The best apps to learn vocabulary: Reji vs Anki vs Quizlet
If you’re in a class, you probably need to learn up to a whopping 100 words per week. Or, if you’re not in a class but often watching Netflix and reading books or blogs in a foreign language, you must also have a lot of vocabulary to learn.
You also probably stick to some old-school method like a notebook to write down words, their translations and then learn them by a cup of hot chocolate lying on a couch.
Now imagine it could be easier:
- You wouldn’t need to manually translate words before writing them down;
- You wouldn’t need to lug the notebook with you — instead you could learn & review vocabulary anytime, anywhere, on the go;
- A smart algorithm would help you memorize words faster and more efficiently.
Sounds interesting? I’ll look at the pros and cons of 3 popular mobile apps whose task is exactly to simplify vocabulary learning: Reji, Anki and Quizlet.
At A Glance
I’ve been learning German, French and Czech for over 8 years in total. I’ve had enough time to try out all methods — notebooks, paper flashcards, apps.
Since we’re focusing on apps in this post, here are the factors I appreciate the most, and hence picked these 3 apps, because they meet the criteria.
- Interface and Ease of Use: How easy to navigate is the app? Is it intuitive for users?
- Ease of Saving: How hard/time-consuming is it to put down your vocabulary in the app?
- Built-In Spaced Repetition: Is this app a long-term memory
- Price: How expensive is it?
- Compatibility: Is it available online, on Android or on iOS?
As Wikipedia authors put in about spaced repetition:
Spaced repetition is a learning technique that incorporates increasing intervals of time between subsequent review of previously learned material in order to exploit the psychological spacing effect.
Simply speaking, spaced-repetition-based apps remind you to review learned vocabulary after a specific time, which is optimal to retain it better.
For a more in-depth breakdown of the pros and cons of each app read on.
Reji
It has a slick interface which is easy to navigate and very intuitive. As iDownloadBlog recently wrote about it:
The UI alone makes this worth checking out.
Saving words is a piece of cake, outshining both Anki and Quizlet. Type in your new word; Reji will translate it, look up an example sentence (to better understand the context of the word) — all by itself! It works for 48 languages.
You can easily tweak it, and the app will look up definitions, images of GIFs instead of translations. I love the silly but memorable GIFs.
So, you typed in words, the app pulled up all the data you may need for efficient memorization, now it’s time to learn.
The app has only one study mode. However, it’s pretty self-explanatory. It looks like a school test but not that boring. For each word, you see 4 options and you have to answer correctly. If you answer incorrectly, Reji will ask you to repeat this word again later (spaced repetition in action). Intervals are counted automatically, you’ll get a notification when it’s time to revise your vocab.
It will also supply you with a phonetic transcription and a text-to-speech sound bite for all of its supported 48 languages — a must-have feature for learners who want to get the pronunciation right too.
Another useful feature for language class students is sharing. Reji lets you share saved words with your fellow learners in just one tap. Me & my classmates were using it in my French class a lot — someone saved each class’s vocab and shared it across the group.
It also has a tool which lets you import CSV files in a few clicks: reji.me/import. I imported my legacy vocabulary using it, for example.
Reji is a paid app but quite affordable—just a $7.99 one-time purchase. Not a lot for a piece of useful software that can possibly save you tens of hours of work. However, it’s only available on iOS.
Download: On the App Store
Price: $7.99 one-time
Anki
A long-standing favorite, Anki, like Reji, it uses spaced repetition to help users memorize and retain information but is a little less user-friendly.
As far as its interface goes, Anki keeps things simple. It’s pretty intuitive but sometimes a little confusing. At first glance, you’re not likely to understand what a filtered deck, for example, is.
Saving words start with creating a new deck in Anki. Words are stored on flashcards — your word on the front, its translations or an associated image on the back. Deck is a stack of cards. The whole process is definitely more labor-intensive than Reji.
You’ll need to add all the info yourself, one flashcard at a time, which can be time-consuming for languages with different alphabets, characters or accents you’re not familiar with. You can make text-based cards with words or cloze passages but the cloze feature is far from intuitive. The good think about Anki is it’s highly customizable. The bad thing about Anki is, you’ll have to invest some time to learn how to customize your own flashcards.
Anki has one standard study mode — card flipping. You decide how many cards you want to study per day. Then, Anki will display a word, you check if you’re correct by hitting “show answer”, and then categorize the word again, hard, good or easy which corresponds to a time interval of 10 minutes, 4 days, 7 days or 10 days when you will next be tested. Anki then keeps track of which cards need to be reviewed when so that you won’t forget any. That’s actually a pretty neat feature. But sometimes it gets a bit repetitive.
Anki is free for Androids but the iOS version will cost you $25 for lifetime use. You can also use the web version of Anki for free — https://apps.ankiweb.net/.
Download: On the App Store / On Google Play / web version
Price: 25$ one-time
Quizlet
Easy to use and super intuitive, Quizlet has a range of study modes to choose from. Learn material first and then review using matching games, true or false or writing tests.
Saving words also starts with creating a deck and then filling it with custom-made flashcards, like in Anki. And just like Anki, it can be a little time-consuming seeing as you need to create the content for both sides of your cards. You can easily copy and paste vocab and foreign characters into new card sets without any issues. Of course, this is easier using a web browser on your computer. Quizlet will even automatically add in the audio which is a definite plus. This feature is supported by 18 different languages — not as many as Reji but not bad either. Example sentences aren’t looked up automatically.
Quizlet outshines the other apps when it comes to learning modes. It has 5 of them! In the flashcard, mode you just flip cards and click if you remembered one of not — like in Anki. In the write mode, you need to recall the exact spelling of each word. In the match mode, you need to match words with respective translations or definitions. The learn and test modes are the sum of all the above.
Similarly to Reji, Quizlet also lets you quickly share saved words with classmates or friends.
Download: On the App Store / On Google Play
Price: free (basic), 20$ per year (pro)
