Review cards
Open Review to see how many cards are due, how many are new, and an estimated session time. Press Start Review. If none are due, Tsumu shows when the next card is expected. New cards created today are due at the next midnight in your pinned timezone. Reviews are grouped at the day boundary set by your timezone; overdue cards stay due until answered.
Review board and controls
- macOS (4-Card Board): The desktop interface deals up to four card slots simultaneously. Click a slot or press 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 on your keyboard to reveal that card's back. Answer with A (Again), S (Hard), D (Good), or F (Easy). Press B to bookmark the card, or ⌘Z to undo.
- Android (4-Card Board): The phone interface also deals cards into slots on a board. Tap a card slot to reveal its back. Grade by tapping the answer button (Again, Hard, Good, or Easy). Tap the bookmark icon to flag a card.
How to grade your recall
On the front of a card, try to recall the reading and meaning before flipping:
| Grade | When to use it | Scheduling effect |
|---|---|---|
| Again | You failed to recall the reading or meaning, or got it wrong. | Resets card to a learning/relearning step. Breaks your daily combo streak. |
| Hard | You recalled the card correctly, but with hesitation or intense effort. | Advances interval conservatively; schedules sooner than Good. |
| Good | Standard successful recall without undue hesitation. | Schedules normally according to your desired retention target. |
| Easy | Immediate, effortless recall. | Extends the interval significantly further out. |
[!TIP] Grading Philosophy Be honest with Again: if you misread the kanji or forgot the core definition, press Again. Do not penalize yourself for minor nuances if you grasped the meaning in context, but do not let yourself "pass" on a wrong reading. When in doubt, choose Good for normal passes and Again for lapses. Reserve Hard and Easy for true outliers.
Learning steps and countdowns
Cards progress through distinct phases:
- New Cards: When first answered, a card only shows Again and Good. Passing it enters the 1-minute learning step (Learning1m). Answering Good again moves it to a 10-minute step before graduating to full review.
- Review Cards: Graduated review cards present all four choices (Again, Hard, Good, Easy).
- Lapses (Relearning): Pressing Again on a review card places it into Relearning with a 5-minute step before returning to review.
During a study session, cards in short learning steps (1m, 5m, 10m) show a live countdown timer until they are ready. You can answer other available cards on the board while waiting, remain in the session until the timer elapses, or exit and resume later.
Daily Combos and streaks
Tsumu tracks a Daily Combo (a consecutive streak of successful reviews within the current calendar day):
- The combo counter increments with every successful review (Hard, Good, or Easy).
- Selecting Again breaks the combo back to zero.
- Re-answering or undoing an answer automatically restores and recalculates both your current streak and your personal best streak for the day.
- Milestones (e.g. 10, 20, 30, 50, 100) trigger visual and audio celebratory feedback.
Undoing answers and session completion
- Undo: If you mis-grade a card, select Undo (or press ⌘Z on macOS) and confirm. You can undo the most recent answer for up to five minutes. The card is immediately restored to the active board with its answer visible.
- Session completion: When all due cards and learning steps are cleared, the summary displays total cards reviewed, active study time, average time per card, and your best combo of the day. Click Log time and exit to credit active review minutes directly into Today's study log, or Exit to leave the study log unchanged.
- FSRS Scheduling: Scheduling uses the modern Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler (FSRS), optimizing review intervals to meet your desired retention rate (default 85%).