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.
That's a really good recommendation! Also, a great excuse to spend more time gaming.
culebron21 20 minutes ago [-]
I've tried lots of German text books, and 99% of them are essentially very easy grammar tests, which you quickly learn to fill, without actually learning to speak. In Goethe Institut's courses you also simply fill many tests, but in a group. This may help preparing for an exam, but not to learn anything.
That said, I'd love to see excercises on a really hard matter: verb controlling the noun. E.g. ich vermeide <which prep?> <noun|infinitive>. And not just random verb + random object, but sequences of the same verb, to get it remembered.
rspoerri 4 hours ago [-]
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.
rob74 4 hours ago [-]
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.
adamredwoods 3 hours ago [-]
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.
IAmBroom 4 hours ago [-]
It's gamified. People like winning games. People dislike taking tests.
vunderba 4 hours ago [-]
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.
rspoerri 4 hours ago [-]
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.
predictand 3 hours ago [-]
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.
watwut 2 hours ago [-]
I mean specifically for articles, there are only three options. So, eventually you will figure out the correct one based on the feedback.
tobi_bsf 5 hours ago [-]
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.
rob74 4 hours ago [-]
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 :)
weinzierl 2 hours ago [-]
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).
predictand 3 hours ago [-]
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!
Lutzb 1 hours ago [-]
I had "Jugendliche". "Der" can make sense for a male person. But "die" would also work, for the female person.
Panzerschrek 17 minutes ago [-]
Your answer: fünfundzwanzig nach elf.
Correct: fünfunddreißig vor zwölf.
Your answer: mittag.
Correct: punkt zwölf.
Your answer: acht Uhr.
Correct: punkt acht.
Was zum Teufel?
nxor 3 hours ago [-]
Somewhat related: if you think German is hard, prepare yourself for the friendly and talkative culture :)
rcarmo 47 minutes ago [-]
You're doing the Austrians and Swiss Germans a disservice :)
nxor 6 minutes ago [-]
I didn't name a specific country :)
kleiba 2 hours ago [-]
What do you mean?
merelysounds 4 hours ago [-]
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.
predictand 3 hours ago [-]
Fair enough! I should try to introduce other options that are more game-like.
rcarmo 48 minutes ago [-]
Nice, but as someone who can read some German but not write it accurately, I found it rather hard to type any accurate answers. Having some sort of multiple choice options would be very useful to begin with.
Some German natives may argue that the time short forms are wrong as they prefer "dreiviertel" instead of "viertel vor".
rob74 4 hours ago [-]
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...
ce4 1 hours ago [-]
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.
brettermeier 4 hours ago [-]
Stay with "viertel vor" please :D Well, it depends on where you are in germany...
xg15 5 hours ago [-]
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.
predictand 3 hours ago [-]
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.
ghufran_syed 2 hours ago [-]
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
vr46 1 hours ago [-]
Took me to my local grafana instance, which was a surprise :D
layer8 40 minutes ago [-]
The Time Short Form Game image has a spelling error, and also the clock time doesn’t match the words.
This smells too much like AI slop.
tEMporality7 1 hours ago [-]
Looks like this been made with AI. It seems too "clean" and simple and others have pointed out some issues.
fnands 3 hours ago [-]
Nice!
It's a bit similar to Grammatisch, although that just focuses on the grammar.
ixxie 2 hours ago [-]
Sprachspiele!
Rendered at 18:25:16 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
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 said, I'd love to see excercises on a really hard matter: verb controlling the noun. E.g. ich vermeide <which prep?> <noun|infinitive>. And not just random verb + random object, but sequences of the same verb, to get it remembered.
This is more of a "quiz" format, not learning. There is a difference.
Your answer: mittag. Correct: punkt zwölf.
Your answer: acht Uhr. Correct: punkt acht.
Was zum Teufel?
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.
Some German natives may argue that the time short forms are wrong as they prefer "dreiviertel" instead of "viertel vor".
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.
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.
This smells too much like AI slop.
It's a bit similar to Grammatisch, although that just focuses on the grammar.