Drops: Language Learning Games

I’ve used a lot of apps to study various languages over the years(Japanese, Korean, Farsi, Arabic, Mandarin). While there is no magic app that will automatically make you fluent without putting in the work, this app comes pretty close to just that. Here are three immediate reasons why you should give it a try: #1. Studying with DROPS feels easy on the brain and so you study more often. The unique and beautiful design makes it fun to look at and prevents boredom, making it more likely you’ll keep coming back to study. Dragging and dropping replaces boring flash cards, and cute, intuitive animations actually help memorization. Have you seen the color schemes? #2. Customization allows you to pick and choose what you want to learn and how often your sessions are. An app is only as good as its ability to be adapted to your brains learning needs. I like the flexibility of DROPS because you can select different topics to practice instead of having to follow a set progression. #3 Customer Service! I had a question about the app and within a day I received a personal response from the co-founder that addressed my concerns in a way that exceeded my expectations for app companies. This app is clearly made with care and intentionality and driven by a desire to produce and excellent product and support to the user. I look forward to future updates and am confident this app will continue to be a good user experience.

This app is the greatest thing to happen to language learning ever. Seriously. I’ve been studying one language or another my entire life and have never looked forward to vocab drills before. I actually get excited about getting to do my Drops review every evening. It’s fantastic. Right now I’m using it to tackle Mandarin Chinese and it’s incredibly helpful for learning the characters. The sounds are paired with the characters (or words) so you have a “See & Say” learning experience, which is the best way to learn. The system is smart and shuffles back to the ones you flubbed on recently so you can practice them more. It also has an immediate reinforcement after you make a mistake so that the correct answer is cemented in your brain. Many of the other apps don’t do that, leaving you to wonder “then what WAS the right answer!?” This app reinforces the correct answer immediately. Clearly the developers know a thing or two about the language learning curve. One thing to remember - learning any language is hard. You’ll have places where you struggle. That’s where an app like this can help so much. Even if you feel like you’re just repeating the same cards over and over (and making errors), you ARE learning. Stick with it and don’t give up! But honestly, download this app already. You’re here because you’re serious about learning that new language, and this is the way to do it!

Currently learning Korean and Drops has been a great tool in learning vocab and phrases. It gives five minutes and refreshes about every nine hours or so. It’s nice for when I’m busy and can’t fill an entire lesson for the time being. I like that I can also get added time after my lesson sometimes it’s 40 seconds - 1 min. or if I hit a new streak goal it’s an added 5 minutes. Besides that the lessons can be adjust from beginner to advanced. You can toggle on or off exercises such as if you want to focus on just listening or just writing for that session. In learning Korean I’ve found that romanization can make things a bit confusing so that’s another feature that can be turned off or on. It can be overall customized to how your personal learning style. The topics offer a wide variety to choose from. So that’s nice since I don’t have to stick to one topic for the entire 5 minutes. When starting a new topic it will introduce all of the words you will be learning in that section. It’ll show an image alongside the word and meaning. Then it will go through a variety of different exercises, but again customizable if needed. I’d suggest playing around with the settings to see how you learn best. Hide or favorite words and later on you can review words in the review topic or see them in your collection. So far it’s been nice being able to pick up on words and phrases that I’ve learned on here. Gives me a nice boost to learn more for the day.