
น้ำ,Water,noun,nam

Without a header row

If no recognised header is detected, Language Den falls back to a simple positional format:

Column Content
First Word (required)
Second Translation (optional)

One word per line with no translation is also valid:

สวัสดี
กิน
น้ำ

Part of Speech Values

When a part-of-speech column is present, Language Den recognises the following values (case-insensitive):

Part of speech Accepted values
Noun noun, n, n.
Verb verb, v, v.
Adjective adjective, adj, adj.
Adverb adverb, adv, adv.
Pronoun pronoun, pron, pron.
Preposition preposition, prep, prep.
Conjunction conjunction, conj, conj.
Interjection interjection, interj, interj.

Unrecognised values are imported with part of speech set to Other.

Import Steps

  1. Tap Select File and choose your .csv or .txt file from Files or any connected cloud storage.
  2. Language Den parses the file and shows an Import Preview with:
    • The number of words ready to import
    • The number of duplicates that will be skipped (matched case-insensitively against your existing vocabulary)
    • A sample of the first few words with their translations
  3. Optionally assign the imported words to a Source section using the picker.
  4. Tap Import N Words to confirm.
Info

Words are imported without flashcards. When each word comes up in a review session, you'll be guided to generate or create flashcards for it. See Word Triage for details.

Duplicate Handling

Before importing, Language Den checks every word in the file against your existing vocabulary (case-insensitive). Duplicates are counted and reported in the preview but are never imported — your existing words and their review progress are left untouched.

Troubleshooting

Error Cause Fix
“Could not read the file” File permissions or iCloud sync issue Try opening the file in the Files app first to force a download, then retry
“Could not read the file encoding” Unusual encoding (e.g. Windows-1252) Re-save the file as UTF-8 in your spreadsheet app or a text editor
“The file is empty” File has no content Check the file was saved correctly
“No valid words found” Header row found but no data rows, or word column is blank Ensure at least one data row contains a non-empty word value

Tips for Preparing a CSV