premium

the first 7 chapters (120 words) stay free forever — every chapter we add from here on is part of premium. pick lifetime, annual, or monthly from the paywall, which shows exactly what plan you're on, what it costs, and when it renews.

• purchases require signing in first, so premium follows your account to any device
• already subscribed? the paywall only offers higher tiers, never the one you're already on

sign in & sync

sign in with just your email — a magic link, no password — and your progress (streak, everything) syncs across every device you use mazwi on. it's entirely optional; mazwi still works exactly the same with no account at all.

settings, tidied up

account and study preferences each got their own page, with icons and clearer grouping. nothing new to learn — just easier to find.

placement test

already speak some shona? tap "take a placement test" on the welcome screen to skip past chapters you already know. we sample a few words per chapter — get enough right and the whole chapter is marked learned, using the same scheduling as if you'd studied it normally.

also this week

every word now shows its ipa pronunciation next to the shona spelling, and cards got a thin colour strip showing the word's current learning state at a glance.

two small nudges to help you stay consistent. first, if you've been away since yesterday, a quiet note on the home screen reminds you your words have been waiting. second, after your third session, mazwi will ask if you'd like a daily reminder — no pressure, just one tap to enable notifications.

• the re-engagement note only shows on the home screen before you start, never mid-session or post-session
• the notification prompt waits until session 3 so it doesn't interrupt a brand-new user still figuring things out
• if you tap "not now" three times, the prompt stops appearing for good

12 new words just arrived. emotions, physical states, hunger, thirst — the words you have probably needed and had to stay quiet without. kufara, kusuwa, kutsamwa, kuneta, kurwara, nzara, nyota, kutya, kunyara, kushamisika, kudzikama, kudada.

• chapter 7 unlocks once you have reached 80% stability in chapter 6
• two cards use the nda- state-change pattern — the same pattern as ndatenda. the card notes explain the distinction

onboarding, rebuilt

we rebuilt the whole welcome flow so you see real cards before anything else — no wall of instructions, just the actual experience. onboarding now shows two real words from the deck (mhoro + sadza), and your very first session drills 5 new words before introducing more.

learning stats gets its own page

the stats page has been pulled out of settings and given its own screen — per-chapter word counts, a 7-day calendar, and an expandable 16-week heatmap. and yes — this updates screen you're reading right now is new too.

chapters unlock faster

chapter 2 now unlocks as soon as you've rated 80% of chapter 1 words at least once — previously the algorithm waited for a full 7 days of stability, meaning a week of reviews just to reach new words.

learn cards

new words now get their own proper screen — photo, word, meaning, sentence, and a grammar note all at once, with audio playing automatically. tap "got it →" when you're ready, and the word comes back later that session for a proper recall.

comeback screen

the screen you see after a session got a full redesign — chapter progress, a breakdown of your words by state, a streak strip, and a weak-drill button, all in one place.

streak calendar

a github-style activity calendar now shows 16 weeks of practice history, with today marked by a white ring. also fixed a timezone bug that was breaking streaks for users in UTC−5 and further west.

scheduling tweaks

tapping "good" on a brand-new word now brings it back in 15 minutes instead of days, and a forgotten word returns in 10 minutes instead of 1 — retesting after 1 minute was basically pointless.

if you use a bluetooth keyboard with your iPhone, pressing space to flip a card now actually works. iOS Safari needs the card front to have focus before it fires the keydown event — fixed that.

the image-or-hint setting in settings was being ignored for learn and review cards — only recall cards respected it. that's fixed, and the image hint button on recall/review fronts now looks like a proper pill instead of a broken-image icon.

settings now slides in from the left as a panel instead of covering the whole screen — tap the backdrop to close it. also restored the "learn more today →" button on the all-caught-up screen when you've hit your daily new-word cap.

the settings gear is gone from the bottom nav — it's now a hamburger (≡) in the top-left corner, and the nav is a clean three-tab layout. inactive tabs are now readable (contrast was way too low before), and font sizes are bumped up across the whole app.

a few visual fixes: the "new word" badge was hiding behind the image, the learn card background was almost indistinguishable from the app background on a real phone, and the broken-image icon on recall fronts has been replaced with a proper hint pill. scrollbars are now hidden everywhere.

tapping the study tab from session-complete now goes straight to new cards if they exist, instead of always bouncing through the home screen first. when nothing is due, tapping study starts a drill session — the tab label changes to "drill" when that's the case.

new words now go through a two-step cycle instead of jumping straight into FSRS. first you see the word (learn card), then you recall it (recall card) 10 minutes later in the same session. close the app before getting to it? it'll be waiting next time.

home screen redesign

the home/comeback screen got a proper redesign — how many words are due, a chapter progress section, streak/today tiles, and the current session state, all in one place. the mazwi tab got a stats banner too.

colour guide

"what do the colours mean?" now opens a full-screen explainer instead of a modal that kept getting buried behind the settings panel.

you can now set how many new words you see per day (default 20, range 1–200) — reviews are never capped. also split the single audio toggle into two, one for the word and one for the sentence, and there's a bug report button on every card back now.

• fixed the audio echo on first play (iOS double-fire issue)
• fixed stale audio playing from the previous card
• raised the volume — it was too quiet on most phones

the search tab is live. type shona or english and it searches across all 108 words, including example sentences. results are sorted by relevance, and each shows a dot for the word's current learning state.

autoplay audio

audio now plays automatically when you reveal a card — the word first, then the sentence once the word finishes. there's a toggle in settings if you'd rather have silence.

tutorial modals

the tutorial now explains the rating buttons in context, right after you flip your first card, plus a follow-up modal showing what your rating means and when the card comes back.

added settings — streak, word breakdown, daily stats, light mode toggle, reset progress, links to feedback/privacy/terms — plus a proper interactive tutorial and a per-word stability bar on the card back.

mazwi is out! 108 shona words across 6 chapters, FSRS spaced repetition, 20-card sessions, chapter unlock gates, a welcome tutorial, and offline PWA support. audio, accounts, and search are coming — this is just the beginning.