NoaLingua Answer
Counting the words you actually know, in NoaLingua
Unique words, not cards — and why that is a different number from a vocabulary test
NoaLingua counts unique words — vient, venons and viendra are one verb met three times, not three words. That figure sits beside the number of saved cards under Vocabulary. It measures what you have actually met and kept, which is a different thing from a vocabulary-size test's estimate.
Short answer It counts unique words rather than cards or forms, and it counts what you met — it does not estimate a total from a test.
Step by step
Doing it with NoaLingua
- 1
Open Settings → Vocabulary
The Unique words figure sits next to the count of saved cards. The two differ, and the gap is the point: it is how much of your deck is the same words in different clothes.
- 2
Or look inside Learn → My material
The Unique words card lists one row per word rather than one per form. It is the honest answer to "how many words do I know", and the list under it is auditable rather than a single number you have to trust.
- 3
Read the status badges as you scan
New, Learning, Known and Due. Marking a word Known keeps it in the deck, searchable and reversible, and stops it appearing in sessions — so the count of known words means something you decided rather than something inferred.
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The detail behind the NoaLingua answer
Why this is not a vocabulary-size test
Vocabulary-size tests sample words from frequency bands, check which ones you recognise, and extrapolate a total. That is a reasonable estimate of passive recognition and it is a genuinely different measurement from this one — it tells you roughly how many words you would recognise, including ones you have never deliberately studied.
NoaLingua measures the other thing: words you met in real material, clicked, kept, and have been practising. The number is smaller and it is not an estimate of anything. If you want a size estimate, take a test; several good ones exist and NoaLingua does not pretend to replace them.
Why a noun-and-verb counts as two
A word that is both a noun and a verb is counted twice, because they are two things to learn. Forms of one lemma are counted once, because they are one thing to learn. That rule produces a number that matches what a learner means by "words I know" better than either extreme does.
This was wrong until version 0.2.28 and it is worth saying how: word identity included the language you translate into, so changing that language multiplied the count; and part of speech arrives with a grammar pack downloading in the background, so the same word saved before and after was not merged. The figure is now computed from the same list the page displays rather than by a separate pass, which is why the two can no longer disagree.
More questions people ask NoaLingua
Is the count per language?
Yes. The deck is per language — French and German behave like two separate accounts — so the badge, the notification, the corner button and the Learn tab always count the language you are currently learning.
Do words I marked Known still count?
They stay in the deck and stay counted. Marking a word Known removes it from sessions, never from your record, and it can be moved back at any time.
Can I get the list out?
Yes — CSV, JSON, a spreadsheet, or a real Anki package. Export is free on every plan, including at the free plan's save limit, because the record of your own work is yours.
Where this is documented on NoaLingua
Related NoaLingua answers
Try it on the next thing you were going to watch anyway.
Free, with every feature. No account, nothing to cancel, and your deck stays on your machine.
Add to Chrome — Free Add to Chrome Opens the Chrome Web Store listing NoaLingua — beyond dual subs: video, web, PDF — free, no account, Chrome 138 or newer.- Free, and not a trial Every feature on the free plan — both PDF modes, shadowing, all 30 practice formats.
- No account, no email Nothing to sign up for and nothing to cancel. There is no login screen at all.
- Two dropdowns to set up Pick what you are learning and what you want translations in. That is the whole setup.
- Your words stay yours Export to Anki, CSV, a spreadsheet or a full JSON profile — free on every plan.