Mayu builds your daily queue with one rule: whichever due card has been waiting longest goes first. It pulls every card whose due date has already passed, sorts that list oldest-due-first, and stops. New cards and review cards are not split into separate buckets and then interleaved; they compete on the same due date field, because a brand-new card's due date is set to the moment you add it, the same field an overdue review card missed three weeks ago. So the first card in today's session is whichever one has been sitting due the longest, whether that's a review you've been avoiding or a card you added ten minutes ago. The one exception: a card tied to a lesson you haven't opened yet stays out of the queue until you open that lesson, even if its due date has technically passed.
I don't play favorites. That review you've been dodging since last Tuesday and the card you just added five minutes ago are both just a timestamp to me, and whichever timestamp is older wins the top slot, no exceptions and no pity points for being new.
What order does Mayu show your Telugu cards in?
Mayu sorts every due card by due date, oldest first, and that's the only sort key it uses. It doesn't break ties by how hard a card is, what state it's in (new, learning, review, relearning), or how long ago you added it. The queue is a single flat list, not four separate lists stitched together.
Mayu's take: I'm not clever about this on purpose. A simple "oldest first" rule is easy to reason about, and you'll never wonder why a card you added last month is buried behind one you added yesterday.
Does Mayu show new cards or overdue reviews first?
Neither is guaranteed to go first, because new cards and review cards are sorted together by the exact same field. When you add a card, its due date defaults to right now, the instant it's created. An overdue review card also has a due date, just one that's further in the past. Sort both by that field, oldest first, and a review card that's been due for two weeks beats a card you added an hour ago, but a card you added this morning beats a review that's only been due since lunch. There's no "reviews before new" rule and no separate "new cards session." It's one queue, and age of the due date decides order.
Mayu's take: if it feels like a fresh card jumped ahead of an old one, check when you actually added it. Newer than you think, probably.
Why don't lesson cards show up before I've opened their lesson?
A card that's part of a lesson path stays out of your queue until you've opened that lesson, even if its due date has already passed. Cards you add yourself, one at a time, standalone with no lesson attached, don't have this restriction; the moment they're due, they're in the queue like anything else. The gate only applies to cards bundled into a lesson unit, and it exists so a lesson can introduce a word to you before Mayu starts quizzing you on it. Opening the lesson flips the switch; after that, the card behaves exactly like a standalone card and competes on due date same as everything else.
Mayu's take: this isn't Mayu being stingy. It's the difference between a pop quiz and a pop quiz on a chapter you haven't read yet.
What happens if I add way more cards than I can review in a day?
Nothing breaks and the queue doesn't run short, even with the lesson gate filtering some cards back out. Mayu pulls a bigger batch of due cards than your daily limit before checking which ones are gated, so filtering out lesson cards you haven't opened yet doesn't leave you staring at a thin session when due cards actually exist. You'll still only review however many you actually get through in a sitting, just from the pool of cards that are eligible to show. Add a hundred cards standalone and only review twenty a day, and the other eighty wait their turn, oldest-due-first, same as always.
Mayu's take: pile on as many cards as you want. The queue does the sorting; you just show up.
Words for talking about time and order
| Transliteration | Telugu script | English | When to use |
|---|---|---|---|
| samayam | సమయం | time | asking how much time a review session will take |
| nimisham | నిమిషం | minute | telling someone "one minute" while you finish a card |
| ganta | గంట | hour, o'clock | talking about how long you've been reviewing |
| vachche nela | వచ్చే నెల | next month | talking about something scheduled for later, like a card due next month |
Try it
- Add a standalone card right now, then check tomorrow whether it shows up before or after your oldest overdue review. It's the due date, not the card type, that decides.
- Open a lesson you've been putting off and watch its cards join the queue on your next session instead of sitting invisible.
- Add a batch of ten new cards in one sitting and notice they don't all show up in the order you typed them; they sort by the second each one was created.
- If a card feels like it "jumped the line," check its due date in the card library before assuming the queue is wrong.
- Let your standalone deck grow past what you get through in a week, then confirm the app never runs out of cards to show you.
FAQ
Does Mayu review all your new cards before moving to overdue ones? No. New and overdue cards sort together by due date, oldest first, so an old overdue review usually comes before a card you just added.
Can I make a card show up sooner by editing it? Not directly through order alone; the due date on the card's state is what controls when it enters the queue, and that only changes through review activity, not manual reordering.
Why does a lesson card I added weeks ago still not show up? It's tied to a lesson you haven't opened yet. Opening that lesson is what makes the card eligible for the queue, regardless of how long it's been sitting due.
Does adding way more cards than I can review in a day hurt anything? No. Mayu keeps sorting the full backlog oldest-due-first and only serves as many cards as you actually review each session.
Is the review order different for standalone cards versus cards from a lesson path? Only before the lesson is opened. Once opened, a lesson card behaves exactly like a standalone one and sorts purely by due date.
Try Mayu
Open your queue and see for yourself what's been waiting the longest.
