One of the main barriers Cantonese learners have is the fact there’s frustratingly few resources for made for us, especially when it comes to apps. The overwhelming majority of Chinese learning apps are catered for Mandarin and the few that advertise Cantonese content are just glorified dictionaries.
I wish there were more high-quality Cantonese apps that had structured lessons and gamified learning like Duolingo. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that the all Drops offers Cantonese.
How Drops Works
Drops provides bite-size vocabulary building sessions. You select a topic and the app introduces new words at a steady pace while asking you to play various matching activities using the provided audio, pictures, and text (both traditional characters and Jyutping romanisation is offered.) The tasks are fast-paced and swiped-based so you’ll find your five minutes of allotted time flies by.
Pros
Gamified learning- The app is way more engaging that reviewing flash cards and you’ll find yourself reviewing loads of words in a short space of time. I go especially quickly because I want to get through as much as possible before my five minute timer is up.
Free for five mins a day- I like the quick lessons because they are easy to fit into my day. Drops keeps track of your streaks but let’s you skip the occasional day, which is very motivating for you to keep practicing consistently (and consistent practice is a language learner’s best friend). If you sign up to their premium subscription then you get unlimited, add-free time but to be honest, I still only do five minutes most days.
Customisable text- You get the option to decide whether or not you want Jyutping romanisation on. You can also decide whether you want to the text to be in standard written Chinese (traditional characters) or written Cantonese!
Choice of content- There are so many topics to choose from and you can do them in any order. You can even hide words you know so they won’t appear in the activities. I particularly like this because often Cantonese resources are catered towards tourists and not heritage speakers. Having the choice of what topics to do means the app caters to your needs. I’ve been focusing on household items and food as that’s what I mainly talk to AJ about!
Vocabulary based- The nature of the app means you cover a large volume of vocabulary over a short space of time, which I believe is party good for Cantonese. As a heritage speaker, I find even when my grammar and pronunciation is fine, I’m always grasping for words. Drops let’s me fill in my gaps at a fast pace.
Spaced repetition- I’m not sure whether the app officially uses a spaced repetition algorithm but no matter what topic you are on, you are still occasionally presented words from old topics. You can also do a session that is just words you can already covered.
Beautiful illustrations- When I first tried Drops, the graphics were basic (alike to clip art) but it seems like they have gotten professional artists to revamp all the illustrations. Now the app is delightful to look at, which is not something I can say for all Cantonese based apps I have used.
Cons
No context- The app only teaches words or very short phrases, which means you cannot use it as your sole source of Cantonese. You don’t receive any guidance on grammar, formality, or usage so you are actually quite limited in what knowledge you can take from it. I often have to research new phrases I’ve learnt from Drops afterwards so I have a better idea on how to incorporate my newly retained vocabulary into my everyday usage.
Inconsistency- I often find examples where the audio does not match the Jyutping so it’s difficult as a beginner to know for certain whether you are learning the correct pronunciation. Furthermore, sometimes the romanisation excludes spaces between words, which isn’t the biggest deal, but it makes it more difficult to read and Ames me further doubt the accuracy of the content.
General vocabulary list- Drops is available in numerous languages and this generalisation actually detracts from your learning experience. There is clearly a set vocabulary list they use for every language so there are times where the app uses the same word or phrase for multiple things e.g. I fall and I slip both are shown as
Only swipe or click input- The app only tests your listening skills and your “writing” i.e. the app asks you to type out the romanisation or to order Chinese characters. In an ideal world, the app would have a speech recognition function but instead, I just try to repeat each word or phrase the best I can as they come up.
Similar images – Every task is some iteration of matching up words to their corresponding picture but sometimes, the illustrations are really unclear, especially as they don’t have any colour. For example, I mix up the pictures for soybean and runner beans. There is sometimes an option to reveal the English translation if you hold your finger down on the image but this option isn’t available for every activity, which is frustrating for such a visual based app.
Conclusion
I think Drops is a great supplement to your language learning journey but be aware it does have a lot of limitations. You definitely aren’t going to learn a whole language but it has potential to be a good vocabulary builder (though I personally haven’t noticed me retaining a huge amount from it.) The content itself isn’t accurate enough to justify paying for it so I definitely wouldn’t recommend a subscription.
Update 16/5/2023: I’ve recently started using Drops again and have noticed that the developers have made a lot of effort updating the accuracy of words and images so they are distinguishable. I’m not yet sure whether it’s worth paying for but you or your child can always try Premium free for two weeks using my personal link and see for yourself.
If you have any recommendations for other Cantonese apps either for parents or children, please let me know in the comments below.
Mama Bear Cantonese 