You recognise make progress when you read it, and you pick it out easily in an exercise. But when a colleague asks how the report is going, the sentence that forms in your head is We did a big progress. That is the gap between passive and active vocabulary: you know the word, but you can’t use it yet. LetsWords closes that gap. You recall the expression without a hint and build sentences with it. The trainer points out usage and grammar mistakes, suggests a correction and explains it, and spaced repetition makes the result stick. Below, we walk through the whole process with one expression.
Get to know the expression with free exercises
If you came here from a free exercise, you’ve already taken the first step. Free LetsWords exercises cover more than 1,500 expressions in eight sections, with no sign-up needed. Each one comes with its meaning, pattern, examples, a common mistake and an exercise that checks your answer. The Collocations section, for example, covers combinations with make, take, get and keep, as well as adjectives with prepositions.
That helps you understand the expression. But in an exercise, the answer is right there among the options: on the make progress page, you choose between made and did. An email to a colleague gives you no options. Next, you need to learn to pull the expression out of memory and use it without mistakes. That’s what the LetsWords vocabulary trainer teaches you.
Recall the expression from memory
During review in LetsWords, you see the meaning in your native language, something like “improve, get closer to a goal”. You have to come up with the English expression yourself. If you’re stuck, you can open a hint.
This is active recall. Picking a word out of two options is easy. Pulling it out of your memory is exactly what you need in conversations and emails, where nobody offers you a hint.
Put the expression to work
You’ve recalled make progress. Now use it: write a sentence about something real in your life or work. Say you want to tell a colleague that you’ve moved noticeably forward on the report and that the introduction and the results section are already done.
You’ve only just recalled the expression, but in a longer sentence your first language pulls you back towards do: many languages use one verb for both make and do. Your first attempt:
We did a big progress on the report: the introduction and the results are ready.
A flashcard won’t catch this mistake, because you recalled the expression itself correctly. The error only shows up when you build the sentence yourself.
LetsWords feedback example: one sentence, four fixes
LetsWords feedback comes in brief and detailed formats. Here is what the detailed version shows.
What needs fixing.
- did → made. The verb that goes with progress is make. If your first language has a single verb for both, it can’t guide you here. You can practise the difference in the make vs do exercise.
- The extra a. In this sense, progress is uncountable, as Cambridge’s grammar guide points out, so it doesn’t take a.
How to say it more precisely.
- big → significant. To show how much progress, English usually uses good, great or significant. Big progress sounds unnatural, and significant captures the “noticeably” in your original idea.
- the results → the results section. The results are the outcomes of the work itself. What’s ready is a section of the report, so you need the results section.
The corrected version:
We made significant progress on the report: the introduction and the results section are ready.
The idea is still yours. Only the collocation, the article and the precision of the wording have changed. Now you have more than a translation: you have a working pattern, make progress on + a project. The feedback takes your goal into account: for general English, it focuses on practical usage; for an exam, it also checks whether your vocabulary suits a written answer.
Use the expression in a new situation
One correct sentence doesn’t make an expression active yet. Use it where the tense, the preposition and the meaning change:
The town is making progress towards safer cycling routes.
Now it’s is making, because the process is happening right now. Instead of on and a project, you have towards and a goal.
Test the limits of the meaning, too:
We made progress on the application.
We met the application deadline.
The first sentence doesn’t mean the application was submitted: the work has only moved forward. The second says you finished on time. LetsWords feedback checks this as well: whether the expression actually fits what your sentence means. The meet a deadline page also explains this difference.
Try it yourself: your team has finished two of five sections, and the report is due in a week. Write a progress update without claiming everything is done. A possible answer:
We have made good progress on the report, but we still need to write three sections.
The expression comes back in review
Spaced repetition brings make progress back in later sessions, based on how you did before. You see the meaning again, recall the expression and write a new sentence, for example about your English:
I’m making steady progress with my English: I can now explain a problem to a colleague without switching languages.
If an old mistake comes back, the feedback will point it out, and you’ll lock in the correction with a new example.
Why this works
- Active recall. In Karpicke and Roediger’s experiment, students remembered the words they kept recalling far better a week later than the words they only reread. In LetsWords, you rebuild the English expression from its meaning every time instead of recognising it among options.
- Spaced repetition. A review by Cepeda and colleagues brought together studies on how spreading out study sessions affects later recall: spaced practice beats back-to-back sessions. In LetsWords, the expression returns in later sessions instead of staying in a single lesson.
- Using words in writing. In Hulstijn and Laufer’s experiments, learners who wrote their own text with new words remembered them best. Those who filled in gaps remembered them less well, and those who only read remembered them least. In LetsWords, you write something yourself with every expression, and the feedback shows what to fix and why.
Who it’s for
English for work and everyday life. Learn words from your emails, work tasks and reading: add them to personal collections, or start with ready-made collections of collocations, phrasal verbs and idioms. Write about your own situations: a report, a meeting, an email to a client. Want to think in English? Choose English explanations and reveal the translation only when you need it. If you already study with flashcards, you keep recall and spaced repetition in LetsWords and gain feedback on word usage and grammar. Read more in our comparison of flashcards and active practice.
IELTS. Start with exam vocabulary, academic words and expressions. The feedback takes your exam goal into account, so even a single sentence trains the precise vocabulary examiners assess under Lexical Resource. The same make progress works in Task 2:
Many governments have made considerable progress in reducing air pollution, but traffic congestion remains a serious problem in large cities.
The next step is IELTS Writing in LetsWords. From a single sentence, you move on to criterion practice: part of an answer that targets your weakest criterion. Then comes a full Task 1 or Task 2 answer with detailed feedback on all four criteria. There are hundreds of tasks for Academic and General Training.
Where to start
Move from recognising words to using them: you recall an expression from its meaning and write a sentence with it, and LetsWords points out the mistake, explains it and brings the expression back in review until it becomes part of your working vocabulary. When you sign up, answer a few questions about your goal and level, and LetsWords will set up your practice. You can try the feedback before you pay.
Start vocabulary practice in LetsWords and turn the words you recognise into words you use.