Malayalearn

Learning a language, with room to play. 

Malayalearn is a memory-based card game designed to make learning Malayalam more intuitive, interactive and fun. The project began with How to Learn Malayalam in 30 Days — a dense paperback built around repetition, vocabulary and sentence structures. The challenge was to preserve its learning content while reimagining how it could be experienced.

The game translates language learning into a simple matching system. Players uncover pairs of Malayalam characters, pronunciations and translations, using repetition and play to build familiarity. Each card also doubles as a mini whiteboard, allowing learners to practise writing and reinforce what they have learnt.

The visual language draws from the original book while giving it a softer, more playful form. The colour palette retains a sense of continuity, while the central card shape is inspired by achappam, Kerala’s iconic rose cookie. The result is a learning tool that makes Malayalam feel less like a lesson to memorise and more like something you can pick up, play with and remember.

Go through the project here.