# How Word Highlighting Works in LingoDew: Four States, from Unknown to Known > How LingoDew's four-state subtitle highlights work, how words automatically move into FSRS spaced repetition, and how to tune colors for your learning level. Source: https://www.lingodew.com/tutorials/word-states-explained/ Published: 2026-10-15 When you watch foreign-language videos with interactive subtitles, word highlighting is often the first feature you notice. Tap a word you don't know, see its definition, and keep watching. Platforms like LingQ popularized this loop years ago, and it has since become the foundation of modern immersion learning. At first glance, highlighting seems straightforward: color the words you don't know so you can spot them easily. But in practice, vocabulary isn't binary. You rarely jump from encountering a word for the first time to mastering it overnight. Vocabulary acquisition is a gradual progression: you encounter a word, look it up, recognize it when it appears in another video, practice recalling it, and eventually understand it without conscious effort. If a learning app treats words as simply "known" or "unknown," your screen quickly turns into one of two extremes: an overwhelming wall of bright highlights, or a quiet page that misses unfamiliar words you haven't saved yet. LingoDew takes a different approach. Every word in your target language moves through four distinct states. The colors on your screen reflect where each word stands in your memory—and more importantly, the app manages this progression in the background so you can focus on enjoying videos rather than organizing flashcard decks. This tutorial breaks down how LingoDew's four word states work, how words move automatically from initial lookup to spaced review, and how to customize subtitle highlights to match your level. ## The Highlighting Dilemma: Whitelist vs. Blacklist To understand why LingoDew uses four states, it helps to look at how traditional language apps handle subtitle highlighting: - **The Blacklist approach (highlight everything you haven't marked as known):** This is the model used by tools like LingQ. When you start, the system assumes every word is unfamiliar, so almost the entire sentence lights up. While this ensures no unknown word slips by, it can feel visually exhausting for beginners and intermediate learners, where nearly every line is saturated with color. - **The Whitelist approach (only highlight words in your saved wordbook):** This is the model common in traditional vocabulary apps. Your subtitles stay clean and calm, and only the specific words you've added to your study list light up. The downside is the blind spot: words you don't know but haven't saved yet remain invisible, leaving you guessing whether an unfamiliar term is essential or rare. WHITELIST — only your saved words The morning commute felt longer than usual. BLACKLIST — everything not marked known The morning commute felt longer than usual. unseen queried learning The same sentence viewed under the two classic highlighting models. Both models have clear strengths. Beginners often need the thoroughness of a blacklist, while intermediate learners who already know core grammar prefer the quiet clarity of a whitelist. Instead of locking you into one static choice, LingoDew bridges the two. On your first day, your subtitles give you full visibility over new words. As you watch videos and review vocabulary, words you master step quietly into the background. Your subtitles naturally shift from a comprehensive map toward a calm, focused reading view as your comprehension grows. ## LingQ's Foundation and How LingoDew Adapts It Steve Kaufmann and LingQ demonstrated the power of learning from authentic content: tapping unfamiliar words in context and building vocabulary through real exposure is far more effective than memorizing isolated word lists. LingoDew shares this foundation: you learn from genuine sentences, look up words as you encounter them, and build a personalized word history. At the same time, LingoDew adapts this loop specifically for native video immersion and modern spaced repetition: - **Automatic progression without deck maintenance:** In many traditional readers, you have to manually advance words through numbered levels or remember to mark them as "known." In LingoDew, word states are managed by the modern FSRS spaced-repetition scheduler (we break down the algorithm in our [FSRS vs. Anki SM-2 guide](https://www.lingodew.com/guide/fsrs-vs-anki-sm-2/)). When you tap a word, it saves automatically. When it's due for review, it appears in your daily queue. As you successfully recall it across spaced intervals, it graduates to *mastered* on its own. - **Mastered words blend into normal text:** When a word graduates—or when you mark it as mastered manually—its highlight turns off by default. A highlight is a visual