How Word Holder Works
A vocabulary tracker with built-in spaced repetition. Look up words while reading, and the app schedules them for review so you actually remember them.
Short on time? See how it works in four steps — this page has every detail.
1. Read something. Click words.
Get a text into your library using Add a reading on the home screen. There are three ways to start, shown as tabs:
- Sample reading — pick from a small built-in library of short, reading-level-graded texts in your language. The fastest way to start — no article to find first. (This is the default the first time you add one.)
- Article URL — paste the link to an article and Word Holder extracts the readable text.
- Paste text — drop in text from anywhere: a book chapter, a blog post, a message, anything.
Whichever you choose, the text opens in a clean reader with comfortable typography.
While reading, tap any word to see its meaning:
- A short translation appears instantly, pulled from Wiktionary-based dictionaries (fast, free).
- Tap See full definition to load the AI-generated long definition when you want more depth.
- If the word has multiple possible meanings (like Italian letto — "bed" or the past participle of "to read"), you'll get a lemma picker so you can choose.
- Words you've already tapped get a subtle dotted underline when you re-open a text, so you can see what you've already covered.
Every tap saves the word and the sentence it appeared in — the sentence comes back as context when the word shows up in your daily review.
Anonymous accounts get 100 KB of text storage; signed-in accounts get 5 MB. The meter is visible on the library and import pages.
The right meaning, in context
Most words carry several meanings. Take English bank: in "We sat on the bank of the river" it's the edge of the water, but in "She put the money in the bank" it's the financial institution. Tap bank in each sentence and Word Holder highlights the meaning that actually fits — not the same generic list both times.
Tap a word and Word Holder reads the surrounding sentence to pick the meaning that fits — so you don't have to scan six definitions for the one the author meant.
When the sentence is genuinely ambiguous, we show you the options instead of guessing. This works best in the curated readings — and any text you read in the app — where the surrounding sentence is there to read.
Built-in readings
Don't have anything to read? The Sample reading tab on the Add a reading screen has a curated set of short texts for your current language, each tagged with a reading level so you can match the difficulty to where you are. Pick one and you're reading — and saving words — within seconds.
Some readings come as a series — a longer text split into parts you read across several sessions. Word Holder remembers where you stopped and offers Continue so you can pick a longer story back up later.
And some classics come as graded story adaptations: the same story retold at three levels (A2, B1, B2) — most also offer the untouched original when you're ready for it. Look for the Stories shelf in the reading picker. A level switcher in the reader header lets you change level mid-story: same story, same ending, and every word you've saved stays saved.
Don't know what to read? Use "Help me choose"
On the Add a reading screen, switch to the Article URL tab and click Help me choose (next to the URL field). A picker opens with a curated list of reading sources for your current language, grouped by News, Culture, Science, Sport, and Easy reading. Each source shows its difficulty and whether it's usually free or mixed access.
Two ways to use it:
- Open site — opens the source's homepage in a new tab so you can pick an article yourself, then paste the URL back into the URL tab.
- Random link — grabs a fresh article from that source (picked from a backend-maintained pool) and feeds it straight into the import flow — no browsing required. Great when you just want something to read right now.
Sources are curated for every supported language. The backend refreshes the article pool every few hours and only keeps links that our article extractor can actually read, so the "Random link" button almost always lands on a usable page. Fair-use cap: 5 Random link picks per 24 hours per account — Open site stays unlimited.
Explain this form Experimental
If the word's meaning isn't what's tripping you up — you roughly know what it means but not why it's written like this — the popover has a second Explain tab with a short grammar note for that word in that sentence. Italian and Spanish only at the moment.
Available to everyone — the popover always shows the Explain tab next to Meaning. Because it's still experimental, it may be slower than Meaning, change without notice, or disappear.
What you'll see
When the explanation is ready, three short sections:
- In this sentence — what the clicked form is doing right here (e.g. \"fosse" is subjunctive because the clause expresses doubt).
- Why this form — the mechanical reason (clitic fusion, article contraction, past participle with auxiliary, etc.).
- Compare — a one-line contrast with the simpler or nearby alternative ("glielo" vs "lo", "del" vs "di + il").
Follow-up chips
Below the three sections you may see up to three pill-shaped buttons. Tap one to re-ask about the same word from a different angle without closing the popover:
- Break it down — split the form into its component parts.
- Literal meaning — the word-for-word reading, ignoring idiom.
- Why this tense? — focus on tense choice in this sentence.
- Why subjunctive? — focus on mood choice.
- Why this pronoun? / Why this article? — focus on the pronoun or article specifically.
- Why this word order? — focus on sentence-level word order.
Other messages you might see
- "Nothing unusual here — standard form for this sentence." — there's no remarkable grammar point to call out; keep reading.
- "Couldn't explain this form right now." — the call failed or timed out. Hit Retry.
