How do fan strings work?

My dad tried to show me but I honestly couldn't follow, he installed the fan and it has the typical string hanging down from below it. I understand what the little flip button does by it, it changes the direction where the wind goes, up or down or whatever I get the basic concept but I don't understand how the fan string works.



There's different clicks when i pull it down that makes me think those are like different levels of speed, but i also find that when I pull the fan string completely down different times in a row it also changes the speed, I just don't know what's what. It seems when I pull the string down 3 times in a row, its fastest, 2 medium and 1 is slowest? Sometimes when I pull 1 it turns off though.How do fan strings work?
That string operates a four-position electrical switch that controls the fan's speed. Usually the four positions are in this order:



OFF - HIGH - MEDIUM - LOW



Each time you pull the string once, it advances to the next position. After LOW, the cycle starts over advancing to OFF on the next pull.



If you pull twice, you will advance it two positions. Pull it three times and it will advance three. Pull it seven times and that is the same as pulling it three times.



The fan speeds up or down quite slowly, so you might need to give it a couple of minutes to see that it is changing speeds after pulling once.



Hope that helps.