Drops

Drops' central bet is that the biggest obstacle for adult language learners isn't curriculum quality — it's the decision to sit down at all. Everything about the app follows from that: the rounds are timed, they end in about five minutes, and the input method is swiping and tapping rather than typing, so there's no friction to talk you out of starting. Reviewer quotes on the site lean on the same point, with one user saying a short Drops session taught them as much as over an hour of focused use elsewhere. Whether or not that ratio holds for you, the design intent is legible and it's a real differentiator against lesson-heavy apps. Where Drops has invested most visibly in 2026 is grammar. The app now ships grammar support for Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, Tagalog, and French, joining English, Spanish, German, and European Portuguese. That matters because vocabulary without sentence structure caps out fast — you can recognize the word and still not produce a sentence. The companion output is telling: Drops' blog published beginner grammar explainers through 2026 (Brazilian Portuguese essentials in August, Korean particles and honorifics, Japanese SOV structure, and French object pronouns in May), which signals the team is treating grammar as a supported track rather than a checkbox. The vocabulary catalog is the other strength, and it's a moat of a specific kind: breadth in languages that mainstream apps skip. Egyptian Arabic, Welsh, Swiss German, Basque, Greenlandic, and Chti arrived in February 2026, and the existing list already carried Yoruba, Māori, Icelandic, Hawaiian, Sanskrit for Yoga, Ainu, and Cantonese. If your target language is not one of the big five, Drops likely has it and Duolingo probably doesn't. With 5,000+ words and phrases, that breadth is achievable because the product doesn't try to also be a conversation simulator. Strengths, concretely: five-minute timed sessions; swipe-based matching with visual mnemonics; audio pronunciation and listening practice; Packs for topic-focused learning (added January 2026); monthly challenges; quiz mode for contextual recall; streak tracking with reminders; a home-screen widget; offline access; multiplayer; and the Scripts and Droplets companion apps. Weaknesses, honestly. It is not a course. There is no tutor, no speech-based conversation practice, no exam preparation, and the grammar track, while expanding, is narrower than the language catalog — nine languages have grammar versus 55+ having vocabulary. The app's own framing is a supplement. Reviewers on the site corroborate this in a useful way: several describe running Drops alongside Babbel or Duolingo rather than instead of them, and one says alternating between two apps kept them from getting bored. Earnest learners aiming at business-level proficiency or fluency will exhaust the vocabulary value before they exhaust the language. Where it fits: a busy adult with 5-10 minutes of dead time per day who wants measurable