Fill-in-the-Blanks Exercises

Practice and tests help you learn words one at a time. But that is not how language actually works -- words live inside sentences, paragraphs, and real stories. Fill-in-the-blanks exercises close that gap.

Pick a handful of words from any deck, and Snap to Learn writes a short, original text in your target language that weaves those words into it naturally. The words you chose are then blanked out, and you fill them back in -- by handwriting or keyboard, just like practice. It is the on-demand version of a teacher's gap-fill worksheet, built around exactly the vocabulary you are studying.

Where to find it

Open any deck. Alongside the Practicing and Mastered tabs, you will see a third tab: Exercises. This is where every exercise you generate for that deck lives.

The Exercises tab inside a deck, listing three fill-in-the-blanks exercises with their difficulty and blank counts, and a dictation

Each exercise card shows its title and one line with the difficulty, the number of blanks and the date, for example "Easy · 9 blanks · Oct 7". A green check appears on exercises you have already played. Tap a card to open it, or press and hold it to delete it.

If you have not made any exercises yet, the tab shows a short explainer and an empty space waiting to be filled. Tap the New exercise button at the bottom to create your first one.

Creating an exercise

Tapping New exercise opens the Create an exercise sheet. This is where you choose what goes into your text. The line under the title shows how many exercises you have left.

Three kinds of exercise. Depending on the language of your deck, the tabs at the top of the sheet offer up to three kinds: Vocabulary, Tenses (every blank is one of your verbs, to be written in the right tense -- see Verb Forms and Tenses) and Dictation (the app reads a text aloud and you write it down -- see Dictation). One line under the tabs says what the selected kind does. The steps below are for Vocabulary exercises.

The Create an exercise sheet: 3 exercises left under the title, the Vocabulary, Tenses and Dictation tabs, the Random 15 button, a list of words with circular checkboxes, and the Generate · 0/4 button

1. Pick your words. Scroll the list and tap any word to select it. Each selected word will become one blank in the finished text. You need to choose between 4 and 15 words -- enough to make a real paragraph, but not so many that the text becomes a wall of gaps. A live counter above the list (for example, "10 of 15 selected") keeps you on track. In a hurry? Tap Random 15 to let the app choose for you.

The sheet with ten words selected and the Generate button enabled

2. Choose a difficulty. The Easy / Medium / Hard toggle controls how challenging the text is -- not how many blanks it has. Every word you picked becomes a blank regardless of difficulty.

Easy -- simpler vocabulary and shorter, more direct sentences. Best when you are newer to the language or just want a confidence-builder.
Medium -- a natural, everyday register. A good default for most learners.
Hard -- richer, more complex prose closer to what you would meet in real reading. Most challenging to fill in.

No matter which difficulty you choose, the in-exercise help tools (a hint and a reveal-a-letter button) are always available while you play -- so a hard text never leaves you stuck.

3. Tap Generate. The button is enabled once you have 4 to 15 words selected. Until then, it shows how many words you have, for example Generate · 2/4. (More on the exercises you have left in What it costs below.)

While your exercise is being written

Generating an exercise is not instant -- the app writes a brand-new, coherent text around your specific words, which takes a moment. You can leave the sheet right away; a banner on the Exercises tab keeps you posted.

The Exercises tab showing a "Writing your exercise..." progress banner above the existing exercises

It usually takes around 30 seconds. When it is done, the new exercise appears at the top of the list, ready to play. If something goes wrong (for example, the words could not be woven into a sensible text), the app tells you and automatically refunds the generation -- you are never charged for an exercise you did not get.

Tip: Generation needs an internet connection. Once an exercise exists, though, you can play it anytime, even offline.

Playing an exercise

Tap any exercise to open its preview: it lists the words in the exercise (Words in this exercise), so you know what you are about to practice. Tap Start exercise to begin. You will see the full text with your chosen words replaced by numbered blanks. The blank you are currently on is highlighted, and your answer appears right inside the text as you write it.

