On the topic of learning German with games, the recommendation I've seen before is that many games have language options and depending on the type of game you can learn a lot that way just because you spend SO many hours in it.
Nice, not sure if "Guess the Artikel" makes sense this way. Sometimes it’s not clear whether the word is singular or plural, which affects the article. For example, I got "Ausländer," which can either be "die" for plural or "der" for singular.
There are words that can have several Artikel, sometimes depending on regional differences (e.g. Austrians have different preferences than Germans), sometimes because of multiple meanings of a word. In that case, I would expect the game to accept all valid answers. But I got the impression that all words were singular, so "der" would be the only valid option for "Ausländer". I had a similar issue with "Geschwister", where I picked "das" (correct according to https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Geschwister), but the game expected "die" (which IMHO only makes sense for the plural form). Looks like it needs a bit more QA :)
Sometimes it's not regional but depends on the intended meaning.
"der Schild" is the thing you wear for protection (shield), "das Schild" tells you the way
(sign).
The intention with that game was to pick the artikels for the singular form of the words. I am a complete beginner in German, but I thought the artikel for plurals is always 'die'. However, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of exceptions to that rule. As for Geschwister, yep, that seems wrong. I will fix it!
I don't see how people can learn a language by tests, which are only telling you if you did it right or wrong. I can see how this is used to verify the existing knowledge, but I don't see any usage in learning.
Of course, these games won't help improve your fluency in speaking German, but they might help you e.g. remember the correct gender of a noun (and thus its "Artikel"), which is one of the most difficult aspects of German and can only be done through rote memorization.
It's a nicely laid out site, but I tried every single activity on the site. Calling them games is... really stretching the definition. They are all interactive quizzes.
It's still not learning, it's verification of existing knowledge. It might be more fun than taking tests, nevertheless you cannot learn knowledge by testing knowledge, you can only verify it. Only if the user answers correctly you might consolidate the already existing knowledge.
I think it is fair to call it more practice than learning. I hope to add more games in the future that focus on the learning aspect of things. However, as a beginner, I still find that it helps me learn new words. If I continuously make the same mistake and receive feedback on my answer, it eventually makes me learn what is correct.
Quick feedback: the website looks very polished and intuitive. I especially liked the test about articles, where I didn’t have to type. I liked that the website works well on mobile too. The content is not what I’d call games though; based on the name I expected something different than test questions and quizzes.
fyi, the account confirmation email redirects and ends up on a tab with address localhost:3000. looks like it did work, i was able to login after that, but many users may assume it failed and give up
Let's not get started with that... those same people also say "viertel vier" to mean 3:15 (one quarter of the "fourth hour" has passed), which is really confusing to the uninitiated, so "viertel nach"/"viertel vor" is preferable IMHO...
It does make sense though (once you know where it comes from):
Before the ubiquity of watches, time was announced using church clocks and bell strikes. There's a big bell for hours (low pitch) and a smaller one for announcing quarters (higher pitch).
Signalling zero is not possible using "zero bell strikes", so 00:00 is signalled by 4 strikes of the quarters bell and 12 strikes of the hour bell.
Thus, the sequences go like:
11:15 1x quarter bell
11:30 2x quarter bell
11:45 3x quarter bell
12:00 4x quarter bell + 1x hour bell
Basically it makes sense then as all the quarters belong to the same hour.
It's a really cool idea! Watch out for AI mistakes though, especially when generating content in a foreign language. I see one mistake in the "Time Short Form Game" image where the image has "habl" for what should probably mean "halb".
Also, I'm not sure if converting between 5 digit numbers and words is a good starting task, unless you want to dive right in with German's (in)famous word chaining ability.
Yep, I noticed AI is terrible with words on images, and that seems to have slipped my attention. Thanks for the callout! I tried to keep the number games tamed by only going up to 3 digits.
On the topic of learning German with games, the recommendation I've seen before is that many games have language options and depending on the type of game you can learn a lot that way just because you spend SO many hours in it.
So the Sims, I'd guess, is probably a good example for building vocabulary. Edit: example https://dasboudicca.substack.com/p/i-learned-german-and-siml... (This writer has lots of game learning reviews)
That's a really good recommendation! Also, a great excuse to spend more time gaming.
Nice, not sure if "Guess the Artikel" makes sense this way. Sometimes it’s not clear whether the word is singular or plural, which affects the article. For example, I got "Ausländer," which can either be "die" for plural or "der" for singular.
