Method
Recognising English and using it are different skills.
Most learners can read far more than they can write or say. Gradus is built for that gap. This page explains how.
The gap
Recognising a word and producing it become automatic separately. Reading more makes you a better reader, but it moves speaking and writing much less than practising them does.
Recognition
You see it and know it.
Grows with reading. Most of what you know sits here.
Production
You need it and it comes.
Grows with practice at producing. This is what Gradus trains.
Recall, every time
No task can be finished by looking. Each one asks you to pull something from memory, and what you're asked for gets harder as a word or point moves up.
- Meet it
- Pin it down
- Own it
- Write it
- Say it
Grammar follows the same order in writing only: guided items, then your own sentences, then using the point without being asked.
Who grades what
Anything with one right answer is checked on your device, instantly. A sentence you wrote or said goes to a language model, which says whether it works and names what doesn't.
On your device
Words tiers 1–3 and grammar guided items. The grading happens on your device, and the answer is stored with the review.
By a model
Words tiers 4–5 and grammar own sentences. The sentence and its word or point are sent. Up to 20 of your recent grammar sentences are also sent overnight to write prompts for you. Nothing that identifies you is sent.
Pronunciation is never graded. Speech recognition smooths over unclear sounds, so a grade would be marking its own guess.
Timing
Each word has its own schedule, set by how you answer. It comes back when you're close to forgetting, sooner after a miss. Grammar isn't scheduled that way. A point has a standing that moves as your sentences show it.
You never see intervals or due dates. Today shows what's ready and roughly how long it takes.
Your reading does the rest
A word needs 8 to 20 encounters. Gradus supplies the deliberate ones, and everything you read and hear supplies the rest. It isn't meant to be your only English.
The research
Each part of Gradus follows a finding from memory research or second-language research. These are the ones it depends on most, and what each one changes in the app.
Most language-learning studies are short and small. The direction of a finding is usually reliable. How big the effect is, much less so.
Words
Recalling beats rereading
Every task asks you to recall something. Nothing is passed by flipping a card.
Recognising and producing are separate skills
A word isn't known until you can write it and say it, so the ladder has 2 production tiers.
Judging how a word fits helps it last
You choose your own words, and sentence prompts come with a constraint, so a trivial sentence won't do.
Spaced practice beats cramming
Each word has its own schedule, and a word moves up only after passing at a real gap.
Effortful recall works better, as long as it succeeds
Tiers get harder in a fixed order, and a hint lowers the mark without moving the word down.
Similar words learned together get confused
Themes are situations, like a job interview. Confusable words are kept apart in a session.
Fluency is built from word partners
Tier 4 often asks for a word's usual partner, and “take a decision” gets a note that people say “make”.
You learn from a sentence only if you know nearly every other word in it
Example sentences are written so every other word sits within your level.
Grammar
A short explanation, then practice
A point's page explains it briefly. What moves it is the practice that follows.
To produce grammar, practise producing it
After guided items, every point moves on to sentences you write yourself.
Feedback that names the error, and asks for a fix
A wrong sentence gets the reason, then a retry. It isn't just rewritten for you.
Mixing points beats one at a time
A grammar session mixes your open points. It feels harder, and it holds up better later.
Writing that wasn't about the point is the real test
A point reaches tier 5 only in writing that wasn't about it.
What the research rules out
- Learning styles
- No evidence that matching lessons to a “visual” or “auditory” learner helps.
- Input alone
- Learners who only read and listen stall. Producing shows the gaps.
- Highlighting grammar in texts
- Bolding or flooding a form barely helps, and it costs understanding.
The name
Gradus is Latin for a step, a rung, a degree. It rhymes with status.
It comes from Gradus ad Parnassum, a graded book European students used for centuries to compose Latin verse. Its readers could already read Latin. The book existed to help them make something in it.
The mark is a G in a laurel, cut like the top tier gem.