iOS has supported home-screen and lock-screen widgets for several years now, but most people use them for weather, calendars, or battery stats - not language learning. Setting up a vocabulary widget takes a couple of minutes and turns a normally decorative part of your phone into something that actively works toward a goal you already have.
What You Need Before Starting
You need a language learning app that supports iOS widgets and has some vocabulary already saved to your account - the widget displays words from your personal list, so an empty list means an empty widget. In TransLearn, this means reading at least a little and tap-translating a handful of words first, so the widget has real content pulled from things you have actually encountered, rather than generic sample words.
Adding the Widget to Your Home Screen
Long-press an empty area of your home screen until the icons start to jiggle, then tap the plus icon in the top corner. Search for TransLearn in the widget gallery, choose the size that fits where you want to place it - small, medium, or large - and confirm. The widget now sits on your home screen and updates automatically as your saved vocabulary changes.
Adding It to Your Lock Screen
On iOS, lock-screen widgets are added separately from home-screen widgets. Long-press your lock screen, tap Customize, select the lock screen, and tap the widget area below the clock. Choose TransLearn from the list and place it. This is often the higher-value placement, since you see your lock screen more often throughout the day than any single home-screen page.
Choosing How Often Words Rotate
Depending on the widget size and app settings, you can control how frequently the displayed word changes. A faster rotation means more variety but less repeated exposure to any single word; a slower rotation means fewer new words per day but stronger reinforcement of each one. There is no universally correct setting - it depends on whether you are trying to review a smaller set of words heavily or cycle through a larger vocabulary more lightly.
Making the Most of It
The widget only works if you actually look at it, which mostly takes care of itself since you already glance at your lock screen constantly. The main habit worth building deliberately is periodically adding new words to your saved list through reading, so the widget keeps showing fresh material instead of cycling through the same handful of words for months.