2. Or type a word in the search box
You can also look up a word directly from the home screen — useful when you're not reading a specific text. Type it in, pick your language, press Enter. If you type a conjugated form, it finds the base word automatically. Not sure about spelling? You'll get suggestions, ordered so the most common words come first. Multi-word entries work too — useful for English phrasal verbs like look up or Italian expressions like a proposito.
The search box also knows what you've already saved. As you type, matches from your own collection appear first, under In your words — and they match meanings too, so typing dog surfaces a saved cane. Pick one and it opens instantly, without running a fresh lookup. Dictionary suggestions you've saved before carry a small ✓ Saved mark, and pressing Enter on a word that's already in your list simply opens it. This works the same in the search box on the home screen and the one on My words.
3. What's in a definition
Lookups happen in two phases: a short translation appears instantly so you can keep reading, and a richer explanation loads in the background when you want more. When you open the fuller view, a definition can include:
- Senses with examples — each distinct meaning gets its own example sentence, so an abstract definition has something concrete attached.
- Synonyms and antonyms — grouped per sense, to give you a feel for the word's neighbourhood, not just its translation.
- Noun plurals — shown right next to the headword, with the gender per form where it matters: Italian lenzuolo → i lenzuoli (m.) / le lenzuola (f.). Plurals appear in every language except English, which shows only irregular ones (children, mice) — regular +s plurals would just be noise.
- Real example sentences — sentences drawn from a large corpus of authentic text (the Leipzig Corpora Collection, CC BY), for every supported language, with English translations where available.
- Register badges — archaic and rare senses are de-emphasized and pushed down, so the meaning you'll actually meet while reading stays at the top.
- Idiomatic senses are grouped together and kept last.
Choose what you practise, what you see, and take a note
Once a word is saved, every meaning on its full definition carries two small controls — a pin and an eye — and the word itself takes a note:
- The pin beside a meaning — a word always has exactly one pinned meaning: the one its review card asks you about, in reviews and quizzes. When you save a word Word Holder pins its main meaning for you. Tap another meaning's pin to practise that one instead — the pin moves, and the word keeps its review progress.
- The eye beside it — a different question: whether the meaning is shown at all. Most meanings are worth reading and not worth practising, which is why these are two controls and not one. The pinned meaning can't be hidden — pin another one first. You can't hide the last meaning you can still read either: the control stays put and greys out.
- A hidden meaning is never gone. It collapses to a single faint line where it was, naming itself, with Show beside it. The definition, examples and the rest of the block go; the meaning keeps its place in the entry, so you can see at a glance that you hid something there.
- A meaning that isn't pinned is still fully there — not hidden, not collapsed, not dimmed. The pin decides what comes back later; only the eye decides what you see.
- The word's row shows what you chose — in your word list, the short translation beside a word names its pinned meaning rather than whichever one the dictionary lists first.
- The summary above the meanings — offers Pin the main meaning, and Undo right after you move the pin. To stop a word coming up at all, use Stop reviewing this word: it stays saved with its pin and its history.
- My note — a personal free-text note on the word (a mnemonic, a false-friend warning, where you met it), shown under the definition. Words with a note get a small note marker in your list, and during review the note appears only after you've answered — so your mnemonic doesn't give the answer away.
Your pinned meanings and your notes sync across your devices. A new device shows each word's pinned meaning and your note markers right away with the word list; the note text follows the first time you open each word.
Verb conjugation tables
Look up a verb and Word Holder shows its full conjugation table right on the word card — no separate page to hunt for. Tap a verb like Italian parlare or Spanish hablar and you can see how it behaves across tenses without leaving what you were reading.
- Irregular verbs carry a badge, so you know when a form is one you can't guess from the rules.
- Spanish stem-changing verbs get their own marker on the card.
- English and Dutch show the simple past — the form learners most often trip on.
4. Your word list
Every word you look up — whether by tapping in the reader or typing in the search box — is added to your personal list on the My words page. The page opens with your collection at a glance: the word count, status chips for Due, Learning, Mastered, and New — each appearing once its group has words; tap a chip to filter the list to that group — a progress bar showing how many of your reviewable words have entered review (words you've excluded from review don't count) — with mastered words as their own segment once you have some — and, whenever anything is due, the button to start a review.
Below that — once your collection has grown past a handful of words — the filter, sort, and the tag filter sit together: the filter narrows the list by word or translation, and you can sort by most recent, alphabetical, or most looked up. If the filter comes up empty for a word you don't have yet, a one-tap shortcut offers to look it up in the dictionary instead. Click any word to open its full definition. A word's row also reflects your own choices: the pinned meaning is the one named beside the word, and a small marker shows on words that carry a note.
Use the level control to adjust how much detail an expanded definition shows:
- Compact — just the English translation. Lasts for the current visit only; the next visit opens on your remembered level.
