Getting Started

Getting started

Install

Fluenough is an Android app. Download app-release.apk from the latest release and open it on the phone. Android asks you to allow installs from your browser or file manager: allow it. This is called sideloading.

An iPhone build is not published. To build one yourself on a Mac, see the iOS build guide.

The app comes with no decks. It downloads a language's decks the first time you choose that language. Be online for that step. After it, the app works offline.

The first run

The first launch walks you through a few screens. You can go Back or Skip on them.

1. Welcome. One screen on what the app is. No account is needed.
2. A short tour. Slides on the four ways to practise, how words come back just before you forget them, that your progress stays on your phone, and that most languages have a fact a day.
3. Microphone and sound check. Speaking drills listen to you and listening drills read words aloud. You record two seconds and hear them back. Android asks to let Fluenough use the microphone. If you refuse, speaking stays off. You can switch speaking and listening on or off later, under Settings > Activities and memory. See Speaking and listening.
4. Which languages do you already know? Choose at least one. This decides your daily facts and which decks you can review. It is kept on your phone and never sent. You can change it later in Settings, under "Your languages".

Choose what to learn

Next you pick the languages to learn. They are grouped by family and you can search by name. For each one you choose, the app downloads its decks. You can start once the first five are in. The rest arrive while you learn. See Courses and paths.

For a language that has an alphabet you do not read, the app asks whether to learn it in its script, or in Latin letters only. See Scripts and readings.

If a language is taught from more than one of the languages you know, you choose which to learn it from. Each teaches its own share of the course so far.

The placement test

For each language the app asks "Do you know any of it?" If you do, a short check finds where to start.

• It asks a few words from each part of the course, until one is new to you.
• For a script it asks you to match letters, write a word in Latin letters, and write words from their meaning. If you pass, the script lessons are skipped.
• It then says where you will start, and why. You can try again from there.
• Your answers do not count as reviews, and you can still study anything later.
• The last screen asks how to review the words it placed: Set in stone (kept out of Today, counted as known; you can still revise them from a deck page, and those answers are not logged), Spot-check (a few tested now and then, and a miss brings more back; picked for you) or Keep reviewing (like any other word). Script decks follow your choice too. You can change it later, for each course, in Languages I'm learning.

If you say you know none of it, you start from the beginning.

Later, if you already read a script through another language, a course offers a short test of its letters to skip its script lessons.

Next

Go to the Today tab: Today and daily lessons.

See also: Learner guide, Home.