Recognizing a word is not the same as recalling it. Swiftflip can schedule each card in a deck both ways, so you practice producing the answer from either side.
Why direction matters
A vocabulary card that always shows the foreign word first trains recognition. The harder skill, recalling the foreign word from your own language, never gets practiced. Review Both Directions closes that gap: each card carries a Front → Back review and a Back → Front review.
The separation matters. Knowing a card well in one direction does not silence the other. Each direction earns its own intervals, so the side you struggle with comes back sooner.
Turn it on per deck
Review Both Directions is a per-deck toggle. Turn it on when you create a deck, or later from Edit Deck, on iPhone, iPad or Mac. It suits vocabulary and terminology decks, and you can leave it off where only one direction makes sense, like questions with long answers.
Expect daily reviews to grow when you turn it on, since each direction keeps its own schedule. Turning it off returns the deck to Front → Back practice and keeps the progress of both directions.
What a session looks like
Due cards from both directions appear in your normal practice sessions. A card shows the side whose review is due, so the same card can open front first today and back first tomorrow. Due counts, Smart Decks, notifications and mastery calculations follow both directions, so the numbers you see stay honest.
It travels with your library
Direction progress is part of your library data. It syncs through iCloud, carries across Handoff mid-session, is included in Swiftflip Archive exports and shows up in card insights, where each direction reports its own history.
Pick a direction deliberately
For a single sitting, Custom Practice adds a First Side option: front, back or random per card. That is the quickest way to force one direction for a session without changing the deck’s setting.
Get started
Open a deck’s Edit Deck screen and turn on Review Both Directions. The guide walks through the toggle, the separate schedules and how to read the insights afterwards.