Documentation

Best Practices

How to get the most from spaced-repetition vocabulary study.

Review every day

Spaced repetition works best with daily review. Skipping days lets cards pile up and makes sessions harder. Even five minutes on a busy day helps.

Missing a day is not a catastrophe. Consistency over weeks and months is what matters.

Add new words in small batches

Large imports feel productive, but they create waves of new cards that mature together. Aim for 5–15 new words per day to keep your daily load steady.

After a large CSV or Anki import, use Word Triage to pace how many words you activate each day rather than generating flashcards for everything at once.

Rate cards honestly

FSRS can only schedule well if your ratings match your recall. If you hesitated or only remembered with a clue, choose Hard rather than Good. Inflated ratings feel good now but lead to forgotten words later.

Prefer words from real input

Words from genuine content are easier to remember because they carry context. Use Word Sources to link words to the material you found them in.

Save from real text with the Reader

Paste a chapter, article, or transcript into the Reader, then save words with excerpts attached. The excerpt appears on flashcard backs during review and improves cloze generation.

Use varied flashcard types

LanguageDen generates multiple flashcard types per word — recognition, production, cloze, listening, and more. Practising from different angles strengthens memory more than repeating one prompt.

For nouns, attach an image on an image based card. Visual associations work well for concrete objects.

Suspend words you do not need

If a word is irrelevant, suspend it instead of rating it poorly every session. Suspended words leave the review queue but stay in your collection. Unsuspend them from the word detail page at any time.

Process Triage regularly

Word Triage is the fast path for new words after import or Reader saves. Open it periodically so nothing useful sits unprocessed.

Check your stats occasionally

The Stats page shows accuracy trends, mastery breakdown, and upcoming workload. Low accuracy may mean you are adding words too quickly. Open Stats from Home via Open stats →.

Retention around 85–90% is a healthy target. Much higher may mean you are not challenging yourself enough; much lower may mean you should slow new-word intake.