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What's new

Parlance is built in the open. Here's what's shipped, newest first.

July 2026

  • 25 July — Each language keeps its own new cards per day. Learning 30 new Italian words no longer spends every other language's daily allowance, and switching language shows that language's cards straight away.
  • 25 July — Review has a daily target now, not an empty queue. The Review goal is a number you set (default 20), same as Read — hit it and your streak holds for the day, even if cards are still due. Falling behind no longer breaks your streak just for being behind.
  • 25 July — Pausing new cards is just turning the dial to 0. New cards / day on /review now goes down to 0 — that's what paused means, the stat above reads Paused, and starting again is pressing +, whether or not you're still behind.
  • 18 July — Stress marks on Russian review sentences. The example sentence on a Russian flashcard now shows where the stress falls — Мы сиде́ли в ую́тном кафе́ — so you learn the pronunciation, not just the spelling. Marks are placed only where a word's stress is unambiguous; anything the dictionary can't pin down is left plain.
  • 18 July — Goals moved off the tab bar. The Daily tab is gone. Set your daily goals from the streak menu's Edit goals → link, and find your streak and full-year activity heatmap on /stats. Opening the app now lands you on Read.
  • 18 July — See what a new-cards pace commits you to. The New cards / day row on /review now expands into a forecast of your future daily review load — tap it to see how many reviews a given pace builds up to over 3, 6 or 12 months, coloured green through red as it climbs. It's a rough guide from your own review history, there to help you pick a pace you can keep.
  • 18 July — Why a verb shows no present tense. A conjugation table for a perfective Russian verb now carries a one-line note explaining it has only future and past — answering why the present is missing rather than leaving you to guess.
  • 16 July — Dig out of a review backlog. When you fall a couple of days behind on reviews, /review now offers a one-tap pause on new cards so the pile can shrink instead of grow. Cancel it whenever you like, and it clears itself once you've caught up.
  • 13 July — One toast for a burst of flashcards. Saving several words in quick succession now shows a single progress toast that counts them up, instead of a stack you have to clear one by one. Its View cards opens a side sheet of everything you just added, where you can delete any you didn't mean to keep.
  • 13 July — Finishing a story is just finishing. The end-of-story modal no longer offers a level switcher or follow-up topic cards — it shows your stats and an Undo, and that's it. Forking a new story from one you've read now lives in the list's ⋯ menu.
  • 13 July — Spin off a new story from one you've read. Every story in your list now has a ⋯ menu with More like this — it opens a picker of the story's follow-up angles (or "another on the same subject"), and generates a fresh story on that thread at the length and level you choose. The same menu can delete a story straight from the list.
  • 11 July — Drill a word's paradigm mid-review. Under each conjugation or declension table on a flashcard's back, a Drill me button starts a quick session over that grid's forms — tap the right form or type or say it (the mic transcribes what you say). Ten reps, then do ten more or step back to the card. It's just for play: nothing you do here changes when the card is next due.
  • 11 July — See a word's full paradigm during review. A flashcard's back now carries a collapsible conjugation or declension table for the word you're learning — the same table as its dictionary page. Tap any form to hear it. It never changes how the card is graded.
  • 11 July — Tap any word in a review sentence. The words in a flashcard's example sentence are now live — tap one to see its definition, synonyms and forms, the same popover you get while reading. Looking a word up never changes how the card is graded.
  • 5 July — Stuck for words? Speak can suggest a few things to say. Tap the lightbulb beside the mic and the chat will draft three replies one step above your level. Edit one and send it, or ignore the cards and just say your own.
  • 4 July — Russian past-tense verb drills. A new drill fills in the past-tense form agreeing with the subject's gender and number (он читал, она читала, оно читало, они читали), drawn from hand-seeded fixtures and real Tatoeba corpus sentences.
  • 4 July — More Russian verbs to drill. End-stressed verbs like жить, брать and давать now appear in present-tense drills, spelt correctly with ё (живёт, not живет).
  • 4 July — See a drill sentence's source. Drills built from real corpus sentences now show a View on Tatoeba link once you've answered, so you can read the sentence in context with translations.
  • 4 July — Clearer German case-drill hint. German case drills now read Article for Milch instead of Form of Milch — the blank is the article you pick, not a form of the noun.
  • 4 July — Tidier drill and chat sentences. Sentences now start with a capital letter, and a revealed drill answer keeps its space in front — so a finished drill reads the way you'd write it.

