Levels and progress

The five levels

Set a level yourself with the N S F K M buttons in a popup or on a dictionary page. In reviews, a card moves up one level at a time as you keep remembering it: to Familiar once it comes back after a day, Known after a week and Mastered after a month. Again lowers it one level, never below Seen.

Raising a word also raises the kanji it is written with, up to Known by default.

Suggested level changes

A word you read past several times without looking it up is suggested for a higher level, and the suggested button is marked in its popup. Mark as read at the end of a text offers the suggestions for the whole text at once.

Nothing changes until you confirm a suggestion. The study options can also apply them automatically.

Relevance and the Currently learning batch

Every word gets a relevance rank from how common it is, how often you looked it up, and how often it was in what you read and watched. Recent lookups and reading count more. New cards in sessions come in this order, so the words you meet most are learned first.

The 20 most relevant words and 5 most relevant kanji you have not graduated form the Currently learning batch. They are ringed in texts. When one reaches Known, the next one takes its place.

By relevance, in the Learn menu, lists the batch (Currently learning), the whole ranking (Most relevant) and the words you know best (Best known). From there you can add a word to the batch, take it out, or mark it Known. Signed in only.

Level & progress, on a dictionary page or in the popup’s Progress tab, shows where a word ranks, what evidence Lingaku has for it, and its status.

Needs attention

A word you know but start looking up again, a few times over several days, is flagged as needing attention. Its level does not change. Flagged words get a wavy red underline in texts. Dismiss the flag with the flag button in the popup.

Leeches

A card you keep failing (8 Agains by default) becomes a leech. A leech shows a Leech badge in sessions with three choices: Add note, Suspend and Reset (back to New). The tag clears once the card reaches Known again, or when you clear it by hand.

Leeches are never suspended for you; they stay in reviews unless you hide them in the study options. The word list can show leeches only.

Suspending

Suspending a word leaves it out of every study session; it keeps its level. Suspend from a popup, a dictionary page or during a session, and unsuspend the same way.