Three Emojis, a daily word puzzle for language learners
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I'm in the process of learning German and wanted to play a German version of the NYT’s Spelling Bee. It was awful, I was very bad at it, it was not fun. So I built my own version of Spelling Bee meant for people like me.Three Emojis is a daily word game designed for language learners. You get seven letters and a list of blanked-out words to find. When you discover shorter words, they automatically fill into longer ones—like a crossword—which turns out to be really useful for languages like German.Each word also gets three emojis assigned to it as a clue, created by GPT-5 to try and capture the word’s meaning (this works surprisingly well, most of the time). If you get stuck, you can get text/audio hints as well.It supports German and English, with new puzzles every day. You can flag missing words or suggest additions directly in the game. The word lists include slang, abbreviations, and chat-speak—because those are, in my opinion, a big part of real language learning too (just nothing vulgar, too obscure or obsolete).Every word you find comes with its definition and pronunciation audio. If you want infinite hints or (coming soon) archive access, you can upgrade to Pro.Feedback is very welcome, it's my first game and I'm certainly not a frontend guy. Happy spelling!
HN · launched Nov 7, 2025 · 33 upvotes (top 23%) · 1 view
Niche: language learning apps · 511 launches, 50 in the last 7 days ▼ -6% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Education
- Vertical SaaS
- B2C
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 511 launches in language learning apps →
Could you build this?
Yes The core app is a daily word puzzle (similar to Spelling Bee or Wordle) easily implemented as a client-side web app using dictionary lists and basic state management.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Concerns raised: Performance issues on older Android devices, Game too long at 67-100 words for daily play, Unclear/archaic words like interjections and acronyms, Background emoji animation causes overheating on iPhone
Feature requests: Toggle to disable falling emoji animations, Harder difficulty mode (Three Emojis++ without 2-3 letter words), Performance mode for low-end devices, Better filtering of acronyms and interjections
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 439 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #128 of 440 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 9 days after the earliest competitor.
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- Jointter · hn · 2026-10-31 · 15 upvotes · similarity 0.56
- Tiled Words, a daily puzzle inspired by board games and crosswords · hn · 2025-10-29 · 13 upvotes · similarity 0.54
- Build an Emoji · ph · 2026-11-14 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.54
- Daily word puzzle game based on polysemy · hn · 2026-05-21 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.53
- Learn German with Games · hn · 2025-10-29 · 127 upvotes · similarity 0.52
- Typocalypse · hn · 2026-07-04 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.52
- Twixt · hn · 2026-05-21 · 20 upvotes · similarity 0.51
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