An exercise in progress: a French text with numbered blanks and a control bar at the bottom

Typing or handwriting

Just like practice and test mode, you can answer either way:

Keyboard -- type your answer and it fills the active blank live.
Handwriting -- write the word with your finger or a stylus, and the app recognizes it.

Tap the pencil / keyboard icon in the control bar to switch between the two at any time. (Your choice carries over from the rest of the app, so if you usually practice by hand, exercises start in handwriting mode too.)

The same exercise with the keyboard open, typing into the first blank

Answering a blank by handwriting on the canvas at the bottom of the screen

Checking an answer

When you have written something, tap Check.

Not sure how it starts? Tap +1 (the eye, next to Check) to reveal one more letter of the answer, one tap at a time, before you check. A small peek is free; lean on it for more than a couple of letters and that blank is counted as "assisted" rather than a clean win.

If you are right, the word turns green in the text and the button becomes Correct -- continue. Tap it to move to the next blank.
If you are wrong, your answer is struck through and the correct word is shown in green right next to it, so you learn the right spelling immediately. Tap Continue to move on.

A checked blank showing the wrong answer struck through with the correct word in green beside it, and a Continue button

Snap to Learn is forgiving in a sensible way: it accepts both the exact form used in the text and the dictionary form of the word you are studying. So if the story uses an inflected form but you type the base word you have been learning, you are still marked correct.

The control bar

Along the bottom of the screen you have everything you need to work through the text at your own pace:

Skip -- jump to the next blank without answering. You can always come back to it.
Hint (the lightbulb) -- opens the word's translation, definition, and an audio pronunciation, the same hint you get in practice.
Pencil / keyboard -- switch input modes (described above).
Finish -- reveal all remaining blanks and jump straight to your results.
Progress bar -- the row of segments shows every blank's status at a glance (answered, correct, current). Tap any segment to jump directly to that blank -- you are never forced to go in order.

If you try to leave an exercise partway through, the app asks you to confirm, since your progress on that play-through is not saved until you finish.

Your results

When every blank has been answered (or you tapped Finish), you reach the completion screen. It celebrates a strong run and encourages you on a tough one -- either way, every attempt counts.

The exercise completion screen with a score message, a "Learn it together" share card, the Share deck button and the round Replay button

Tap Review answers to see a full breakdown: every blank, the correct word, and how you did on each one (correct, revealed with a hint, what you wrote, or left blank).

The Review answers sheet listing each blank, the correct word, and a status icon

From here you can:

Replay the same exercise with the round button next to Share deck -- free and unlimited, as many times as you like.
Tap the ✓ at the top right to return to the Exercises tab.
Use the Share deck card to send the whole deck to a friend so you can tackle the words together.

A few things worth knowing

Exercises never change your mastery. Filling in blanks is pure practice -- it does not affect a word's "7 correct spellings" progress or move anything to your Mastered list. It tracks its own separate stats (exercises completed, words right and wrong).
Replaying is always free. Only creating a new exercise uses a generation. Once it exists, play it as often as you want at no cost.
Exercises travel with shared decks. When you share a deck, the exercises you have generated come along with it -- whoever imports the deck gets to play them for free, without spending any generations of their own.
Delete anytime. Press and hold an exercise card and choose Delete to remove one you are done with.

What it costs

Creating an exercise is the one part of this feature that uses credits, because each one is written fresh for you by AI.

Everyone gets 3 free exercises to try the feature -- a one-time allowance, not monthly.
A fill-in-the-blanks or tense exercise counts as 1, a dictation as 2, because the app also records two readings of its text.
After that, exercise generation is a subscriber benefit. A Monthly or Yearly subscription includes 50 exercises every month, which refill at the start of each billing month.
When you run out, the app explains what happened -- whether you have used your 3 free tries or your monthly allowance -- and points you to the right place to continue.

Note that scan packs do not include exercise generations -- they only add scan credits for creating decks. Exercise generation comes with a subscription. For the full breakdown of plans and pricing, see Settings and Account.

As always, playing and replaying existing exercises is completely free -- the credit is only ever for writing a new one.