June 2026

  • Type the answer in grammar drills. Choose "Tap" or "Type" from the drill settings popover; typing checks your spelling and still records the result alongside tap-to-answer reps.
  • Sharper flashcard example sentences. A flashcard's example sentence now reliably uses — and highlights — the exact word you saved, in grammatical context.
  • Open sign-up. No invitation code needed any more — anyone can create an account and start learning straight away.
  • Immersive reading shortcuts. The Summarise and Quiz-me buttons in a story's discussion now ask in the language you're learning, so your side of the chat stays in that language too.
  • R records your voice in review. The R shortcut during flashcard review now starts and stops recording your pronunciation, instead of replaying the card's audio.
  • Cleaner pronoun and article pages. Pronouns like она or sie no longer show a confusing wall of unrelated forms — they read as a clear definition. Determiners and articles like этот or ein now get a proper declension table laid out by gender and case.
  • One reply length for every chat. Speak's reply-length control now sits atop the New Conversation card and applies however you start — an open chat or a word-practice session — and remembers your choice next time.
  • Your speaking partner asks more questions. Open conversations in Speak now keep the ball in your court — your partner reacts to what you said and usually ends with something for you to answer, so the chat doesn't stall waiting on you.
  • Discuss imported texts naturally. Chatting about a text you've imported no longer forces your partner into stilted beginner language — it discusses the text at a natural level, so even a dense or advanced import reads like a real conversation.
  • Pick exactly which words to practise. Speak's "Practise your words" now lets you hand-pick words from your flashcard deck — search for them or sort by how well you know them, so you can warm up on easy ones or target the hard ones. The recent and tricky shortcuts are still a tap away.
  • Practise your saved words by chatting. Pick "Practise your words" in Speak and your partner works words from your deck into a natural conversation where they fit — each one lights up gold, and gives a little pop the moment you use it. Tap a gold word to see which deck word it came from.
  • See your mistakes, fixed. Tap one of your own messages in a conversation to see it corrected inline — your words with the changes shown like a diff, red for what was wrong and green for the fix. If it was already right, you'll get a tick.
  • Filter your vocabulary by type. Narrow your saved list to just words or just phrases.
  • Stress on your flashcards. Russian flashcards now show where the stress falls on the word, so every review reinforces how to say it, not just what it means.
  • Stress marks everywhere you look up a word. Russian stress now shows in dictionary search results, the A–Я browse list, your recently-viewed words and your saved vocabulary list — not just on the word page — so you see how to say a word the moment you find it.
  • Conversations name themselves. A conversation now takes its title from your brief, even when your partner speaks first — so your list reads "Let's debate nuclear power", not "New conversation". Tap the ⋯ menu on any conversation in the lobby to rename or delete it.
  • Say what you want to talk about. Starting a conversation is now one box: write a brief — "Let's debate nuclear power", "you're a café barista and I'm ordering coffee" — or leave it blank for an open chat. Pick how long you want your partner's replies to be. The old topic and scenario cards are gone.
  • Browse your flashcards. A new card browser lists every flashcard you've made in one place. Tap any card to open it — see its illustration, play the example sentence, regenerate it, or delete it.
  • Browse the dictionary by letter. The dictionary now has an А–Я (or A–Z) index — tap a letter to page through every word, commonest first — plus a "recently viewed" list to jump back to words you looked up.
  • Russian stress marks. Russian word pages now show where the stress falls — on the headword and across every conjugation and declension — so you know how to say a word, not just spell it.
  • The right meaning for tricky words. Words spelt the same but meaning different things — like писать (to write / to pee) or замок (lock / castle) — now show every meaning with its own conjugation or declension table, instead of silently picking one at random.
  • A richer word page. Tap any word in your vocabulary to see pronunciation, every meaning, inflection tables and example sentences — in a panel that slides in over the list, from the side on desktop and up from the bottom on mobile.

May 2026

  • Russian verb conjugation. Present-tense verb drills, including the awkward irregulars (мочь, хотеть, есть, бежать), split into regular and irregular focus groups.
  • A faster start to your day. A new launcher on the Daily page drops you straight into the day's practice.
  • Streaks. A daily streak ring with a milestone projection, so you can see how far a run of practice days will carry you.
  • Three more Russian cases. Drills for the dative, instrumental and prepositional cases, singular and plural.

April 2026

  • Grammar drills. A new way to practise the patterns that trip you up — a visual grammar map and focused, tap-to-answer drills. Launched with Russian cases (accusative, genitive) and German verb conjugation.
  • One-tap flashcards with images. Turn any word into a flashcard in a single tap, with an illustration generated to help it stick.
  • Drill mode in conversations. Practise specific grammar while you chat.

March 2026

  • Bring your own reading. Import your own articles by pasting text, or upload an EPUB to read a whole book at your level.
  • Chinese. Full support including pinyin display and HSK-graded vocabulary.
  • Dictionary-backed translations. Tap a word for a richer definition, drawn from a proper dictionary rather than a one-off guess.
  • Daily goals. Set targets for reading, reviewing and practice.
  • A redesigned reading library and a new landing page.

February 2026

  • Spaced-repetition review. A full flashcard review system that schedules each card for the moment you're about to forget it, with audio and example sentences built in.
  • Conversations. Practise speaking through guided conversations on topics and scenarios you choose — and discuss any story you've read with an AI partner.
  • Listen mode. Queue up stories and listen hands-free.
  • Reading that adapts to you. Difficulty levels from beginner to advanced, stories built from current news and topics you care about, and reading settings you control.
  • Sign in with Google, alongside email.

January 2026

  • Parlance is born. Generate stories at your level, read them with tap-to-translate and per-word tracking, and hear every sentence read aloud.