Drops Language Review 2022: Is the App Any Good?

Welcome to this Drops language review which will give you an honest assessment of this language learning app.

There’s a lot to like about using apps when you’re trying to learn a language.

Apps put the fun back into learning, with games, streaks and rewards like cute little badges or masses of points. They’re convenient, easy-to-use, and you can play them anywhere you take your mobile phone. 

The Drops language learning app was initially developed in Estonia and bought by Kahoot in 2020.

In this Drops language app review, I'll take you inside the members' area to give you a feel for the app and what it offers. And, of course, I'll give you my honest conclusions on whether Drops is worth all the hype. 

Here's a quick overview:

The Good

• Visual aids link a sound, image and word together to help remember it better
• The attractive layout makes it easy to use
• Gamification encourages you to maintain your learning streak 

The Bad

• There were unequal repetitions of the words in my lists. Some returned over and over while others seemed to turn up only once. 
• Some images look very similar, which is confusing and leads to errors.
• A voice says the words, so you hear them when they appear. But there aren’t any speaking or pronunciation games to encourage you to practice those skills.

The Cost

• Monthly: $9.99 US
• Yearly: $69.99 US
• Lifetime: $159.99 US

Drops Review: The Verdict

The Drops language app is excellent at doing what it’s designed for. The app introduces language learners to a ton of new vocabulary, with activities to help you remember new words.

However, don’t expect to learn a whole language from Drops because it doesn’t cover other complexities, such as verb conjugations, sentence structure, or cultural conventions.

But the app villain tends to make you believe that a few swipes and clicks are all it takes to learn a language!

Drops Language Review: What Is Drops Language?

Drops is an app designed to help you learn vocabulary in a new language, using picture cues and repeated activities to help transfer them into your long-term memory. 

Once you’ve logged in, you can use the Drops app on your mobile, tablet or work in your browser. You can play on your browser today and pick up the lesson seamlessly the next day on your laptop. 

Each lesson aims to reach 100% mastery of each word in your list. The app stores your progress and helps you to keep your playing streak going with daily reminders.

What's Included In Drops Premium?

• Vocabulary lists for 45+ languages
• Three levels – beginner, intermediate and advanced – in each language
• Animated activities/games
• Unlimited daily study time
• Varied lesson length
• A choice of study topics
• Opportunity to review all your word lists with 
• The ability to reset your progress if you want to
• The Visual Dictionary
• Listening comprehension checks
• Learned word search function

If you don’t want to pay for a premium Drops subscription, the app has a limited free version, too. 

That includes the wordlists and animated activities, but limits use to five minutes every ten hours, with lists gradually unlocked as you progress.

A Look Inside Drops Language

You’ll find plenty to enjoy about this well-designed app. Let’s dive into all its features.

Drops Topics 

There are more than 2000 vocabulary words in each language on drops, divided into 100 or more topic lists. 

When you click on a topic, the animations take you through a series of quick, repeated activities designed to help you memorise the 17 – 20 words that make up that list.

Image Association

One of the critical learning strategies in Drops Language is Image Association, i.e. linking a word with a simple, graphic image. It’s a great technique, used in learning for helping to memorise facts, vocabulary and so on. 

Every time a new word drops down, an image appears with it. The linking continues throughout the animated games, helping you memorise new vocabulary through sight, sound and action. 

Animated Activities

As you work through a topic list, the words keep reappearing in small games or activities. 

Most show the image and written word and involve tapping or swiping in some direction. You’ll hear the word if you have the audio feature turned on. And it will help your memory and pronunciation if you repeat the word aloud when you hear it. 

Activities include:

• Selecting the correct image/picture combination from two, four or more possibilities
• Moving syllables into the correct order to spell a word
• Swiping through letters on a crossword to form a word
• Spelling challenges 

Review Dojo and Favourites

Inevitably, some words seem harder to remember than others. Once you’ve learned around 50 words, Drops will unlock the Review Dojo. 

Dojo notices the words you’ve had difficulty with and lets you concentrate on them by collecting them all into one place. That means you can work just on the tricky words without slipping in easier vocabulary.

