A review schedule that compresses as your departure date gets closer
Phrazl schedules your reviews backwards from your departure date, so "which platform for the airport train?" comes back on the Tuesday before you fly, not the Tuesday after. It is built to run SM-2 spaced repetition with interval compression calibrated to that date as a hard deadline, and it is pre-launch today, so joining the waitlist is the way in.
Spaced repetition was built for forever, and your flight is on the 14th
If you have a date on a boarding pass, the scheduling problem in front of you is not the one most flashcard tools were built to solve. Phrazl is built around an SM-2 spaced repetition scheduler with interval compression calibrated to your trip's departure date as a hard deadline, which means no phrase is ever queued for a day after you have already landed. Phrazl is in build, so everything on this page is what the scheduler is made to do, and the thing available today is the waitlist.
Classic spaced repetition pushes a correctly answered card further and further out, on the quiet assumption that you will still be studying this language in two years. That bet is excellent for a linguist and useless for someone whose flight leaves on the 14th. A phrase pushed to a twenty-one day interval on the day you book is a phrase you may say out loud once before you go. A review scheduled for the week after you land is not a review, it is a note to self about a trip that already happened.
What you are actually trying to do
You want to say "a table for two, please", "can I pay by card?" and "which platform for the airport train?" out loud, clearly enough to be understood, by a fixed date. You are not building a vocabulary for life. That is a scheduling problem with a wall at the end of it, and it deserves a scheduler that knows the wall is there.
The opposite failure is cramming the night before, which is the least efficient way to hold onto pronunciation. Spacing beats cramming, and a deadline needs spacing that fits inside the deadline. Those two ideas are not in conflict, they just need the date as an input.
What interval compression means here
SM-2, the algorithm published with SuperMemo, does the part you would expect. Each phrase carries an ease value and an interval. Recall it comfortably and the interval grows. Fumble it and the interval shrinks and the phrase comes back soon, because a phrase you half know is the one that will desert you at the ticket machine.
The compression is the part built for travellers. Every proposed interval is measured against the days you have left before departure. With eight weeks in hand there is room to let strong phrases drift out and spend your attention on the shaky ones. With ten days in hand that room does not exist, so intervals are held tighter and the whole set keeps circulating inside the window you actually have. The deadline is treated as a limit rather than a suggestion, and where SM-2 asks for a gap that would land past your flight, the deadline wins.
The practical upshot is that two travellers with the same destination and the same scenarios can be handed very different weeks, because the only real difference between them is how many days are left. One gets spacing measured in weeks. The other gets spacing measured in hours and days, which is still spacing, just with less generosity in it.
How the schedule gets built
- You set a departure date during setup
Trip setup is three steps: destination, departure date, then up to three scenarios from restaurant, transport, hotel, emergency and shopping. The date is the boundary the scheduler works back from, so it is the day you fly, not the day you start packing.
- Phrases enter in trip-relevance order
The phrase set for your destination and scenarios is pre-curated and ranked by how likely you are to need it on the trip, so the queue starts at the useful end rather than the alphabet.
- Each phrase carries its own state
From your first review onward, every phrase holds the result you gave it, its current interval and the time it is next due. The queue is assembled from what you have held onto and what you have not.
- Your answers move the next review
Recall a phrase cleanly and its next review moves further out. Reach for it and not find it and it returns quickly. The words you find awkward get the repetitions, which is the entire point.
- The days remaining trim the gaps
Before a next review time is committed, it is checked against the calendar. As the date closes in, the gaps close with it.
- You watch coverage, not a streak
Progress is a single trip bar labelled as curriculum coverage completed. No streaks, no XP. Skip a Tuesday and the schedule recalculates around the date, because the date is the only thing that was ever holding you to account.
What a departure-calibrated schedule changes for you
Every review you are handed can still change your first day
Nothing is parked beyond the flight, so the reviews in front of you are the ones that can still affect how you sound at the hotel desk on arrival.
A late booking does not need a plan of your own
Book three weeks out and you do not have to work out your own pacing. The scheduler fits itself to the time available and hands you the phrases in trip-relevance order.
The phrases you keep dropping come back fastest
Anything you miss returns sooner, while the lines you say without thinking step back and stop eating sessions you do not have many of.
No streak to protect, so no reason to fake it
One progress bar, reporting coverage. Miss a day and you have missed a day, not a 47-day monument to opening an app at 11.58pm.
