Research now gives us a pretty clear picture of what helps people remember new words. Path to Words is built on that. On this page, you can try some of it yourself.
The more often you review a word, the longer you remember it.
How well you remember the wordLearn a little every day. You’ll remember more than if you learn a lot in one day.
A meta-analysis looked at 317 experiments on this.1 Another study analyzed 48 experiments focused specifically on foreign language learning and came to the same conclusion.2
In Path to WordsOur algorithm shows you each word at the right moment, so you learn as effectively as possible. A word only counts as learned after several days, sometimes weeks.
Practice the same word five times. What works best?
Just looking at a word isn’t enough. You remember it best when you actively recall it.
In one experiment, students learned words in Swahili.3 Afterward, one group was tested on them again and again, while the other only read through the words several times. A week later, the first group remembered more than twice as many words.4
In Path to WordsWe follow the same principle: you actively recall the words to get the greatest possible learning effect.
Experiment: how many of 100 words could the participants still remember after a week?
Recognizing a word is easier than recalling it yourself. It is even more demanding when you then have to write it yourself. At each stage, you have to retrieve more from memory on your own, which strengthens what you’ve learned.56
In Path to WordsFor new words, you start with Recognize: you see the word in your language and choose the correct translation from four answers. In Recall, you recall the translation yourself before revealing it. In Produce, you retrieve the entire word from memory and write it yourself.
The better you know a word, the more you’re asked to do.
You can practice a word in two directions. Receptive: you see the word in the new language and translate it into your own. Productive: you see it in your language and have to come up with it in the new language yourself.
Productive is more demanding, but you get more out of it. You also learn how to spell the word and how to use it in a sentence. Receptive mainly trains you to understand a word.78
In Path to WordsFor each course, you choose whether to learn in Productive or Receptive mode. We recommend Productive mode.
One word, two directions
You don’t need to review a word again tomorrow if you already know it well. If you find a word difficult, you do. The Path to Words algorithm calculates when you need to review each word again to learn it as effectively as possible.
For this, Path to Words uses FSRS, an open method for scheduling reviews.9 In a public comparison using around 727 million real reviews, FSRS was much more accurate at predicting whether learners would still remember something than the method Duolingo published in 2016 and the classic Anki algorithm.1011
In Path to WordsOur system works for you in the background. You don’t need to configure anything yourself.
Two words, two weeks: when does each word come back?
How accurately does each method estimate whether you still know a word? Longer is better.
Many languages have articles, for example der, die and das in German or le and la in French. Research shows that it is most effective to learn a noun together with its article right from the start.12
In Path to WordsHere, you learn every noun with its article. When you write a word yourself, it only counts as fully correct if the article is right too. In Article mode, you focus on practicing articles.
Learn the article and noun as one unit