Guessing a whole saying
Phrase Guess hides a short English phrase, such as an idiom, a saying or a familiar two-word term, and gives you six guesses to fill in every letter. The board shows the word breaks from the start, so you always know how many words there are and how long each one is.
The extra colour is what sets it apart. Green and grey work as you would expect. Yellow means the letter is in the same word but a different slot. Purple means the letter is in the phrase, but in a different word. That split tells you not only that a letter belongs, but which side of a gap it belongs on.
Your first guess is a survey
The board only checks that every slot is filled before it accepts a guess. It does not insist that each word is real. That gives you a choice. You can open with a real phrase that fits the shape, or you can fill the slots with a spread of common letters to learn as much as possible.
Either way, the aim of row one is coverage. Use different letters rather than repeats, and lean on frequent ones: E, T, A, O, I, N, S, R, H and L. Try to put at least one vowel in every word, because every word in the answer has one.
Reading four colours
Here is a worked example. The board shows a five-letter word and a three-letter word. You type STARE in the first word and LIN in the second. The colours come back like this:
- S, A, R and E are grey. None of them is in the phrase.
- T is yellow. It is in the first word, but not in the second slot.
- L is yellow. It is in the second word, but not first.
- I and N are purple. Both belong in the first word, not the second.
Now the first word has T, I and N in it, and no S, A, R or E. The second word is three letters, with L in the second or third slot. A short word that fits is OWL. A five-letter word with I, N and T and none of the ruled-out letters is NIGHT. One guess later, you can try NIGHT OWL.
Notice how much the purple did. Without it, you would not know whether I and N went in the short word or the long one.
When a letter appears more than once in a phrase, each copy in the answer matches only one slot in your guess. Greens are given out first, then yellows within the same word, then purples. So a grey copy of a letter can sit next to a coloured copy of the same letter. It means there are no more copies to match, not that the letter is absent.
Mistakes to avoid
- Treating purple like yellow. Purple means move the letter across a gap. Leaving it in the same word wastes a slot.
- Forgetting short words. Phrases are full of A, OF, THE, IN and ON. If a two-letter word is stuck, try the common joining words first.
- Solving word by word. The words in a phrase support each other. Once one word is clear, ask what phrases it usually appears in.
- Ignoring the keyboard. Each key shows the best colour that letter has earned. Check it before every guess so you never retype a grey letter.
Building skill
There are no difficulty levels. Phrases range from two short words up to about fourteen letters, and the longer ones wrap onto a second line on small screens. Longer phrases are harder because there are more slots, but they also contain more small joining words, which are easy to guess once you spot them.
To improve, play several rounds in a row and keep an eye on how many guesses you need. A good first goal is solving in four. Then try to make your first guess a real phrase that also tests common letters well. It is harder to write, but it gives you a chance at an early win. If you enjoy the single-word version of this feedback, Word Guess is a good place to sharpen your reading of greens and yellows.
