Frequently Asked Questions

You can create a free account in seconds — just an email and your target level (or let us assess it as you go). No credit card required to start.

European Portuguese (português europeu) — not Brazilian Portuguese. Vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar all follow European conventions.

You can start at a self-estimated CEFR level (A1–C1), and the app adjusts automatically based on how you rate each lesson's difficulty ("too easy" / "too hard").

Not yet — Vocatua is currently web-only, which lets us move faster on new features. Mobile apps are planned for the medium term.

A Personal Lesson is a short reading text generated just for you — on any topic you type in, at your current level.

Yes — type any topic, from "ordering coffee in Lisbon" to "climate policy," and the app generates a text matched to your level.

Always your current level, based on your most recent onboarding estimate or settings adjustment — see "Levels & Difficulty" for how that's determined.

This depends on your plan. You'll always see your remaining count before generating — check the Plans page for current limits.

They're saved under "My Lessons" so you can revisit them, flag words, and review vocabulary — just like Library lessons.

Not by default — your Personal Lessons are private to you. Some may be selected by our team to join the shared Library, always anonymously and only after a review to ensure they don't contain sensitive or personal content.

The Library is our growing collection of pre-written lessons across a range of topics and levels — ready to read anytime, no generation wait required.

No — Library access is unlimited from the Free tier onward. It's one of the app's core features and always available, whether you're just getting started or on a paid plan. (Demo accounts have limited access — see Plans & Limits.)

Library lessons are pre-written and shared across all users; Personal Lessons are generated fresh, just for you, on a topic of your choosing. Both work the same way for reading, word-flagging, and vocabulary — think of the Library as ready-made practice, and Personal Lessons as on-demand and topic-specific.

By default, lessons are ordered by relevance to your level and preferred topics — see "Levels & Difficulty" for details. You can also switch to manual sort/filter options.

You estimate your level (CEFR, e.g. A1–C1) during onboarding. From there, the app fine-tunes it automatically based on your difficulty feedback on lessons.

Yes — you can adjust your level anytime in Settings, independent of the automatic feedback-based adjustment.

Every Personal Lesson is generated at your current level at the moment you request it.

The Library's default sort takes into account both your current level and your preferred topics (set during onboarding or updated later), so the lessons most relevant to you surface first. You can override this with manual filters and sorting anytime.

After any lesson — Library or Personal — you can mark it "too easy" or "too hard." Consistent feedback in one direction gradually shifts your level (e.g. B1 → B1+); mixed feedback resets the counter rather than changing anything.

When you tap a word while reading, it's saved to your vocabulary list with its translation and the sentence it appeared in. Flagging the same word again updates its context rather than creating a duplicate — your review history stays intact.

Review mode pulls from smart pools — recently added words, words you often get wrong, and words you haven't practiced in a while. Each answer counts as a review, even multiple times per day.

From the Vocabulary page, you can jump straight into a review session with one of three quick-start modes: Most Notorious (words that keep tripping you up), Recent & Untrained (words recently added but not yet practiced today), and New + Refresh (a mix of new words and ones due for review). You can also continue your previous session, or use manual sort/filter to build a custom review queue.

Not yet — this is on our roadmap. For now, saved words stay in your list once flagged.

Your streak counts consecutive days with at least one vocabulary review, based on your local date. It resets if you miss a day, but your personal best is always saved separately.

Tap the speaker icon next to any word or sentence to hear it spoken aloud in European Portuguese.

European Portuguese — matching the reading content, not Brazilian Portuguese.

Yes — you can adjust playback speed to slow down or speed up audio as needed.

No — Vocatua is a web app and requires an internet connection for all features, including audio.

Tap the translate icon on any sentence to see an instant English translation.

Not currently — translations are English-only for now.

Yes, generated to match the specific context of each sentence.

Vocatua uses AI throughout the learning experience: Google's Gemini model generates reading texts tailored to your chosen topic and level, translates individual words and sentences on demand, and Google Cloud's text-to-speech engine turns any word or sentence into spoken European Portuguese audio.

AI-generated content can occasionally include awkward phrasing or errors, like any language model output. If something looks wrong, we'd love your feedback via the Feedback option in the Help menu.

We currently use Google Gemini, but our system is built to work with other providers, so the underlying model may change over time without affecting how you use the app.

Your account data, saved vocabulary, and generated lessons are stored securely in the EU and are never sold or used for advertising.

All personal data is hosted on EU servers (Supabase EU region); audio generation runs on Google Cloud TTS's EU infrastructure.

Your topic inputs are sent to Google's Gemini API (text generation) and Google Cloud TTS (audio) as processing sub-processors. We don't share your data with advertisers.

There's currently no self-service deletion — contact us (see the Contact option in the Help menu) and we'll take care of it for you.

European Portuguese only, for now.

English only, for now.

English only, for now.

The app is built to support additional learning languages, translation languages, and interface languages in the future — but v1 focuses on English speakers learning European Portuguese.

Paid plans unlock higher limits across features like Personal Lesson generation and word flagging. Library access is unlimited on both. See the Plans page (Settings → Upgrade to Plus / Compare all plans) for full details.

You'll see exactly what's limited and when it resets — some limits refresh weekly, others unlock permanently when you upgrade.

Demo accounts are time-limited (24 hours) and intended for quick evaluation.