The study timer

Yalango has a focus timer that follows you around the site while you're signed in. It's for the study you do off-screen as much as on it - reading a textbook, working through a grammar exercise, watching something in your target language.

Two modes

• Standard - an open-ended timer. Start it, study, stop it when you're done.
• Pomodoro - 25 minutes of focus, then a 5 minute break, with a long break after every 4 cycles. Breaks don't count toward your study time.

Pomodoro mode shows which cycle you're on and a row of dots for your progress through the round.

Earning stars

Focus sessions earn stars:

• 5 minutes - 1 star
• 30 minutes - 3 stars
• 60 minutes - 10 stars

A session has to reach 5 minutes to earn anything, sessions cap at 6 hours, and you can earn at most 30 stars per day from the timer. So it rewards genuinely sitting down to study, not starting and stopping the timer repeatedly.

What it does and doesn't track

The timer records time. Your daily goal, streak and spaced repetition schedule are driven by correct answers in games, and the timer doesn't touch any of those.

That means a long timed session with no reviews won't advance your streak, and a five-minute game session will. They're two separate measures, and you can see both under Stats.