There are words that can have several Artikel, sometimes depending on regional differences (e.g. Austrians have different preferences than Germans), sometimes because of multiple meanings of a word. In that case, I would expect the game to accept all valid answers. But I got the impression that all words were singular, so "der" would be the only valid option for "Ausländer". I had a similar issue with "Geschwister", where I picked "das" (correct according to https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Geschwister), but the game expected "die" (which IMHO only makes sense for the plural form). Looks like it needs a bit more QA :)
Sometimes it's not regional but depends on the intended meaning. "der Schild" is the thing you wear for protection (shield), "das Schild" tells you the way (sign).
The intention with that game was to pick the artikels for the singular form of the words. I am a complete beginner in German, but I thought the artikel for plurals is always 'die'. However, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of exceptions to that rule. As for Geschwister, yep, that seems wrong. I will fix it!
I had "Jugendliche". "Der" can make sense for a male person. But "die" would also work, for the female person.
Looks like this been made with AI. It seems too "clean" and simple and others have pointed out some issues.
I don't see how people can learn a language by tests, which are only telling you if you did it right or wrong. I can see how this is used to verify the existing knowledge, but I don't see any usage in learning.
I agree with this, I didn't see it as a game or learning anything. It didn't even give me the correct answers if I got it wrong.
This is more of a "quiz" format, not learning. There is a difference.
Of course, these games won't help improve your fluency in speaking German, but they might help you e.g. remember the correct gender of a noun (and thus its "Artikel"), which is one of the most difficult aspects of German and can only be done through rote memorization.
It's gamified. People like winning games. People dislike taking tests.
It's a nicely laid out site, but I tried every single activity on the site. Calling them games is... really stretching the definition. They are all interactive quizzes.
It's still not learning, it's verification of existing knowledge. It might be more fun than taking tests, nevertheless you cannot learn knowledge by testing knowledge, you can only verify it. Only if the user answers correctly you might consolidate the already existing knowledge.
I think it is fair to call it more practice than learning. I hope to add more games in the future that focus on the learning aspect of things. However, as a beginner, I still find that it helps me learn new words. If I continuously make the same mistake and receive feedback on my answer, it eventually makes me learn what is correct.
I mean specifically for articles, there are only three options. So, eventually you will figure out the correct one based on the feedback.
Congrats on the launch!
Quick feedback: the website looks very polished and intuitive. I especially liked the test about articles, where I didn’t have to type. I liked that the website works well on mobile too. The content is not what I’d call games though; based on the name I expected something different than test questions and quizzes.
Fair enough! I should try to introduce other options that are more game-like.
Somewhat related: if you think German is hard, prepare yourself for the friendly and talkative culture :)
What do you mean?
fyi, the account confirmation email redirects and ends up on a tab with address localhost:3000. looks like it did work, i was able to login after that, but many users may assume it failed and give up
Took me to my local grafana instance, which was a surprise :D
Congrats.
Some German natives may argue that the time short forms are wrong as they prefer "dreiviertel" instead of "viertel vor".
Let's not get started with that... those same people also say "viertel vier" to mean 3:15 (one quarter of the "fourth hour" has passed), which is really confusing to the uninitiated, so "viertel nach"/"viertel vor" is preferable IMHO...
It does make sense though (once you know where it comes from): Before the ubiquity of watches, time was announced using church clocks and bell strikes. There's a big bell for hours (low pitch) and a smaller one for announcing quarters (higher pitch).
Signalling zero is not possible using "zero bell strikes", so 00:00 is signalled by 4 strikes of the quarters bell and 12 strikes of the hour bell.
Thus, the sequences go like: 11:15 1x quarter bell 11:30 2x quarter bell 11:45 3x quarter bell 12:00 4x quarter bell + 1x hour bell
Basically it makes sense then as all the quarters belong to the same hour.
Stay with "viertel vor" please :D Well, it depends on where you are in germany...
It's a really cool idea! Watch out for AI mistakes though, especially when generating content in a foreign language. I see one mistake in the "Time Short Form Game" image where the image has "habl" for what should probably mean "halb".
Also, I'm not sure if converting between 5 digit numbers and words is a good starting task, unless you want to dive right in with German's (in)famous word chaining ability.
Yep, I noticed AI is terrible with words on images, and that seems to have slipped my attention. Thanks for the callout! I tried to keep the number games tamed by only going up to 3 digits.
Nice!
It's a bit similar to Grammatisch, although that just focuses on the grammar.
Sprachspiele!