Practise English or Ukrainian with a word-guessing game
Why describing words is such good speaking practice
Most adult learners know more words than they can use. The gap shows up the moment they have to speak quickly, without a dictionary, and find another way round a word they cannot remember. A word-guessing game trains exactly that skill: one player must explain a word using only the language they are learning, while their team listens hard and answers out loud.
Circumlocution, the habit of saying “a thing you use to…” or “the opposite of…”, is what fluent speakers do all the time without noticing. A timed game turns it into a reflex, because there is no space to translate in your head. Learners also hear a dozen ways of describing the same idea in one evening, which is far more input than a typical drill provides.
Setting up Say It for a language session
Say It runs in the browser and is free. The conversation club organiser creates a room, shares the link or QR code, and learners join from their own phones. The room language is English or Ukrainian and the host can switch it in the lobby, which sets the language of the built-in deck of about 1,500 everyday words.
Those everyday words are a good fit for learners: household objects, food, jobs, weather, feelings, common verbs. They are the vocabulary people actually need in conversation, and describing them uses the same high-frequency words again and again, which is how they stick. Two teams of up to five players each make a comfortable group for a club table or a small online group.
Add the vocabulary you are actually studying
The real strength for learners is that anyone in the lobby can add their own words. The organiser can type in the twenty words from this week’s topic, whether that is travel, the workplace or health, and mix them with part of the built-in deck. Learners meet the new words in a live, slightly noisy situation, which is exactly where memory forms.
Let learners add words too. Ask everyone to enter three words they learned recently and want to be able to use. If you run a regular club, register a free account and save each topic as its own word pack, so next month you can reload the travel vocabulary for revision in a few taps. The ready-made Office pack, available with a free account, suits business-language groups well.
Pick a round length that matches the level
Time pressure is useful, but only up to a point. For lower-intermediate learners, a 120-second round, or a custom length of up to 300 seconds, gives room to think, restart a sentence and try again. Upper-intermediate and advanced groups do well with 60 or 90 seconds, and very confident speakers can try a short custom round of 20 or 30 seconds for pure speed.
Watch the group rather than the clock. If describers keep freezing and skipping, lengthen the round or reduce the share of the built-in deck in favour of words you have already taught. If turns feel easy and slow, shorten them. The goal is a level of stretch where people are working but still laughing.
House rules that keep the practice honest
Agree on a few rules before the first turn. No translating the word into another language, no spelling it out letter by letter, and no saying part of the word, so “bookshelf” cannot be explained with “book”. Gestures are fine as support, but the main clue must be spoken.
Encourage useful patterns and write them on a board or in the chat: “It is a kind of…”, “You use it when…”, “It is similar to…, but…”, “The opposite is…”. Learners at lower levels lean on these frames and gradually stop needing them. Mixed-level teams work well if the stronger speakers are asked to describe slowly and clearly rather than to race.
Turn the round review into a vocabulary break
After every round, Say It shows everyone the guessed and skipped words. For a club organiser, this list is gold. The skipped words reveal exactly which vocabulary the group cannot yet explain, and a two-minute pause to brainstorm how someone could have described them is often the most valuable part of the session.
Note the useful phrases learners invent while describing, and the mistakes that come up repeatedly. At the end of the evening, share a short list in the club’s chat. Play again keeps the same teams and words, so you can run a second game straight away and see whether the skipped words now get through.
Online clubs and tandem partners
The game works just as well remotely. Everyone joins the room from their own phone and keeps the video call open on a laptop, so they can hear the describer and shout guesses. This makes it a good fit for online conversation clubs, where it is often hard to get quiet participants talking.
Language tandems can use it too. A group of English speakers learning Ukrainian and Ukrainian speakers learning English can alternate: one game with the room set to Ukrainian, the next with it switched to English, so each side gets to be the learner and the helper in turn.
What level do learners need to enjoy the game?
Roughly lower intermediate and above is comfortable, because describing needs basic sentence building. Beginners can still join if you use long rounds, add simple vocabulary from your recent meetups and allow more gestures, but the game shines once learners can string a few sentences together.
Which languages does Say It support?
The room language and the built-in deck are available in English and Ukrainian, and the host can switch between them in the lobby. Your own words are always added on top, so you can tailor the deck to any topic your club is practising.
Is it free for a language club to use every week?
Yes. Say It is free to play and is paid for by ads. A free account is only needed if you want to save word packs for later sessions or add the ready-made packs.