cue asking for your attention; once you know a word effortlessly, it shouldn't distract you. The goal is to spend less time scanning highlights and more time reading naturally. - **Synchronized to spoken video audio:** While classic readers focus on written text, LingoDew aligns subtitles word-by-word with native YouTube creators. You hear natural speed, rhythm, and conversational contractions at the exact second you see the word. You can explore this directly in our [beginner Japanese listening](https://www.lingodew.com/japanese/listening/n5/) and [beginner English listening](https://www.lingodew.com/english/listening/a1/) feeds. ## The Four States: How a Word Moves Through Memory unseen queried learning mastered you look it up 2nd lookup, or 2 days FSRS graduation send it back Automatic except where you tap. The word card can override any state by hand. A word's progression in LingoDew from initial encounter to mastery. - **Unseen — grey.** A word you haven't looked up yet in LingoDew. Grey is deliberately subtle and low-contrast so it marks unfamiliar vocabulary without cluttering your view. When you start your first video, seeing a lot of grey is completely expected—it simply marks your baseline. - **Queried — blue.** A word you have tapped at least once. Tapping saves the word along with the sentence you heard it in, its translation, and the exact audio timestamp. If you encounter the word in another video and tap it again, LingoDew displays a "seen before" hint, confirming that this word is recurring in your input. Your queried list has no size limits. - **Learning — purple.** A word currently active in your FSRS spaced-repetition queue. To protect you from review overload, looking up a word once doesn't immediately flood your queue with flashcards. A word becomes eligible for review in one of two ways: 1. You look it up a **second time** in another video (the clearest indicator that the word is common and relevant to you). 2. A **2-day buffer period** passes after your first lookup, giving you time to absorb it naturally. Once you complete your first review for that word, it officially moves from *queried* to *learning*. *Capacity:* The free tier holds up to 50 active learning words per language at a time. This limit keeps your daily review sessions short, focused, and finishable rather than snowballing into review fatigue. LingoDew Pro unlocks unlimited learning words. - **Mastered — green, and unhighlighted by default.** A word you know reliably. A word reaches mastered when FSRS determines your retention is solid after spaced reviews, or when you tap *Mastered* manually on its word card (for instance, when you look up a loanword or cognate you already recognize). By default, mastered words are unhighlighted. If you ever forget a word later, simply tap it to send it back into review. *Visual accessibility:* Color is never the only signal. Every state includes a distinct dot icon and clear text labels in list views, so you never have to rely solely on color recognition. ## Customizing Your Highlights: Three Practical Setups Subtitle preferences vary depending on your mood and goals. On some days, you might want to examine every unfamiliar word; on other days, you just want to sit back and watch a travel vlog without visual distraction. In LingoDew, every state has an independent toggle in subtitle settings, accompanied by a real-time preview showing exactly how the player will display text. While you can customize any combination, three setups cover most learning styles: | Setup | What you see | Recommended for | | --- | --- | --- | | **Comprehensive (Default)**`Grey + Blue + Purple` | Full visibility: unseen, looked-up, and active review words are all marked. Mastered words blend in. | Beginners, and anyone who wants an honest, complete overview of new vocabulary. | | **Focused / Clean**`Blue + Purple` | Whitelist mode: only words you have actively interacted with glow. Unseen words stay quiet. | Intermediate learners who want an uncluttered screen while tracking active words. | | **Radar / Vocabulary Mining**`Grey only` | Only completely new words stand out. Queried, learning, and mastered words remain plain text. | Advanced learners reading or watching familiar topics who only want to catch rare terms. | Because toggles take effect instantly, you can adapt your subtitles whenever you like. For example, keep the default setup during intensive study sessions, and switch to Focused mode when watching videos casually. ## What Highlighting Looks Like at Your Level Above every video, LingoDew displays a **vocabulary bar**—a thin ribbon that previews the entire video's transcript colored by your personal word states. Rather than relying on a generic difficulty rating, the bar shows how accessible the video will be for you personally: Beginner on this video Intermediate on this video Advanced