I am OBSESSED with this language learning app

It’s called Drops, it’s pretty much exclusively for vocabulary building (no grammar lessons), and it is addictive as fuuuuck. Like 10 times more fun than Duolingo. Also, assuming you already have a good understanding of the grammar of whatever language you’re studying, you learn new words way faster than on Duolingo.

I’ve been using it for Esperanto, I got the app only a few days ago, and I’ve already reviewed over 450 words! Granted, at least half of them I already knew, but a bunch of them I was iffy on, a good chunk of them I could’ve guessed but learning them solidified it in my mind, and at least 50 of them I straight up didn’t know.

I plan to also use this for my Spanish, but as of now I’m addicted to the Esperanto lessons.

So what’s so great about it? Well one is the way in which it teaches you the words (it uses a handful of different exercises that revolve around matching the word to the corresponding picture) but the main thing that I love about it is the sheer magnitude of categories that vocab words are grouped into and the specificity of those categories. There’s literally a group of 5-20 words and phrases for virtually every reasonable situation you can think of.

Here are the broad categories:

Then inside each of those broad categories are like 20+ lessons each specific to a different situation.

For example, the fist collection of lessons I selected was their LGBT/Pride section, which includes 4 groupings of vocabulary: Love Who You Love, Gender and Pronouns, Celebrating Pride, and Gender Transitioning.

Now that might sound excessive, but there’s literally a bunch of categories specific like that.

Parts of the day, spice up water, making soup, public toilets, adopting and fostering, online dating, job interview, remote work, in my backpack, prehistory, apartment basics, garage storage, board game lingo, go to a concert, deck of cards, Savanah wildlife, city animals, extreme weather, non-renewable energy, extreme sport, water sports and activities, flu season, COVID talk, periods, bedtime routine….. that is just a few examples of the specific vocab lessons available.

Duolingo ain’t got shit.

There’s just 1 downside: it’s a paid app. Like $8 or $9 a month. But I’m on the free trial now and he’ll imma buy it cause it’s so worth it.

So yeah thank you for coming to my TED talk