This guide assumes you have never opened a terminal. There is exactly one line to copy and paste. Everything else is clicking.
Total time: about 10 minutes, most of it waiting for downloads.
LinguaMiner runs on your own computer. There is no account, no server and
no subscription — which is also why there is no .dmg to double-click: the
installer has to fetch the pieces (the translator, the dictionaries, the
speech-to-text model) and wire them up for your machine.
You will also want Anki, the flashcard app the cards are sent to. That one is a normal installer.
Press ⌘ Space, type terminal, press Enter. A window with white or black
text appears. That is it — it’s just a place to paste one line.
curl -LsSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/thecopybookhare-cmd/lingua-miner/main/bootstrap.sh | bash
Copy it whole, click into the Terminal window, paste (⌘V), press Enter.
Text scrolls for several minutes. That is normal — it is downloading. If macOS asks you to install “command line developer tools”, say yes and, once that finishes, paste the same line again.
When it is done you will see a line telling you the app was created.
Press ⌘ Space, type LinguaMiner, press Enter. From now on this is how you
open it — you never need the Terminal again.
No terminal needed.
Your browser may say the file “isn’t commonly downloaded”. Choose Keep.
Windows asks once whether to run something from the internet. Click More info, then Run anyway. That’s the only question it asks.
Same as above: several minutes of scrolling text. When it finishes you get a LinguaMiner shortcut — use that from now on.
The app opens on Your library, with a Getting started card that walks you through the three steps and shows what is still downloading. Two things worth knowing:
The easy way: install Anki, and when you’ve mined some cards, open ⚙️ → Anki → Cards to .apkg → Export. Open the file and Anki imports it — on your computer, in AnkiDroid, or in AnkiMobile on the iPhone. Importing the same file again updates the cards, it doesn’t duplicate them.
The automatic way, so cards go straight into Anki as you mine and the words you know stop being highlighted:
2055492159 and press OK. That is AnkiConnect, the bridge
LinguaMiner talks to.Keep Anki open while you mine. If it is closed, cards queue up inside LinguaMiner and send themselves the next time it sees Anki running — nothing is lost.
| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
command not found: git (macOS) |
Run xcode-select --install, wait for it to finish, then paste the install line again |
| The Anki badge is red or says “Anki…” | Open Anki, check AnkiConnect is installed, then click the badge to re-check |
| Translations are empty | Open ⚙️ and use Download translator and dictionaries, or run ./install.sh again |
| Transcription seems stuck | It isn’t — analysing a 50-minute episode takes a minute or two before the bar moves; then it shows how long is left. Press Transcribe once and let it work |
| A video won’t play | .mkv files get converted automatically when you import them; give it a moment |
Still stuck? Open an issue and paste what the terminal printed.
Open ⚙️ → Updates → Check for updates. It updates itself; no terminal needed. Once in a while an update needs new pieces: on Mac and Linux the app installs them itself, and on Windows it asks you to close it and double-click LinguaMiner-Setup.cmd again.