language trainer - kind of thing
From: Alexei A. Frounze (alexfru_at_chat.ru)
Date: 02/12/05
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Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 11:34:17 +0300
Hi,
recently I've started learning yet another foreign language (I'm Russian)
and came across the same old problem which I've almost forgotten about
during the never-ending course of practcing my 1st foreign language,
English...
As usual, it's not just the vocabulary that must be learned from the scratch
(well, the reality is no so bad), but the grammar with all its rules,
tenses, verb conjugations, pronouns and whatever comes in the middle of
them... I'm learning Spanish now.
To my surprise I've discovered that the language is indeed relatively
simple, especially when put in right words, clear rules, and accompanied
with comprehensive examples (I managed to find a great Spanish grammar
reference book in English at one of the biggest bookstores in Moscow, which
could have been impossible just as well because normally none expects anyone
else to learn a foreign language through another foreign rather than through
the native one :).
So, I started learning the language in its very core, the grammar. I'm
leaving much of the vocabulary and the speech-pracrice for the future. This
works for me well. I'm very used to understand from the structured
information rather than from just a collection of disjoint or not otherwise
categorized examples.
But to me, w/o attending any courses/classes of the language (I'm a fulltime
software engineer), it's hard to make up the multitude of the Qs and correct
As to perfect my skills and memorize whatever is not memorized yet (not to
mention the "simple" movement from the short-term to the long-term memory,
which also needs some regular practice).
Having read the grammar book about 5 times from the beginning till the end,
I came up with an idea... And the idea is not sort of grown up from
nowhere... I have a few other Spanish textbooks, none of them presenting the
information suitable for learning the grammar in a structured way. I have 2
different CD Spanish courses providing almost the same thing (except for
colorful pix, audio and video) and a number of prepared, fixed, unextendable
questions/quizes/puzzles/whatever. It's just that. If I want to learn the
most common irregular verbs in all their forms or just learn the entire
conjugation pattern, I must look elsewhere or simply do everything by hand
wasting lots of time to just get prepared for the actual process of learning
something -- I must structure things, prepare questions and answers and then
repeat them often with various modifications like using different verbs,
pronouns, tenses, etc. I mean I didn't find any practical aid in those many
language sources.
So... The idea... The idea is simple, though to some clever guys in here it
may look kinda stupid or maybe even someone may say that it's impossible to
do it, but... I want to make a language trainer application for the PC.
The functionality is rather simple: within selected grammar area, at random
a sentense is being genrated according to the grammar rules being currently
studied by the user. The sentense is than shown on the screen in one
language (native or English would do in my case) and program asks to enter
the translation of it in the language being learned (e.g. Spanish).
Of course, this implies that the sentenses be generated simple so as not to
make the whole thing being aka mission impossible. :) Personally, I think
that there are several areas that can be trained separately:
- word banks, common expressions, whatever else may fall here
- verbs and their conjugations, tenses, pronouns, sentense structure (and
the order of parts of speech in it), what else is missing?
What I'm currently talking about is the 2nd of the two above... Here's a
portion of my other post to a Spanish-related newsgroup:
-----8<-----
Besides, the program obviously should have the translations of the words
being used in it, in all forms that are applicable...
Example:
infinitive: eat <-> comer
simple present:
(I) eat <-> (yo) como, (you) eat <-> (tú) comes, (he/she/it) eats <->
(el/ella/Ud.) come
(we) eat <-> (nosotros) comemos, (you) eat <-> (vosotros) coméis, (they) eat
<-> (ellos/ellas/Uds.) comen
present participle / gerund: eating <->comiendo
past participle: eaten <-> comid<o|a>[s]
etc...
So, for example if the program decides to use 3rd person plural, use the
verb to eat and the present tense, then it asks for a translation of:
They <eat|are eating>
and expects:
[Ellos|Ellas] <comen|estan comiendo>
There should be no other words that are irrelevant to the tense, verb itself
and its conjugation, word order, gender and number agreements.
I think in this simple way it's possible to organize the rules formally and
generate a particular example/problem just out of the rule and word banks.
I'm not saying it's possible to make an ideal thing, but something that'll
make it possible to train the basic stuff sounds like feasible.
-----8<-----
At the moment, conjugation isn't a problem -- it can all be easily ripped
off from a big reference of irregular verbs. The main thing is perhaps the
logic and the rules that will make the application generate sane sentenses
(though, who cares if you occasionally eat/drink someone (or yourself :),
provided the grammar is OK? :).
Currently I'm thinking of managing a number of sets of different things such
as verbs of different types (transitive, intransitive, reflexive), pronuons
(all kinds of), some nouns, maybe something else to make up simple
direct/indirect objects. The primary concern is to pick whatever can be
picked at random to a degree not breaking the constraints imposed by the
grammar. At the same time, I'd like to have the basic possibility to have
multiple correct answers (because, as you might know, the pronouns can be
dropped if the verb conjugation tells you the person)... and... I'd love the
thing to be extendable with new words and possibly new grammar rules --
through a number of text files (maybe requiring some postprocessing like
rebuilding an index for fast search within files, or just translate text to
binary form for the mere use during the app normal use).
I'm not saying anything about statistics and scoring here and the
organization of the things alike, it's perhaps the least important now...
What do you think about it? And would be out there anyone willing to
participate in such a project, to lend a helping hand?
TIA,
Alex
P.S. of course, I'm not pretending to make something sutable for each and
every language, but for English and Spanish this would probably work OK.
P.P.S. I sure can program myself, but as noted, not too much of spare time,
and, two or more thinking heads are better than one :)
P.P.P.S. Expect no money, no nothing for your participation :) But... Who
knows... If I've never seen similar program yet, why not this be the first
ever, why not make you famous? It might sell or become 2nd linux with
thousands of hackers and users :))
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