Word states and how a word becomes known

Every word in a language’s catalog is in one of four states for you. A word moves between them for two reasons only: your assistant logged that it used the word, or you said something about it.

State	What it means	How it is written
new	You have not met it.	Only if it is on the introduce-next list, with a gloss.
introduced	You have met it, glossed, once or twice.	With a gloss on first use in a reply.
learning	You have met it enough to start reading it unaided.	With a gloss on first use in a reply.
known	You read it without help.	As it is.

Exposures

After a reply, every target-language word in it is logged, as one of three kinds of exposure:

• glossed — the word appeared with its meaning in parentheses: pan (bread).
• bare — it appeared on its own: pan.
• in a sentence — it was part of a fully translated sentence. This is recorded, but it does not count towards anything: in a whole sentence you may have understood the word from the rest.

The path, with the numbers

The numbers below are the defaults. All of them are settings you can change per language in the app.

1. new → introduced — the first glossed exposure.
2. introduced → learning — after 3 glossed exposures in total.
3. learning → known — after 8 bare exposures counted from when the word became learning. Bare sightings before that do not count: the eight have to happen while the word is being learned.

So a word needs eleven sightings at least, and usually more, since only a few words are woven per reply and the profile keeps a word in rotation until it gets there. Nothing happens because time passes; a word you have not seen for a month is in the state it was in a month ago.

What you can say

What you say outweighs any number of exposures. It is recorded as you say it:

• “What does puente mean?” — a known word goes back to learning, with its count reset, and exposures cannot make it known again until 14 days after you asked. Asking about a learning word does not reset its count, but it starts the same 14 days.
• “How do you pronounce puente?” — asking how to read or say a word is not the same as asking what it means, and does not move it. (In Japanese it puts the reading back on a kanji word — see Kanji.) When it is not clear which you asked, the meaning question is recorded.
• “I know puente.” — the word becomes known straight away.
• “Put puente back in learning.” — the word goes to learning and its count restarts.

You can also mark words known in bulk on the app’s Add words screen.

Why it is built this way

• Counts, not judgement. States move on counters and on what you said, never on how a reply was worded, so the same history always produces the same profile.
• Bare sightings decide “known”. Reading a word next to its translation is not the same as reading it; only sightings without the gloss can make a word known.
• Frequency first. New words are introduced in the order of how often they occur, so the words you learn first are the ones you will meet most.