Build Your Lattice

Kumi never treats a word or kanji as one flashcard. Each concept is practiced several different ways, and each way is a module: a kind of question, in a direction. For a kanji vocabulary word those are things like Pick Meaning (see the word, choose what it means), Type Reading (see the word, type how it is read), Say Aloud, Listening, Fill-in Blanks and Build Pattern. Kana, radicals, kanji and grammar each have their own set.

Every module keeps its own memory schedule. You can be rock solid at recognizing a word and still blank when you have to say it, so Kumi tracks the two separately and reviews each on its own timing. That web of modules, one per way of knowing, is your latticeKumi LatticeEvery concept practiced several ways, each way (a module) on its own memory schedule. You choose which modules run.Learn more.

Your mastery score for a concept is built from the modules you have on. More modules means Kumi has seen you know the concept from more angles, and the score means more. Fewer modules is still an honest score, just a narrower picture, and every concept page shows you which modules are off.

The modules also lift each other. Saying a word out loud makes you a little better at hearing it. Typing a reading nudges the recognition module along too. Kumi models that transfer, so practice in one place quietly strengthens the others, including modules you have turned off. That is why a module comes back warm rather than cold when you switch it on again.

You pick a starting lattice during onboarding and can change it any time in Settings. The presets are just starting points; every single module can be flipped afterwards.

• Full lattice. Every module on. The most complete picture of what you know, and where most people start before trimming.
• No microphone. Everything except speaking practice. For laptops without a mic, or people who would rather not talk to their screen.
• Quiet. No microphone and no audio prompts. Built for trains, libraries and shared rooms.
• Reading first. Recognition, typing, fill-in and telling look-alikes apart. No audio, writing or building. For learners who mainly want to read.
• Essentials. One recognition and one production module per domain. The lightest lattice, for the shortest sessions.

It pauses. Its cards stop appearing in lessons and reviews, in that domain only. Nothing is deleted: every review you ever did in that module is kept, and its progress does not count against you while it is off. Your mastery for the concept is still measured over the modules that are on, and a narrow lattice can still reach a high score. What it cannot do is earn the mastered badge or a place on the mastery board. That badge claims the concept is proven both ways, in recognition and production, so a lattice missing an entire side stays off the board no matter how high its score climbs.

You will see it on concept pages: a paused module shows a small Disabled pill next to its name, and its bar simply stops moving. Anything else on that page is exactly as before.

Kumi will also offer to pause a module for you in the one situation where that is clearly the right call: if you skip Say Aloud, Listening or Stroke Tracing three times in a week, a lesson asks whether you want that module off for that domain. It never offers because you got something wrong. Getting it wrong is the practice working.

This is the part most apps get wrong: switch a mode back on after three months and you get a wall of a thousand overdue cards. Kumi sorts what comes back into three groups.

1. Cards that were already due before you turned it off come back right away. You owed those before the pause; the pause did not change that.
2. Cards that fell due while it was off come back a few at a time: about five per module per day, weakest concepts first, so a long pause turns into a gentle ramp instead of a cliff.
3. Concepts you learned while it was off get the module added, and its first card is marked New module in your reviews so you know why a familiar word is suddenly asking you to say it out loud.

Everything you knew before the pause is still there. Between the kept history and the transfer from the modules you kept practicing, a module you switch back on picks up warm, and its schedule settles within a few reviews.

• Onboarding: the Build your lattice step, where you pick a preset to start from.
• Settings: the Build your lattice section, with the presets up top and every module for every domain below. Hover a module for what it does.
• Concept pages: the Your Progress section shows every module for that concept, with Disabled on the ones you have paused.