About EveryFive

Why five a day?

Open a vocabulary book, memorise fifty words in a day, and most of them are gone by tomorrow. That is not a failure of willpower — it is the forgetting curve, the ordinary way human memory works. EveryFive builds a daily habit around a manageable five, then shows those five again exactly when you are about to lose them.

How are reviews scheduled? (spaced repetition)

EveryFive uses the SM-2 spaced repetition algorithm. It calculates each person’s next review date based on how well they recalled a particular word. Words you get right easily come back at longer and longer intervals (a day, then several days, then weeks), while words you keep missing return more often. The order is not the same for everyone — you see the words you need, when you need them.

Is knowing the word enough to speak?

We do not think so. That is why every word comes with examples from real situations, and why you practise conversations set in hospitals, airports and workplaces by speaking them yourself. You can also learn pronunciation by listening to a native voice and repeating it. The goal is English you can use, not just English you recognise.

What we offer today

Every word includes meanings (English, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Spanish and Chinese), phonetic spelling with syllables and stress, and examples in context. You can read all of it without signing in, in our free dictionary and phrase collection. free dictionary · phrase collection

How the content is made

Word lists are selected by CEFR level and real usage frequency. They are split across six levels from A1 to C2, and again into everyday and academic/work tracks, so learners only meet words that match their level and purpose.

Beyond meaning and pronunciation, each word carries notes on when to use it, how the literal translation differs from the actual nuance, how it compares with similar words, and the mistakes learners commonly make. These notes are drafted with the help of a language model, but they are not published as-is. Automated checks first verify that no sentence was reused from another word, that the comparison of similar words goes beyond a bare list, and that length and format meet our thresholds. Anything that falls short is not published; it is written again.

learning guides — The learning guides are written by a person. They cover principles such as the forgetting curve and review intervals, retrieval practice, and why phrasal verbs are hard — and as a rule they include methods you can apply with nothing but paper and a pen, whether or not you use EveryFive.

If you find an error, please tell us. Reports that a meaning or an example reads unnaturally are prioritised for correction.

Who makes it

EveryFive is built and run by one person, Yongun Cho. With no outside investors or advertisers to answer to, one individual handles the planning, the engineering and the content — so features are added or dropped on a single test: does this help someone learn?

Questions about the service, reports of content errors, and partnership proposals are welcome at the address below. Replies usually take a few days. yongun.cho03@gmail.com

The service is funded by paid subscriptions, and free users may see ads on some screens. Ads are never placed in the middle of a study session — only on the completion screen and the progress screen. We believe an ad that interrupts a session gets in the way of building a habit.