Conversely, in Favorites, you get to choose which words you want to review. Just click the button on a topic to bring up the list of words. Then, tap the heart icon to add a word to Favorites.

Visual Dictionary

The visual dictionary includes all the words in Drops’ topic lists. You can use it to find a word or translation that you need without scrolling through a whole list. 

It works a little like Google Translate, in that you select the language you speak and the one to translate, then type a word into the search bar. 

You can find the dictionary here or through any word list. 

Bring up the list, select a word then tap the three dots. That will bring up five icons. Tap the arrow icon to see the word in the visual dictionary.

Writing Systems

When you’re studying a language where you need to learn the characters, the Drops app includes a handy script feature. 

The animation guides you through forming each character. Of course, if you’re new to learning something like Korean or Japanese, you’ll need to practice writing more than the usual animation allows. So, once you’ve learned more than 50 words, drop some of the characters into Favorites and review them there as often as you like.

Scripts is also available as a separate app in eight languages

Drops Language Learning Review: What I Like

The Drops App is well designed, and they seem to have put plenty of thought into the user experience.  Nothing takes long to load, and the games move seamlessly from one to another. The colours are bright and change throughout the games to help keep you interested.  

Another plus point is the number of available languages. I love that they’ve included languages like Māori, Tagalog and Yoruba, which are less well-covered by online language courses than the likes of Spanish, French and English.

The animations are engaging, and once you get into the swing of the app, they certainly help you remember the new words. Once isn’t enough, however. I feel you’d have to go back many times to be sure they’re in your long-term memory.

The image association is a key learning strategy for Drops and certainly jogs your memory when trying to remember a word. However, the more words you learn, the more images you must remember. Some of the pictures seem very similar, which leads to confusion (and drops your percentage score if you guess wrong.)

The mobile app works offline so that you can learn words even in hard-to-connect places like the subway or out in the country. 

What Is Missing From Drops?

We also need to look at the tool's drawbacks in this Drops app review.

Language learning is more than just knowing a vocabulary list. You also need to know how to string words into a sentence and navigate the grammar. But Drops doesn’t attempt to teach grammar, sentence structure and so on in Drops, the Visual Dictionary, or Scripts. 

That being said, Drops does what it sets out to do. It animates and improves the flashcard system to help increase your vocabulary in one or more languages. 

How Much Does Drops Cost, and Is It Worth It?

The Drops price plan offers free, monthly, yearly or lifetime (a one-off payment) subscriptions. 

The free offering is strictly limited and unlikely to help you memorise enough words if you’re serious about learning a language. 

It may seem more affordable to pay only $10 a month. However, that adds up to a smidgeon under $120 per year. 

The math shows that a yearly subscription is a much more cost-effective option. 

You can get a Drops lifetime discount if you make a one-off payment of nearly $160 US. However, you’d want to be sure that you’d use the app over several years to make it a worthwhile investment.

As with any learning system, the worth for Drops comes in how consistently you practice. If you’re not willing to put in the work, any price is too high.

• Monthly: $9.99 US
• Yearly: $69.99 US
• Lifetime: $159.99 US

An Alternative to Drops Language: Uncovered Courses

Uncovered is a comprehensive online beginner course that takes you from a complete beginner in a language to an intermediate level. 

Far from simply memorising vocabulary, it uses an enjoyable and unique teaching method called StoryLearning® to teach you to read, write, speak and understand in a new language.

StoryLearning teaches languages naturally, just as you learn best when you're a child – through stories. In Uncovered, you'll find yourself gripped by an original that's unveiled, serial-style throughout the course. 

Each word and sentence in the story has been carefully chosen to help you learn vocab and grammar in context.

Of course, we don't let you read a story and then leave you hanging. You also have an experienced teacher to help along the way. They know how it feels when languages seem complicated because they're language learners too.

Your teacher will offer support with explanations in English and tips to help you learn along the way. 

Uncovered teaches all of the key aspects of the language: reading, listening, vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and speaking. So, by the time you've finished, you'll be a confident intermediate level language speaker, ready to go out and use your new language in the real world!

Find out more and claim your free 7-day trial.

Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.