The current list progress shows you the “cursor position” of your progress linearly through the list. Sometimes you already know some of the words on the list, but right now there is no way to see that total progress.
I think the best way to do this would be to change the existing progress bar to reflect total progress (percentage of everything on the list that you already know or are learning) and make the “cursor position” that it currently shows more clearly visible when you drill into the list. Right now you can already see what sections you have completed, and you could add shading or a marker to show the exact word. Knowing your linear position in the list is only really useful in the context of examining the list.
Another idea (if seeing “cursor position” at the top level is important to some people) would be to use a stacked progress bar that shows both your linear position as well as another segment which (added to the linear position) shows how much of the total list you know.