- Standard — definitions and example sentences
- Immersion — full detail in the original language
Difficulty band. Each word shows a coloured letter on the right of its row indicating how common it is in the language — based on its corpus frequency rank, where rank 1 is the single most common word:
- A — Basic: top 200 most common words
- B — Intermediate: ranks 201–1000
- C — Advanced: ranks 1001–5000
- D — Rare: rank > 5000 (or not in the frequency list at all)
Hover the badge to see the exact rank. Same thresholds across all languages. The home dashboard rolls these up into an Active vocabulary by difficulty panel showing how many words you've looked up at each band over the last 7 days, 30 days, and year — useful for noticing whether you're coasting on basics or pushing into harder vocabulary.
Import from a Kindle
If you read on a Kindle e-reader, the words you looked up there can join your list.
Connect the Kindle to a computer, find vocab.db in its
system/vocabulary folder, and drop it on
Import from Kindle (also linked at the bottom of
My words). Each word is saved under its dictionary form, with the
sentence you read it in as its note and the book as a tag (a short name you can edit
before importing), and is ready for review
the next day. The file is read in your browser and never uploaded; words you already
have are left untouched, so you can import a newer file again later.
Step-by-step guide.
5. Organize with tags
Click the + button on any word to add a tag (e.g. "Chapter 3", "Travel", "Food"). Then filter your word list by tag using the dropdown in the toolbar.
Tagging a whole reading session? When adding a tag, tick "Also tag words I look up next" and every new word you save — from the search box or by tapping words while reading — gets that tag automatically, handy while working through a chapter. A status pill on the word-list page shows while it's armed, with a one-tap Stop.
6. Daily review (spaced repetition)
Every word you look up enters a spaced-repetition schedule. The app tells you how many words are due today on the home screen, and a 2-minute review session is enough to keep words moving toward long-term memory.
Reviews are fill-in-the-blank: you see an example sentence with the word hidden, recall it in your head, then rate how well you remembered it:
- Again — I forgot. Resets the interval to 1 day.
- Hard — I struggled. Shorter next interval.
- Good — I remembered. Standard SM-2 progression.
- Easy — Too easy. Longer next interval.
Words you remember reliably get spaced further apart (1d → 6d → ~15d → …). Words you struggle with come back sooner. Once a word's interval reaches 21 days (the bar Anki calls mature) it counts as mastered and shows under the Mastered chip in your word list — until it comes due again, when it moves under Due for its next review.
If you tapped the word inside a text you were reading, the review uses that same sentence for context — so you're quizzed on words in real prose you've seen before, not generic dictionary examples.
One card per word, one pinned meaning
Each word has one review card, and it teaches the word's pinned meaning. When you save a word, its main meaning is pinned. To practise a different meaning, pin it on the word's definition (see section 3): the card switches to that meaning and keeps the word's progress. Tapping a word in a text saves it pinned on the meaning it has there; a word you already have keeps its pin.
Your progress counts — the dashboard, your word list, words learned — are in words.
Every card also offers Stop reviewing this word and Report a problem, just below the grading buttons. Stopping takes effect at once, with an Undo, and keeps the word's history and its pinned meaning. And if you've written a note on the word, it appears once the answer is revealed.
When you finish the due cards (or have none today), the review screen offers a Practice option to revisit non-due words anytime — practice sessions don't change the schedule.
Turn the hard words into a quiz
If you rate at least four distinct words Again or Hard during a scheduled review, the finished-session screen offers Create a hard-words quiz. It builds a sentence quiz from only those words in that session — not every difficult word in your collection — and opens the new quiz straight away.
7. Quiz yourself (sentence quizzes)
A separate feature from daily review. After saving 4+ words, open Games in the menu, choose Sentence quizzes, and generate an AI-powered sentence quiz using your recent vocabulary. Three quiz modes are available:
- Drag & Drop — drag words into sentence blanks
- Multiple Choice — pick the right word from four options
- Type In — type the missing word yourself
Sentence quizzes are good for varied practice; daily review is the retention engine.
8. Practise verb conjugation (Verb Gym)
Verb Gym, also under Games, drills verb forms ten at a time: you type each form and it is graded as you go. It picks tenses for your level, brings back the forms you miss, and leads with verbs you have looked up. It works in Italian, Spanish, French, German, Dutch and English, with no account needed.
Read the Verb Gym guide for the tenses per language, how answers are graded, levels and settings — or start a drill in Italian, Spanish, French, German or Dutch.
Languages
Word Holder supports Italian, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, and English as learning languages. Definitions are available in English. See the languages page for the current list and roadmap.
Your account
Word Holder works without a visible login — every visitor gets an anonymous account automatically, so lookups, reviews, and the spaced-repetition schedule all work from the first visit. Log in (Google or email) to keep your words permanently and sync across devices. Without an account, your progress is tied to this browser only.
Signing in also unlocks the larger text storage quota (5 MB vs. 100 KB anonymous) so you can keep a bigger reading library.