To get or not to get

If you're past beginner, of you don't like drag and drop, don't bother with Drops. The features that it supports are very neat and well designed and provide good quality word input. It mixes audio samples with some fantastically designed visual stimuli which is perfect for learning the radicals of Chinese, drawing them over pictures of what they represent. It's really quite a fantastic way to learn beginner Chinese that unites phonological, visual and muscle memory.

Drops uses spaced repetition sequencing to help with vocab but with neither speech recognition nor lengthy passages, it's far from comprehensive. It's basically a lite, fun word memorization aid. Ads are light and you won't run into walls on the free version for a few weeks of use unless you want to use it a lot. The first use restricts you to 5 minutes a day but as you play, you win additional time. The ads, are 10 hour wait time between 5 minute lessons, access to word bank. Lots of locked content is enticing.

Make it work for you by supplimenting it with a grammar, speaking and pronunciation practice and reading and wrting activies. Use it for a few minutes a day with deep focus to boost your vocabulary.