Word Bridge

Pick a language to learn

Each language has its own page with notes written for that language in particular — the traps, the script, and which words are worth learning first.

What this game does

Most vocabulary apps show you a word and its translation, and that is where they stop. The problem is that a single word rarely tells you how it is actually used. "Leihen" and "borrow" look like a clean pair until you try to build a sentence with them and discover that German puts the words in a different order.

Word Bridge shows you the word, and once you answer, it shows you the same idea as a complete sentence in both languages side by side. You see the word in context immediately, while you still remember why you got it right or wrong.

Ninety combinations, one word list

English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Turkish, Chinese, Hindi and Punjabi. You pick any two — the language you already speak and the one you want to learn — and every pairing works in both directions. That is ninety different courses out of a single list of words.

This matters more than it sounds. Most apps assume you speak English and teach from there. If your strongest language is Punjabi, Turkish or Hindi, learning German through English means doing two translations in your head instead of one. Here you set your own starting point.

For Chinese, Hindi and Punjabi the game also shows a romanised spelling under the native script, so you can play from the first day even if you cannot read the writing system yet.

How the practice works

Words you answer correctly move up a level and come back less often. Words you get wrong drop straight back to the beginning and return in your next round. That is the whole system — a paper flashcard box, sorted automatically. A word counts as learned once you have got it right four times.

The day streak counts the days in a row on which you finished a round. It sits on your own device and nothing is lost if you break it. It is there because a small visible number turns out to be a surprisingly good reason to spend three minutes on a language today.

Three difficulty levels

• Easy — the words you need in the first weeks: water, bread, house, friend, tomorrow, thank you.
• Medium — everyday life beyond the basics: neighbour, to borrow, weather, expensive, to explain.
• Hard — the words that appear at work and in paperwork: deadline, reliable, to postpone, responsibility, deliberately.

A few examples from the list

English	German	Spanish	Hindi
water	das Wasser	el agua	पानी (pānī)
neighbour	der Nachbar	el vecino	पड़ोसी (paṛosī)
deadline	die Frist	la fecha límite	समय सीमा (samay sīmā)
reliable	zuverlässig	fiable	भरोसेमंद (bharosemand)

How to get the most out of it

1. Read the example sentence out loud, not just the word. Your mouth remembers what your eyes forget.
2. Play the same pair in both directions. Going back into your own language is much harder, and that is the point.
3. Ten words a day beats sixty once a week. The round is deliberately short so that finishing it is easy.

Does it work offline?

Yes, once you have opened it with a connection. The game and the word list are stored on your device afterwards, so you can play in the underground or on a plane. Test it yourself: open it, then switch on flight mode and reload.

Where is my progress saved?

On your own device, in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server and there is no account to create. If you clear your browser data, your progress and your streak go with it. On a different phone you start from zero.