QuizQuizzing yourself on vocabulary is one of the more well-supported ways to make new words stick — active recall under a timer beats passively rereading a list. The Languages category on QuizLlama wasn't built as a study tool first, it's just trivia — but the format (see a word, pick its meaning, answer against the clock) happens to match that method closely enough that it works as one, solo or with people learning alongside you.
What's in the bank right now
Five languages, each split into a Common Words tier and a Hard Words tier:
| Language | Common | Hard | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | 50 | 100 | 150 |
| Spanish | 50 | 100 | 150 |
| Chinese | 50 | 100 | 150 |
| French | 50 | 100 | 150 |
| Japanese | 50 | 100 | 150 |
That's 750 words total. The English track is really an ESL-style vocabulary builder — "What does 'happy' mean?" with four definitions to choose from — while Spanish, Chinese, French, and Japanese are translation-style: you're shown a word in that language (with pronunciation for Japanese, e.g. "こんにちは (konnichiwa)") and pick its English meaning from four options. The Hard tier for those four languages draws from the same underlying set of ~80 everyday concepts — numbers, family words, body parts, nature, common verbs and adjectives — translated per language, so the difficulty level is consistent across all four instead of drifting.
A routine that actually works
- Start on Common Words. These are the everyday words — greetings, basic verbs, numbers — that give you the most usable vocabulary per minute studied. Don't move on until you're consistently scoring well here.
- Use Practice mode solo. Pick the language subcategory, set it to Practice, and go through it alone with no pressure — you'll see the correct answer after each question, which is where the actual learning happens, not just the score at the end.
- Repeat it more than once. A single pass through 50 words won't move them into long-term memory. Replay the same subcategory over a few days — spaced repetition, even informally, is what makes vocabulary stick.
- Move to Hard Words once Common feels easy. This tier is 100 words in every language and pulls from less frequent, more abstract vocabulary — a reasonable stretch goal once the basics are automatic.
- Turn it into a live round with a study partner. If you're learning with someone else, host it as a real game instead of practice — a shared PIN, a countdown timer, and a leaderboard turn a vocab drill into something you'll actually want to repeat.
What this isn't
Multiple-choice recognition is a real study technique, but it's not the same as being able to produce a word unprompted in conversation, and picking the right definition out of four options is easier than free recall. Treat this as a warm-up or a review layer alongside actual practice — speaking, writing, or a dedicated course — not a replacement for it.
Ready to start? Head to the Languages category and pick a language.