Help and learning
How to use PopWord
PopWord turns the words you meet every day into a small, repeatable learning habit. The Home card, your wallpaper, and your widget all show the same current word, so there is always one clear next step.
Start a learning journey
Choose the language you are learning and the language you want explanations in. The last setup page asks how much of the language you already know, so your first words start at your level, and shows how your days work: learn words on Home, keep them with Practice, open the map with Check-ins, and optionally put words on your wallpaper or widget.
A journey keeps its own words, memory, Sparks, map progress, and settings. You manage it from your profile, under You.
Learn from the Home card
The Home card is the daily starting point.
- Swipe right, or tap I know this, when you know the word. It is saved to Your words, leaves new-word rotation, and counts toward your stop's check-in straight away.
- Swipe left, or tap Revisit, to keep it in circulation. It comes back later.
- With Hide the meaning on, the meaning is hidden until you reveal it, so you test yourself first.
- Share sends the word as a card.
Each swipe brings a new word from your current map stop that you have not seen recently, matched to your level. Most words match your level and a few reach past it. Your starting level, your Practice answers, and your Check-in results set that level; swiping never makes the next word harder. Words you already know come back in Practice, not on the Home card. The wallpaper is the exception: about one timed change in three may show a word that is due, as a quick refresher.
The top card shows today and your level: a flower that gains a petal for each word you learn or remember, up to your daily goal, your Sparks, and a bar showing how many Sparks the next level needs. Its second line names what your current stop still needs before its check-in. Tap the card to open the map.
Two ways to learn: Practice and Check-in
Practice is always on Home, under the top card. Check-in appears beside it, in gold, once your current stop's check-in can be taken. Until then the top card and the map show what is still needed.
| Practice (green, a sprig) | Check-in (gold, a seal) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Review of words you have already seen | A test of the stop you are on |
| Clock | None | Every question is timed |
| What it changes | When each word comes back, and whether it is mastered | Whether the map moves to the next stop |
| Where else | The Words page, and Practice this stop on the map | The Check-in card and the gold seal on the map |
Practice
A Practice round asks 8 multiple-choice questions about words you have seen, due words first. There is no clock, and you can leave at any time with Back. You can practise whenever you like; when nothing is due, the button says when the next review is.
- Every answer tunes the word's memory. A fast correct answer counts as easy, a slow one as hard, and a miss brings the word back about 10 minutes later. Each word is scheduled for just before you would forget it, so easy words come back after days or weeks and shaky ones sooner.
- Stronger words are asked the other way round: you see the meaning and choose the word, because recalling a word is harder than recognising it.
- Answering the same word again straight away barely changes it. It counts most when you have had time to forget.
The results show your score, the Sparks you earned, the words you missed (to read once more), and when the next review is.
Your words
Every word shown on Home appears in Your words. Seeing a word is not saving it. The tick on each row shows whether you saved it: tap it to mark a word Learned, which is the same as swiping right on Home. If it is the word currently on Home, Home moves on to the next one.
Each row has a button to hear the word, its meaning, and two labels: how well you remember it, and when it comes back in Practice.
- Not practised yet: Practice has not tested it.
- Needs practice: tested, but the memory is still fresh or you missed it last time.
- Familiar and Strong: holding for a few days.
- Mastered: it held for a week or more after at least two correct answers, spaced apart. This is permanent credit toward your level. A later miss brings the word back sooner but never takes the mastery away.
The Learning and Learned tabs split the list by whether you saved the word. Filter narrows it further, by memory, word type, or level.
Add word adds a word of your own with its meaning. Your words are tagged Yours, turn up on Home, and join Practice with the rest. You can also share or select text in another app and send it to PopWord.
Open a word to see its example sentence, and how long its memory is expected to hold.
Follow the Map
The Map is your route. The glowing stop is your current stop, the pack most new words come from. The map scrolls to it when you first open it.
The Check-in card at the top shows how far you are toward the current stop's check-in: words learned, and words answered right in Practice.
Tap any stop to see how many of its words you have seen, learned, and mastered, the words you saw there, and what you can do:
- Current stop: its check-in, with everything still left to do, and Practice this stop.
- Collected stops: practise their words.
- Side quests: optional branches. Add to today's mix to bring their words into rotation, and take them out the same way.
- Locked stops: what opens them.
A green badge on a stop counts its words that are due for Practice. The ring around it shows how much of the stop you have seen.
Check-ins
A check-in collects your current stop and opens the next one. There is one for each stop, and it opens only when you have done real work on the stop:
- Learn its words: swipe right on (or tick) a quarter of the stop's words, at least 15. The first stop asks for 20; each stop you collect asks for 5 more, up to 40.
- Get them right in Practice: half that number answered correctly in Practice and not forgotten since, at least 8.
- After a miss: you can try again 24 hours later, or sooner once you have answered the missed words right in Practice.
Only the stop's own words count, so every swipe right on one of them moves the count. The map shows which conditions are done.
A check-in has 12 questions at level 1 and one more per level. Each question is timed, and the rounds move from recognising a word to recalling it to filling it into a sentence. Get 80% right to collect the stop and earn 50 Sparks; the intro tells you the exact number. The result screen says whether you collected the stop, or how many right answers it needed. A lower score leaves your route where it is. A check-in never changes when words come back for Practice.
Sparks and levels
Sparks are the only thing levels need, so there is one bar to fill: on Home, and in more detail on your profile and the map. What earns them is weighted toward real learning:
| Sparks | |
|---|---|
| Save a new word | 3 |
| First right answer in Practice | 8 |
| Right answer when a word is due | 6 |
| A word becomes Mastered | 20 |
| Pass a check-in | 50 |
| Practise a word before it is due | 1 |
Harder words earn more, and easy words earn less once your level is well past them. Answering a word again before it is due barely helps you remember, so it earns just 1: coming back when Practice says so is the fastest way up.
Level 2 takes 60 Sparks, usually your first session. Each level after that asks for 60 more than the one before (level 3 at 180, level 4 at 360, level 5 at 600). Your daily goal starts at 5 and grows a little every few levels. Levels and mastery never go down.
Your profile
You is your own page. Everything on it is kept on your phone; there is no account.
- Name and avatar: tap your avatar to change them.
- Level, streak, and today: where you stand now.
- Activity: a calendar with one square for each day, brighter the more you learned. Tap a day to see its count.
- Your progress: how many words you have met and learned, how many you still knew a week later, and how well each is remembered. Tap any number to see the words behind it.
- Journeys: the language pair you are learning. Manage journeys lets you erase a journey's progress or change to a different one. Changing journey starts the new one fresh and erases the one you had.
- Keep your progress safe: Export progress saves your words and progress to a backup file; Import progress restores one. Use these to move to another phone.
Wallpaper and widget
In Display, set PopWord as your wallpaper or add its widget. Both show the same word as the app. The preview shows how it will look; choose where the word sits on the wallpaper, or the widget's background.
Your word rhythm, on the same page, sets how often the word changes:
- Scheduled: your words per day are spread between 07:00 and 23:00. Overnight the word stays, and you find it waiting in the morning.
- When I unlock: the word changes on your next unlock once its time is up, at any hour.
Notifications
Optional reminders are sent only within daytime hours. When words are due, tapping the notification starts a Practice round. When a check-in is ready, it opens the check-in.
Settings
Open Settings from the cog on your profile. It covers the background, card text size, the pronunciation voice, hiding the meaning, and reminders.