How chorusing works in Fluency Refrain

Chorusing means saying a phrase out loud at the same time as a native-speaker voice — with it, not after it — over and over until your mouth keeps up. In Fluency Refrain that is the whole method. A studio-quality native-speaker voice loops a phrase you want to say, you speak in unison with it, and you slow it down when you need to and work back up to full speed. Review then brings each phrase back on a spaced-repetition schedule, and the phrases that are still hard to say go into your chorus queue for another round. The app plays the voice; it never listens to you or records you.

The voice and the tempo

Tap Chorus on a phrase and the voice starts looping it. On every repetition, say it with the voice, in time. Don’t wait for it to finish and don’t run ahead — the aim is one sound, two speakers.

The voices are studio-quality native-speaker voices in 80+ languages, including regional varieties. A voice says a phrase the same way every time, which is exactly what you want when you’re trying to match it.

Under the card is a tempo slider. Too fast? Slide toward the 🐢 to slow the voice, as far down as 0.5×, then work back toward 1.0× as the phrase gets easier. The voice won’t change speed on its own: you decide when you’re ready to go faster. That’s deliberate. Staying together at 0.8× is real progress, and pushing to full speed before you can keep up only rehearses mumbling.

Each phrase remembers its own tempo, so tomorrow it starts where you left it. Phrases you haven’t chorused yet start at full speed unless you change Starting tempo for new phrases in Settings › Chorusing — worth lowering if most of what you add is a stretch.

The gap and the reps

Between one repetition and the next is a short pause called the Gap. It’s there so you can breathe and reset before the voice starts again. A new install uses half a second; if you’re running out of air, raise Gap below the card. Like tempo, the gap is remembered per phrase, and Settings › Chorusing holds the default for phrases you haven’t adjusted.

The card counts your repetitions as you go. For a phrase on its own there’s no target: repeat until it feels easy. The one place a number matters is the chorus queue, below.

Review: what’s due, and nothing more

Your phrases are a bank to draw on, not a daily assignment. Getting started gives you a first set of eight, and after that you add a few at a time — whatever you actually want to be able to say. Nothing asks you to chorus all of them every day.

Review decides what comes back. Each card shows you the meaning. You say the phrase out loud, tap Reveal & hear to check yourself against the voice, then grade it Again, Hard, Good or Easy. The grade isn’t a score; it sets when the phrase comes back. Spaced repetition pushes the phrases you know further apart and brings the shaky ones back sooner. When nothing is due, there’s nothing to do.

“Chorus later” and the chorus queue

Review checks whether you remembered a phrase. Whether you sounded like the voice is something only you can judge — and that’s what Chorus later is for. Recalled it, but it didn’t sound right? Tap Chorus later before you grade, and the phrase joins your chorus queue. Grading a phrase Again or Hard puts it in the queue on its own.

The chorus queue is the short list worth chorusing today: the hard ones, not all of them. Review looks after the rest.

Practice runs the two in order. It starts with Review, then hands you the queue with a count — “3 to chorus” — so you know what’s waiting and why. Chorus each one, and 3 reps in one go clears a phrase from the chorus queue. If it still needs work after that, tap Chorus later on the card to keep it.

You can also open Chorus on its own any time and switch between your Chorus queue and All phrases, for the days you just want to say things out loud.

What “At full speed” and “Mastered” mean

Every phrase shows where it stands, on its row and in its details:

There are two tiers on purpose. Speed is something you can earn in one sitting; memory takes weeks. A phrase you can say at full speed but can’t yet recall isn’t finished, and neither is one you recall perfectly but can only say at 0.7×. Your language’s summary line counts both, as in “3 at full speed · 1 mastered”.

Chorusing vs shadowing

Shadowing, the better-known technique, has you repeat a recording a fraction of a second behind the speaker. Chorusing removes that lag: you speak at the same moment as the voice. Both train rhythm, stress and intonation by copying a native speaker. The difference is what you copy from. Shadowing still works from what you heard a moment ago, which leaves your first language a sliver of time to fill in. Chorusing works from what you’re hearing right now, and when your stress lands late you hear the two voices split apart.

Shadowing suits a running monologue. Chorusing suits the single sentence you want to say well, looped until it comes up to full speed — which is why Fluency Refrain is built around it. For the full shadowing routine, where it comes from and how to choose material, read the shadowing technique guide.

Trying it yourself

Pick one phrase you’ll genuinely need this week — ordering a coffee, apologizing for being late, asking someone to repeat themselves — and chorus it at whatever tempo lets you stay together with the voice. Nudge the slider up once it feels easy. If you’d like the app to handle the voice, the tempo and the scheduling for you, download Fluency Refrain on the App Store and start with your own first phrase.

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