The study session problem
Most learning apps assume you'll sit down and study. Open the app, start a session, do your reps. It works - if you actually do it.
I never did it consistently. Not with Anki, not with Duolingo, not with flashcard sets I spent hours building. The habit kept breaking because it required a dedicated moment that kept not happening.
So I built something different.
Cards that come to you
LazyWords runs silently in the background and shows a small flashcard overlay on top of whatever you're doing - your browser, your editor, a spreadsheet, a video call. A card appears every few minutes, stays for a few seconds, then disappears.
You don't open it. You don't start a session. You just work, and the cards show up.
Think of it like background music. You're not focusing on it, but after a few weeks of it playing, you know all the words.
It's not just for language learning
LazyWords ships with English→Russian vocabulary and English definitions, but the real power is the import feature. Any CSV file with two columns works:
Medical students:
term,definition
Tachycardia,Heart rate exceeding 100 beats per minute
Dyspnea,Difficulty or labored breathing
Edema,Swelling caused by excess fluid in body tissues
Law students or paralegals:
term,definition
Tort,A civil wrong that causes harm or loss
Habeas corpus,Legal action requiring a person to be brought before a court
Injunction,Court order requiring a party to do or stop doing something
Developers learning a new stack:
term,definition
Idempotent,Operation that produces the same result no matter how many times it's applied
Race condition,Bug occurring when output depends on timing of uncontrollable events
Deadlock,Two processes each waiting for the other to release a resource
Preparing for a certification exam:
term,definition
VLAN,Virtual Local Area Network - logical grouping of devices on a network
NAT,Network Address Translation - maps private IPs to a public IP
Anything you need to absorb gradually - just make a CSV and import it.
How it fits into a real day
You open your laptop, LazyWords starts automatically. You work. Every few minutes a card appears in the corner of your screen - you glance at it, it's gone. After a few weeks you start noticing the words feel familiar. You didn't study. You just worked.
If a word sticks - press Ctrl+Shift+K to mark it as known. LazyWords stops showing it and moves on. That's the only interaction required.
What it doesn't do
No spaced repetition algorithm. No streaks to maintain. No guilt when you miss a day - because there's nothing to miss. It either runs or it doesn't.
This is a feature, not a limitation. The goal is zero friction, not optimal learning curves.
Try it
Free, Windows, no account required.
Download on GitHub · Microsoft Store
If you import it for something unusual - medical terms, legal vocab, a language that isn't English - I'd love to hear how it works for you.
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