on this video unseen queried learning mastered The same video script reflected through three different learner vocabularies. - **Beginner (JLPT N5 / CEFR A1):** Your screen and vocabulary bar will show mostly grey, with small splashes of blue and purple. That is completely normal. Grey is designed to stay in the background so you can read comfortably. You don't need to look up every grey word you see—focus on recurring verbs, common nouns, and the main thread of the sentence. Your blue and purple vocabulary will build steadily over your first few weeks. - **Intermediate (JLPT N3 / CEFR B1):** This is the sweet spot where LingoDew's highlighting shines. Your subtitles are roughly half known and half in-progress. The vocabulary bar acts as a practical filter for [comprehensible input](https://www.lingodew.com/guide/what-is-comprehensible-input-and-how-to-use-it-for-japanese/): choose videos with a high share of green (mastered/known) and a manageable portion of purple and blue (i+1). Meanwhile, daily FSRS reviews quietly advance purple words to green in the background. - **Advanced (JLPT N1 / CEFR C1–C2):** More than 90% of the video appears as clean, unhighlighted text. When a grey word appears, it stands out immediately as a genuinely novel term. Many advanced learners turn off blue and purple highlights altogether, using grey as a precision radar to catch specialized terms and rare idioms without cluttering the screen. ## The True Measure of Progress: Subtitles That Gradually Fade Many vocabulary tools measure progress by accumulation: total cards created, XP earned, or words saved. While numbers can be encouraging, they don't always match the real sensation of fluency. In LingoDew, real progress is reflected in a quieter way: your subtitles gradually stop glowing. When you first begin learning from native videos, nearly every line contains unfamiliar words. But as FSRS schedules your reviews and you encounter words repeatedly in real speech, vocabulary graduates to mastered. Because mastered words don't highlight by default, the visual weight of your subtitles gradually recedes: WEEK 1 She left the umbrella on the train again yesterday. 9 highlighted WEEK 6 She left the umbrella on the train again yesterday. 1 highlighted MONTH 6 She left the umbrella on the train again yesterday. 0 highlighted One learner reading the same sentence over time. Mastered words blend into plain text. Subtitles naturally become cleaner as your vocabulary becomes second nature. One of the most rewarding moments is returning to a video you saved a few months ago. A scene that once looked filled with colored highlights now reads like smooth, clean text. You aren't pausing to look up vocabulary; you're simply watching the video and understanding what the speaker is saying. ### How to Get the Most Out of Word Highlighting - **Tap what sparks your interest:** Don't feel obligated to look up every single grey word. Focus on words that repeat often or seem essential to the sentence. - **Let the scheduler handle the pacing:** Words you look up again or encounter after a couple of days will automatically join your review rotation. You never have to manually build decks. - **Tune your settings as you grow:** As your vocabulary expands, feel free to turn off unseen word highlights in subtitle settings to enjoy a cleaner, more immersive watching experience. ## Frequently asked questions ### What do the four word colors mean in LingoDew? Grey marks unseen words you haven't looked up yet, blue marks queried words you've tapped to check their meaning, purple marks learning words currently in your active FSRS review queue, and green marks mastered words. By default, unseen, queried, and learning words are highlighted, while mastered words blend into the regular subtitle text. ### What is the difference between queried and learning? Queried is your saved lookup history: every word you tap is recorded with its source sentence and audio timestamp, with no limits. Learning is your active study queue. Words enter FSRS review automatically after a second lookup or after a 2-day buffer, and completing your first review promotes the word from queried to learning. ### Why are mastered words not highlighted by default? Once you know a word well, highlighting it only creates unnecessary visual clutter. Turning off highlights for mastered words lets you read subtitles naturally, drawing your attention only to vocabulary that still needs practice. You can always turn mastered highlights back on in subtitle settings if you prefer. ### How many words can I have in the learning state at once? The free tier supports up to 50 concurrent learning words per language, keeping your daily review sessions short and manageable. Queried and mastered words have no limits. If you prefer an uncapped review queue, LingoDew Pro unlocks unlimited learning words.