The words that are still wobbly belong on the screen

Your current vocabulary words aren’t your entire collection. They’re the handful you still need to master this week. The DeutschSprechen widget shows exactly those words, plus the number of repetitions due: three to seven. Any more than that becomes a wall, and nobody reads walls on their home screen.

I checked everything off at the beginning. The box was full and invisible. Since then, just the shaky ones. The library stays in the app.

What Gets on the Screen

The word you were looking for in that sentence yesterday. The price that was wrong. The verb that slipped into the wrong spot after “because.” Not fifty “important” ones from a list you don’t care about. Due repetitions as a number, so you know whether the evening allows for eight cards or just two new ones. Over twenty: no new ones. Under five: two new sentences are okay.

The setting is under App Settings, Widget. Save it before you pin the widget to the home screen. Otherwise, the box will be empty, and you’ll think there’s something wrong with your device.

What the number isn’t

Not a grade. Not a character. Twelve cards due are twelve cards. You do eight and leave the rest for tomorrow. SRS will bring them back after one, three, thirty, or ninety days, whether you find that number fair or not. The widget reminds you. It doesn’t do the studying for you. The flashcards, the swiping, “try again” or “I know it”—all that happens in the app. I only know it when the sentence has been reviewed.

A quick glance in the morning, the stack in the evening

Don’t stare at the widget all day. Just a quick glance before the train arrives. In the evening, go through the cards—say two of them out loud. The example sentence is the one you need, not a nicer one from the preview. Switch out current vocabulary words once you know them. What you’ve mastered doesn’t need to stay on the screen. The next shaky one moves up to take its place. That’s how the box stays small.

If the number freezes after an update, delete the widget, save it in the app, and reset it. Battery-saving modes can pause the counter. The words themselves are stored on the device.

The Kılavuz: Widget. The longer version: Words on the Screen.

A Handful Is Enough

There are just a handful of current vocabulary words because your brain can handle a handful in the morning. You go over the due review words in the evening. Both together make up the plan. Not the library, not the quota of ten new ones.

The screen shows three words and a number. That’s all I want to see there. On the train, I read them once without swiping. Swiping has its place—in the evening, with sound. If I start swiping in the morning, that quick glance turns into half an hour, and I hate that half hour until noon. A quick glance. Memorize the number. Move on. In the evening, eight cards, two aloud, using the word from the screen in a sentence. Then the widget has done its job. It doesn’t have to glow all day for you to take what you’re learning seriously. The evening session is what matters. The morning preview is just the gateway. If there’s a word on the screen that you’ve known for a week, remove it from the display. It stays in the stack or the archive. Current vocabulary words are the ones you’re unsure of, not the trophies. The count next to it can be high. Then you do eight and leave the rest. Don’t take a picture of the widget—read it. Once. That’s enough on the train. In the evening, say the example sentence for exactly one of these words out loud before you quietly swipe away the others. That way, the handful stays genuine. A full list on the home screen isn’t motivation. It’s a reason to look away. Three words. A number. The sentence later.

DeutschSprechen brings the shaky words to the front. You say the sentence yourself. Eight cards, not the whole collection.