How to Use Drops Language App to Learn a New Language

Trying to learn a language but can't find the time? Drops is an app designed to help you learn a language in just 5 minutes a day. It teaches you actual useful vocabulary from categories of your choosing and is a great supplement to beginner language classes. This wikiHow will teach you how to download and use the Drops Language App on your mobile device.

[Edit]Steps

[Edit]Get Started with the Drops App

1. Download the Drops App. The app can be downloaded from the App Store on iPhone or the Google Play Store on Android under the name “Drops Kahoot! Learn a Language”.
   
2. Open Drops and Sign Up. Open the app from your home screen, then click the orange “Sign Up/Log In” button.
   
   • You can choose to sign up with an email account, Facebook account, Google account, or Apple ID.
3. Choose a Language. Scroll through the menu of languages that appears, then tap the language you’re interested in learning.
   
4. Set a Daily Reminder to Practice. Using the slider on the screen, choose what time you’d like to receive a daily reminder to practice your language, then click the “Game On!” button.
   

[Edit]Use Drops Premium

1. Start or Save a Free Trial of Drops Premium. The next screen offers a 7-day free trial of Drops Premium.
   
2. Click “Start My Free Week” to use your trial now. Alternatively, you can click the “X” at the top left to close that screen and use your trial at a later date.
   
3. If you do choose to try Premium there are some unique features that your membership gives you. You gain access to:^[1]
   
   • Unlimited daily study time
   • Every study topic on the app, removing normal progression-based restrictions
   • The ability to modify study session lengths
   • An ad-free experience
   • The Review Dojo, a category that predicts which words you need to work on based on previous study sessions, then presents them to you^[2]
   • The Word Collection, a feature that lets you see previously learned words
   • The ability to reset your progress on a topic
   • Listening comprehension tests

[Edit]Complete the Drops Tutorial

1. Start the tutorial by clicking the orange “Start” button. This tutorial will start to familiarize you with the gamified way Drops teaches vocabulary.
   
2. Learn a word and pair it with its image. By default, the first word Drops teaches is bread, so when bread appears on the screen in whatever language you chose, drag it up towards the eye with a slash through it to skip that word or down towards the face to learn it.
   
   • If you already know the word for bread in the language you’ve chosen, feel free to skip through words until you find one you don’t know. Then, once you’ve chosen a word you want to learn, pair the word with the correct image.
3. Turn your volume up to learn pronunciation. Memorizing vocabulary is certainly a big part of learning a language, but knowing how to say the words is just as important. Luckily, Drops has included recordings of people saying each word, training your speaking abilities alongside your vocabulary.
   

[Edit]Start Your First Practice Session

1. Click “Start 5 Min Session” to do your first daily practice session. Follow the instructions on screen and begin learning the language.
   
2. Pick the category of words you’re interested in. The app will automatically start you in the “Food” section, but if you’d like to explore other available categories, hit the pause button in the top left, then click “Stop”. This will take you to the home screen where you can scroll down and pick specific categories that interest you like “Essentials”, “Computers”, “Clothes”, and much more.
   

[Edit]Customize Your Learning

1. Choose specific words that you want to study. You can add these words to your “Favorites” collection. To do so, click the small “i” at the bottom right of any unlocked learning category, then click the heart to the right of a word so it turns white.
   
   • From there, click the “X” in the top left of the screen, scroll to the “Just For You” heading, and select the “Favorites” category to start learning your chosen words.
2. Fine tune your learning sessions. Click on “Profile” at the bottom right of the screen, then scroll down to “Settings”. Here, you can turn features like listening and writing exercises off and on by clicking the toggle beside each one.
   
3. Switch your skill level. Click the “Skill Level” section to select either “Beginner”, “Intermediate”, or “Advanced”. Selecting “Intermediate” or “Advanced” will unlock many of the progression-locked topics for beginners, giving you a much wider range of words to choose from.^[3]
   
4. Change your notification settings. You can alter the time of your daily reminder, turn vibrations off or on during sessions, and, if you buy Drops Premium, you can alter the length of your study sessions.
   

[Edit]Switch Your Language

1. You can easily start learning a different language. If you decide you want to switch, adding a different language to your study list or switching entirely is easy—just click the white circle with a teardrop in it at the top left, then scroll through the language list and select a new one.
   
   • Now that you’ve selected another language, you can switch between languages the same way. Click that same button, then pick the desired language from under “Your languages”.

[Edit]Tips

Drops has another great tool, their visual dictionary, that you can use to translate words, hear their pronunciation in different languages, and see icons representing the words’ meaning.^[4]

[Edit]References

1. ↑ https://languagedrops.com/support/plans-subscriptions/free-vs-premium/
2. ↑ https://languagedrops.com/support/faq/the-dojo/
3. ↑ https://languagedrops.com/support/sounds-words/more-words/
4. ↑ https://languagedrops.com/word/en/