Drills and Skills

Drills and skills

Skills

Each word is scheduled separately in each skill. You can recognise a word long before you can write it.

Skill	You do	Marked by
Seen words	See the word, recall or choose its meaning	You, or the app for a choice
Heard words	Hear the word, choose then type its meaning	The app
Spoken words	See the meaning, say the word	The app, through the phone's speech recogniser
Written words	See the meaning, type the word	The app
Grammar	See a form and choose what it means; or see a prompt and pick, then type, the right form	The app

Reading passages come on top: read, or hear, a short passage and answer questions.

In Settings, under "Activities and memory", you can switch skills on or off. See Profiles and settings. Seen words, grammar, matching pairs and choosing answers have no switch: they are always asked, so a lesson always has questions. The drill on sound contrasts (minimal pairs) is built as a screen but is not switched on yet, so no lesson asks it. It is shown "Feature incoming" (Roadmap).

A right answer also counts in part for the skills it implies (ADR-0034).

Kinds of question

• Choose. Pick the right word or meaning from a few.
• Match. Drag a word onto its meaning, or tap one, then the other. A switch turns on hearing a word when you tap it (ADR-0032).
• Type. Type the word in its script, or in Latin letters. The screen shows an example of the Latin spelling. If you have no keyboard for the script, a hint suggests one.
• Put in order. Build a sentence from word tiles.
• Say. Say the word. See Speaking and listening.
• Grammar. Pick or type the right form of a word. You pick first, then type once you have it right. The options are forms of the same word, never another word. After you answer, the word's forms in the rule are shown with the one asked marked.
• Rule. A rule shown once before its first question: its name, what it means, and its forms on words you know. Nothing is recorded; swipe the card to go on (ADR-0046).
• Read. A passage with questions.
• Set. A group of related words shown together in a lesson. Nothing is recorded; Continue goes on.
• Teach. A new word shown before you are asked about it, on one screen with no scrolling: the word large, with its reading, a speaker and its IPA; the picture beside it; the meaning; a note; and one warning. Tap the IPA for each sound of the word, from the IPA course, with its practice. Tap the meaning for the dictionary: the senses, the etymology and the examples. There is no Continue button: swipe the card, or tap the chevron that shows while you touch the screen, to go on.

How answers are marked

When you type, the app is gentle with:

• accents and marks: "Right, but mind the accent";
• a missing article: "Right, but keep the article";
• a near miss: "Almost. Did you mean ...?" Near misses are yours to judge.

For Latin-letter answers, see Readings and ISO 15919 and ADR-0022.

After a wrong answer, the screen shows the right one, and what you typed or said beside it. A word that sounds almost like a rude word is flagged "Careful when speaking". The flag always shows, but the rude word is named only when Adult content is on.

Rating yourself

For some questions, such as seen words, you decide how well you knew it. Four buttons show when the word comes back: Again, Hard, Good and Easy. Pick Again if you did not know it, Easy if it was no effort.

How words come back

Scheduling is by FSRS (ADR-0033). A word you know waits longer each time. A word you miss returns sooner.

The app can fit the schedule to you, per language and skill, from your own answers. Nothing is sent anywhere (ADR-0035). Until a skill has enough answers, every skill uses the same starting pace. In Settings, "Adjust to me" fits it now, and "Adjust automatically" does so by itself. A page on Progress, "Learn more about your pacing", shows how the pace changed.

Every review is written to a log, so your statistics can be recomputed (Log format).

Cards you keep missing

A card you miss again and again is a leech. Drilling it harder rarely helps. Progress lists them. Read the card's note, then reset it to new or set it aside. See Progress and stats.

Cards and their bases

A word built on another shows its base on the card, such as "Base: जाना (jānā) · to go". A word's sheet, opened from its row on a deck's or a unit's page, shows everything the card has, unfolded: how it is said symbol by symbol, its meanings, notes, warnings, dictionary entry and examples, its tags and id, and how hard you have found it in each skill. A deck's page lists every word with its meaning and where you stand with it; its tag chips filter the words as you tap them; Practice drills the words in view in the skills you choose, and + Learn teaches the ones not taught yet.

See also: Learner guide, Home.