14 DAY TRIAL // Papapapaya aims to be an easy-to-use, multifaceted software for learning foreign languages. Featuring a very simple interface, Papapapaya provides a set of modern tools, such as a customizable quiz generator for helping you expand your vocabulary while having a lot of fun.
For lots of people learning foreign languages is both a hobby and a necessity. In the dynamic world we are living in, speaking English is a must and knowing any other foreign language is a big plus. But learning a new language takes time, perseverance and discipline.
According to the latest studies, every new word needs to be repeated for a number of times, at certain intervals and in related contexts, before it is stored in one's mind.
But when it comes to hundreds or even thousands of words, who can keep track of all the times you need to repeat each one of them to be sure you will remember it for a long period of time?
Well, the human mind will most likely have problems with keeping track of the exact number of times it has to repeat a word before storing it, but with an application such as Papapapaya this task might become quite easy and fun to perform.
Papapapaya supports the idea of learning through repetition, and for this particular reason, it was build around the idea of studying foreign languages progressively, through customizable learning sessions and quizzes.
The Looks
Papapapaya has a quite simple and user-friendly interface. When you first open it, you can easily notice that there are no pre-defined files or folders in the app to organize your vocabulary. In its main window Papapapaya provides a toolbar with four buttons for accessing its main sections, as well as a search field, a button that opens the Preferences page and a drop-down menu, for choosing the study language.
The four buttons displayed at the left side of the toolbar can drive you to the following sections of the app: Learn Session, Classic Quiz, PopUp Quiz and Statistics.
Under the toolbar you can see the available word categories. The categories have attached eye-catching icons that, when clicked, will let you switch views.
To be more specific, these toolbar icons lets you visualize the words included in the ultrashort memory, short term memory, interim memory, long term memory and memory vault list, respectively.
Under this horizontal six-tabs menu you can also see a five-columns table, that includes the same column's names, regardless of the tab you are in.
The first table is dedicated to your native language, the second to the language you want to learn, the third to tags, the forth to the date you have last used a word in a quiz and, finally, the sixth tab is dedicated to comments.
The Preferences window lets you see at a glance the list of languages and the number of unknown words associated with each one of them but, most important, to set the types of words you want to be included in the quizzes.
The Works
To add, edit or delete words in the Papapapaya's repository you can simply use the buttons displayed on the bottom left corner of the Papapya's main window. The form for adding a new word looks the same, regardless of the category you are in.
Here is how it works: for adding a new word when you are in the Unknown Words tab, you have to select a language from the drop-down list displayed on the top right corner of the window and hit the plus button. This action will open a pop-up window that contains a text field where you must input the form of the new word in the target language, a text field for its English translation, and two fields for tags and comments.
The tags will be used by the quiz algorithm for creating customized questions. To be more exact, by using the tags, the quiz algorithm will identify the related words and it will generate questions with them, so that you can learn and memorize any word through contexts and mind maps.
Moreover, the words will be sorted in the list by how well you know them. This dynamically changing sorting mechanism wants to simulate the human brain behavior with regard to storing information.
As a rule of thumb, in Papapapaya, new words are classified as unknown. But you can interactively change the position of the new words through your answers to quizzes.
This is how it works: if you answer well at the quiz questions the words will rise up in the list. If your answers are not accurate the words will be placed at the bottom of the list. The main consequence of this reorganization is that the quiz algorithm will include the words placed on the bottom of the list more often in the questions it generates.
Furthermore, Papapapaya aims to keep track of the repetition frequency. It is well-known that, when learning words in a foreign language you have to repeat the newest words over and over again, with decreased frequency, until you are completely sure you can use them in sentences and phrases.
It is scientifically demonstrated that new, unknown words need to be repeated within 10-15 minutes after you have first heard them if you want to remember them on long term. And this is not enough. These words need to be repeated again after twelve hours, a day, two days and so on.
Moreover, to increase the efficiency of the memorizing process it is advisable to learn groups of related words or to use the newly learned words in a context.
This is exactly the purpose for what Papapapaya provides a field for tags when adding new words. But it also offers you another tool for consolidating your knowledge before taking a quiz: the Learn Session.
You can open this session with a hit on the first button displayed in the toolbar. Its usage does not interfere with the questions generated for the quizzes.
The only purpose of this tool is to provide a quick sticky-like virtual paper note with a bunch of fields, where you can add additional information about a new word.
For instance, in this section you can make a sentence with a newly added word, find similar words or even attach it some sensorial characteristics.
From this point of view, the Learn Session section is a very good alternative to the classical flash cards or to the mnemonics technique, that are traditionally used when learning a foreign language.
The advantage is that it provides a separate text field for each entry and that it helps you stay organized and apply the same learning method to all the difficult words that you encounter during your study.
Furthermore, when you are ready to put your knowledge to test you can try one of the two provided types of quizzes: the Classic Quiz and the PopUp Quiz.
The main difference between the two is the size of the window in which they are displayed, the latter being designed to be used more for amusement or for a short break while you are also working on something else.
What they have in common is that, before starting any of the two, you can choose the category of words from which you want Papapapaya to generate the quiz questions. The easiest choice is to let the app generate questions after its own internal rules.
These rules take into consideration various criteria such as the date when you have used a recently added word for the last time or if the last time you took a quiz you answered correctly to the questions related to that particular word.
Another option is to specify the category of words you want to be used for generating questions. You can also sort the repository of words after certain tags and set the time interval for each question.
A classical quiz includes eleven questions and after each answer you will be shown the correct solution. At the end of the quiz you will be shown the total score and, in accordance with your score, a couple of recommendations.
This is both helpful and motivational, considering the fact that such statistics help you evaluate your exact knowledge level and constantly improve your vocabulary. The app's major drawback is though that it is not fully transparent with regard to the way it classifies the newly introduced words in its main categories, not to mention that the category names are not self-explanatory.
Last, but not least, Papapapaya offers you two very important features: to import and to export whole lists of words. This is particularly useful when you want to upgrade the app to a newer version, and you want to continue the lists you have created up to that point or you simply want to share a wordlist with your friends.
The Good
The Statistics are very helpful for keeping track of your results and give you a clear picture of what and how often you have to repeat a particular group of words.
Moreover, the import and export features are very helpful when you want to recover your previous wordlists or you want to share them with your friends.
Finally, the suggested method of learning is based on scientific research and, as a result, Papapapaya can be considered a steady tool for keeping track of the times you need to repeat a word but also to integrate it into a context or to associate it with symbols before being sure you have learnt it.
The Bad
Also, the two languages and the 100 words limitation, imposed in the demo mode, might be too restrictive for users who need to work with very long lists of words. I tested the app only for two languages but I don't know how it acts when you try to add lots of unknown words in many different languages and if it still manages to categorize them or to use them correctly in the quizzes.
I also find that having to introduce the words one-by-one, by hand, is quite time-consuming. it would be much more elegant to have the option of getting started with some pre-built lists of words for each major language. The list can include the most frequently used words for each language, for instance.

The Truth
The purposefully simple designed interface and the lack of examples makes Papapapaya seem a bit bothersome at the very beginning. The names of the tabs are not so self-evident and you might came to the conclusion that entering each word (even the most common ones) by hand is time-consuming and a bit boring.
Although this affects Papapapaya's user-friendlines, it is not a major drawback. The aim of the app is to offer you an interactive method for learning new words in one or more foreign languages, and apparently it succeeds to do so.
The method of learning words in foreign languages through quizzes is great, because it is fun and it gives you much more control over the words you still need to repeat.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