You pick up where your recall actually is
Because the result, interval and next review time are kept per phrase, the next session resumes from your real state rather than restarting you at the front of the deck.
Who this is for, and who it is not
This is for the traveller with a date on a boarding pass and a short list of moments they would rather not fumble: ordering, paying, asking which platform, checking in. You want to be polite and understood, not fluent, and you want the practice aimed at the day you arrive.
It is not a study system for long-term fluency, and the schedule makes no attempt to predict how a conversation will go. The coverage bar reports how much of your phrase set you have worked through, and nothing more. What happens at the counter still depends on you, the noise in the room, and whether the person behind it is having a good afternoon. If you pick the emergency set, the selection screen carries a disclaimer and the terms repeat it: those phrases are general communication practice, not a substitute for contacting local emergency services or a qualified interpreter.
What the schedule will run on
Setup offers ten destinations, each in its own language: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, China, South Korea, Thailand and Greece. Choose up to three scenarios and the scheduler works across the phrase set those choices produce, in three practice modes: flashcard, listen and repeat with audio playback, and fill in the blank. The audio is a synthesised voice rather than a native speaker, and the app says so on the screens where you hear it.
What it will cost when it opens
Nothing is on sale yet, so none of this is a checkout instruction. When it opens, the free preview will cover the first 20 phrases of one trip and include trip setup, audio on every preview phrase and the departure countdown with the review schedule, which is enough to watch the intervals compress before you spend anything. The trip pack is priced at $9.99 once for one destination with up to three of the five scenarios and 50 phrases per scenario, up to 150 in all. The full bundle is $19.99 once and covers all ten languages and all five scenarios, which matters if you have more than one trip ahead, since any single trip is set up with up to three scenarios at a time. Both are one-time purchases rather than subscriptions, so there will be nothing to cancel when you get home, and a returning traveller discount of $5 is set to apply at checkout on a second destination. Owned trip packs are listed on a basic account and purchase history screen, so you can see what a trip is running on.
Questions
Is Phrazl available yet?
Not yet. Phrazl is in build and the waitlist is open, so you can put your name down and hear when trip packs go on sale. Everything described on this page is what the product is built to do, not a report on other people's trips.
Is this the same algorithm flashcard apps use?
The scheduler is SM-2, the spaced repetition algorithm published with SuperMemo, so the recall-and-interval behaviour will feel familiar if you have used a flashcard tool. The difference is that every interval is compressed against your departure date instead of running into an open future.
My trip is in ten days. Does spaced repetition still make sense?
Yes, but the schedule will be tight. With ten days the scheduler cannot let intervals drift, so phrases circulate more often and the set stays inside the window. It is still spacing rather than cramming, just spacing measured in hours and days rather than weeks.
Do I have to review every day to keep it working?
The schedule is driven by your departure date and your review history, not by a streak. Skip a day and the remaining days absorb it. There is no penalty screen and no XP to lose, because the only thing that matters is how many phrases you have covered before you fly.
Where does the departure date come from?
From trip setup, which is three steps: destination, departure date, and up to three scenarios from restaurant, transport, hotel, emergency and shopping. The date you pick there is what the scheduler treats as the hard deadline.
What if my flight moves, or I mistyped the date?
The whole compression hangs off the departure date you set at setup. Every trip has an edit screen, and for a trip you have not bought the pack for, you can delete it and its review history from there and set it up again with the new date, the same three steps as the first time. A trip you have paid for stays on your account.
Will I be able to see the review schedule before paying?
That is what the free preview is for. It is planned to cover the first 20 phrases of one trip and to include trip setup, synthesised-voice audio on every preview phrase, and the departure countdown with the review schedule, which is enough to watch intervals compress before you spend anything. The $9.99 trip pack then opens 50 phrases per scenario for that destination, up to 150 across three scenarios.
What will Phrazl store to make the schedule work?
Your trips, meaning destination, departure date and chosen scenarios, and your review history per phrase: the result, the interval and the next review time. That history is what lets the scheduler decide what you practise next and show curriculum coverage. Alongside it, Phrazl keeps funnel milestones, one timestamped record per trip when you set it up, finish the free 20, see the paywall, start a checkout or complete a purchase, so it is clear where travellers stop between signing up and buying. Sign-in is email and password. As for removing it: a trip you have not bought the pack for can be deleted along with its review history from that trip's edit screen, while a trip you have paid for stays on your account, as the timing question above explains. Whatever you have bought, you can delete the whole account, trips, review history, purchase records and support requests together, from your