a spooky vocab pack for halloween

Halloween is a decent excuse for a small language project. The words are vivid, a bit silly, and don’t turn up in any textbook.

Here’s how to build a spooky vocab pack in LingFit. Takes a few minutes.

~ what a pack is

Custom packs (called “Extra Packs” on the site) are the feature where an AI builds a whole chapter around a theme. Same exercise formats, audio and images as the normal course. The finished chapter lands in the “Yours” tab on the home screen.

A pack costs one credit. Every new account gets one credit free. More come in bundles in the app, and bought credits don’t expire. If the build fails, the credit comes back automatically.

~ step by step

Pick a language. For English speakers, Spanish or German both work. Spanish, because Día de los Muertos sits just after Halloween and brings its own words with it. German, because compound words like “Spinnennetz” or “Geisterhaus” are just fun.
Start a pack by theme. Type in a topic. The more specific the better. Instead of just “Halloween”, go for “Halloween night: costumes, haunted house and autumn weather” or “ghost stories round the campfire”.
Choose a word level. There are four: Basic Words, Advanced Vocabulary, Ultra Advanced and Specialist Words. For a bit of fun, Basic Words or Advanced Vocabulary is usually plenty. The other two go a lot further, as the names suggest.
Check the list. Before the chapter gets made, LingFit suggests a word list. Don’t skip this step. Read through it, cut what you don’t want, add what’s missing.
Generate the chapter. Then the AI builds the pack. It gets its own emoji. You can rename it and change the description.

~ what to look for in the list

The check step is the important bit. A few things worth watching:

Too much blood? Depending on taste, cosy autumn beats splatter. Cut whatever’s too much for you.
The mix. A good pack has nouns (pumpkin, bat, candle), a few verbs (to scare, to dress up, to creep) and one or two adjectives (eerie, dark).
Words you’d actually say. “Trick or treat” is more useful than a rare word for one specific type of ghost.
Duplicates. Some words show up twice in similar forms. Bin them.

~ alternative: from your own words

If you already know which words you want, it works the other way round too. Enter 1 to 20 of your own words, typed in or pulled from your saved words. Or photograph a list.

One trick: watch a few videos in the target language in the video feed and save words as you go. Then build a chapter from those. That way the words come from real videos rather than a list.

You can make a finished pack public. There’s an automatic safety check first. Other learners can search, save and like public packs. Someone may have already built a Halloween pack, so it’s worth a quick look before you spend a credit yourself.

~ the catch

A pack isn’t free, beyond the first credit. If you want every holiday theme as its own pack, you’ll be spending money bit by bit.

The AI is good, but not infallible. With niche words a translation can be off. If something looks odd, you can report the lesson straight from the lesson screen.

And LingFit itself is a subscription app. The annual plan starts with a seven-day trial. A subscription isn’t worth it for one Halloween pack, but for someone already learning it’s a nice little detour.

~ who it’s for

For anyone learning a language right now and fancying a theme outside the course. For people planning a Halloween party with friends who want to drop in a few words of Spanish. And for anyone who just wants to know how to say “ghost” in Danish.

one pack, one evening, a few new words for the dark season.