How a lesson works
A Zollang lesson is built on comprehensible input: you hear and understand real sentences, then say them yourself. Every lesson has four parts — Overview, Study, Read and Exercises. Only Study is required; the rest is there whenever you want it.
The four parts of a lesson
Your sentences and stats
See every sentence of the lesson, its new words, and how many you've studied, learned or already knew.
Play all
Listen to the whole text before you study it — slowly, or at native pace — and loop it if you like.
What's next
Start or continue the session, restart the sentences, jump to Read or Exercises.
New-word warm-up
Before the session, just listen to the lesson's new words once. Nothing to do — it primes your ear.
Hear it, understand it, say it
The coach plays a sentence, breaks it into chunks with their meaning, then hands it to you: say it out loud and hear how it went. Show the text whenever you want.
Type instead, or tap practice
Any step can be typed instead of spoken. And if you can't speak right now, turn on tap practice: the whole session is answered by tapping, and the microphone never opens.
Explain
Select any phrase to get a plain-words explanation of what it means and why it's built that way.
Recap
The session ends with a short retrieval pass: rebuild each sentence from its chunks and recall its new word. Finishing the Recap finishes the lesson.
Text and audio together
Play the full text or single sentences, show or hide translations, and switch between the color-coded text, waveforms and audio only.
Words and phrases
Tap a word to hear it and see its meaning, mark it as known, or select a phrase to save it, explain it or ask about it.
Your listening counts
Every sentence you hear here counts as words seen, and words you save go to your vocabulary.
Your review
Everything you missed in the session and its Recap is waiting here, so you can try it again.
Exercises for any sentence
Flashcards, fill in the blank, sentence builder, listening dictation and mix & match. Shadowing — repeat after the audio as it moves on — is in the Zollang app today.
Nothing here is required
Exercises never block a lesson — do as many or as few as you want.
Spaced review
Every new word from the lesson comes back for review just before you'd forget it. Learn how it works on the Vocabulary page.
Contextual review
Meet your words again in a fresh scene Zollang writes from them — start one from the Context tab of your vocabulary.
Conversation
Talk about the lesson out loud with a coach who knows its sentences and vocabulary — from Speak, whenever you like.
YouTube lesson
- The video plays inside Zollang with its sentences synced and translated — replay or loop a sentence, and hide the text to practice by ear.
- The Vocabulary tab lists the video's words: study the new ones, or mark the ones you know.
- Words you've heard can be added to your review with one tap.
Slow podcast
- Two hosts talk through the article or topic you chose, at the speed you picked. Follow the transcript, tap any word for its meaning, and show or hide the translation.
- With Full study, the transcript is color-coded and comes with flashcard practice on the podcast's vocabulary.
- Words you've heard can be added to your review with one tap.
Best practices
- 1Say every sentence out loud, even when it feels awkward — that's the part that builds speaking.
- 2Don't skip the Recap: it's short, and it's where the words move into memory.
- 3When you can't talk, switch to tap practice rather than stopping — the same session, no microphone.