How it works

About

What this is

Zehntence Vokabel is the vocabulary component of Zehntence. It covers 3,383 German words, organised into 18 themed groups, and moves each word through four stages.

A word is introduced in Learn, tested three ways in Match, kept alive by spaced review in Ganz, and stored in Bank, which stays open the whole time. The four sections below explain what each stage asks of you.

The app keeps no points, no scores and no streaks. The only measure of progress is how many words have reached the later stages.

Stage one

Learn

Learn is where you meet a word. It arrives covered: the German word, its article, and how the word is broken into syllables, with the audio on a button beside it. You hear it and read it before you are told what it means.

Behind that card is a short passage of writing about the word. Not a definition and not a flashcard, but a few sentences on where the word came from, how it behaves in a sentence, and where a German speaker would actually use it. Words are easier to keep when they arrive attached to something.

Nouns carry their gender as a coloured chip, and the chip keeps the same colour and the same shape everywhere that word appears in the app. Der is a navy square, die is a red pill, and das is an outline with a cut corner. The gender is learned with the word rather than after it.

Grammar notes and example sentences sit behind two buttons on the same card, for when you want them. Nothing here is timed and nothing is marked. You move on when you are ready.

Stage two

Match

Match opens once 6 words in a theme have been through Learn, so there is always enough material for the wrong answers to be plausible.

A word has to pass three tests before it leaves, and it meets them one at a time across several sessions rather than all at once.

The first is recognition. The word is shown again with its reading, then on its own, and you say whether you know it. If you already do, you can say so and it moves up without the rest of the pass.

The second is choice. You are given the German and asked which of several meanings is right, or played the audio and asked which word you heard. Getting it wrong sends the word back rather than ending the session.

The third is production. You are given only the English and you type the German from memory. For a noun the article counts and has to be typed with it, so you write das Haus rather than Haus. Capitals do not matter, spelling does.

Stage three

Ganz

Ganz is review. A word that has passed Match is not finished, it is simply known for now, and Ganz is what stops it slipping away again.

A word you answer correctly comes back after one day, then two, then four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and on up to a ceiling of 128 days. Each correct answer doubles the wait, so a word you keep getting right asks less and less of you.

Two answers change that. Marking a word as one you had to think about holds the interval where it is instead of extending it, so it returns at the same distance rather than a longer one. Answering it wrongly halves the interval, and it keeps returning sooner until you answer it without hesitating.

Every word carries its own interval, so the words you find hard come back often and the words you know stay out of your way. Reviews due today are shown on the dashboard, and the count is the whole of what Ganz asks.

Stage four

Bank

Bank holds all 3,383 words and never closes. Any word can be opened in full at any point, including words you have not started, so nothing in the app is locked behind progress.

It can be read three ways. Alphabetically, when you want a particular word. By theme, when you want to see what a theme contains before you begin it. By stage, when you want to see what is still untouched and what has reached Ganz. There is a search box for going straight to one word.

Bank is also where progress is visible. Each word shows the stage it has reached, and that is the only record the app keeps of how you are doing.

Learning

The 18 themes

The word list is not alphabetical. It is cut into 18 themes: Personal Identity, Food & Drink, Travel, Body & Health, Communication, Work, and so on down to the verbs.

A session inside one theme gives you words that belong together, and words that belong together are easier to keep. Learning Brot, Käse and Milch in one sitting leaves you able to say something at a breakfast table. Learning Brot, Bruder and brauchen because they start with the same letter leaves you with three words and no sentence.

Nothing is locked and nothing has to be done in order. Start with the theme you need this week.

Learning

How the spacing works

Every word in Ganz carries a gap, and the gap is the number of days until you next see it. Answer the word correctly and the gap doubles: one day, two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and on to a ceiling of 128 days. A word you keep getting right therefore asks less and less of you.

Two answers move it the other way. Saying you had to think holds the gap where it is, so the word returns at the same distance instead of a longer one. Answering wrongly halves it, and it keeps halving until the word comes back reliably.

The reason the gaps expand at all is that a word is easiest to lose just after you meet it, and steadier the longer it survives. A fixed schedule spends the same effort on a word you have known for a month as on one you met yesterday. Stretching the gap puts the work where the forgetting is, and the aim is to meet a word just before it goes rather than while it is still comfortable.

Gaps are kept per word, so your own history with each one decides when it returns. Settings offers three paces: Standard uses the intervals as written, Fast halves every gap so reviews arrive twice as often, and Fastest quarters them. The pattern is the same in all three; only the distance changes.

Learning

A1 to B1, explained

A1, A2 and B1 are the first three levels of the European framework for languages. A1 is the beginning: your own name, where you live, what you want to buy. A2 covers the everyday, enough to shop, travel and describe your week. B1 is the level at which you can hold a conversation about your life, your work and your plans without avoiding the subject.

The 3,383 words here are the vocabulary the Goethe-Institut publishes for its examinations at those three levels, taken whole and reorganised into themes.

So working through this covers the same ground those examinations ask for. You do not have to be sitting one for that to be the right list. It is simply the vocabulary a learner needs first, chosen by people whose job was to decide exactly that.