Skip to main content
Voice learning is Dear’s way of building a picture of how you write. As you type, Dear counts the words you produce yourself and uses that growing sample to derive patterns — your rhythm, vocabulary, and recurring phrases — that it can feed back into AI suggestions.

​
What counts as a human-written word

Dear distinguishes between text you type and text you accept from AI suggestions.
  • Counted: Characters you type directly into the Write canvas or index cards in Outline.
  • Not counted: AI completions you accept with Tab, AI-generated headers on index cards, or text pasted in from other sources.
This distinction matters because the goal is to learn your voice, not to measure document length.
Your human-written word total is stored per device. If you sign in on another browser or device, Dear syncs the higher of the two totals so you never lose progress — but the daily breakdown stays local.

​
The progress meter

The Voice learning progress bar in AI preferences shows a percentage from 0 to 100. It follows a smooth saturation curve: early words count for more progress, and gains slow as the sample grows. The formula is: 100 × (1 − e^(−words / 2200)) This means:
  • Around 2,200 words you reach roughly 63% progress.
  • Around 4,800 words you reach roughly 88%.
  • Reaching 100% requires a very large sample — the curve asymptotes rather than reaching a hard ceiling.

​
Progress milestones

The milestone label appears next to your percentage in the Track my writing voice section of AI preferences.

​
Key patterns

Once your rolling on-device sample reaches a minimum word threshold, Dear derives key patterns — brief labels that describe recurring features of your writing. These appear as badges in the voice learning panel.
  • Patterns are computed entirely on your device from the text in your Write drafts and index cards.
  • They update as your corpus grows.
  • Nothing in this analysis is sent to a server.
If your sample is still below the minimum threshold, you’ll see “Not enough sample yet” in place of pattern badges. The panel shows your current word count and how many more words are needed.
Key patterns become more descriptive the more you write across different documents. Writing on a single topic will produce a narrower sample than writing across several pieces.

​
Enabling and disabling voice tracking

Voice tracking is on by default. To turn it off, open AI preferences (user menu → AI preferences) and toggle Track my writing voice off. When tracking is off:
  • New typing is not added to your on-device sample.
  • Your existing human-written word total and progress percentage are preserved.
  • Key patterns stop updating.
  • AI suggestions no longer receive the voice maturity hint.
You can re-enable tracking at any time and Dear picks up where it left off.

​
The language bank

Alongside voice learning, Dear maintains a language bank: a running index of the distinct words, recurring 2–3 word phrases, and transition expressions that appear in your writing. The language bank has three tabs: Each entry is labeled New, Learning, Reliable, or Strong based on how frequently it appears in your corpus relative to other entries.

​
Using the language bank in suggestions

The Use my language bank toggle (on by default) tells Dear to prefer your saved vocabulary and phrasing when generating suggestions. You can view the bank at any time from AI preferences → View word bank, View phrase bank, or View transitions bank. To disable language bank influence without turning off voice learning entirely, toggle Use my language bank off independently.

​
Privacy

All voice learning happens on your device:
  • Your writing corpus never leaves the browser.
  • Key patterns are derived locally and are not uploaded.
  • The voice maturity percentage is computed locally and sent only as a numeric hint alongside AI generation requests — the text itself is not sent.

​
Related