LangTutor: A Vocabulary-Learning Program That Makes You Work This is a program for learning vocabulary in a foreign language. There are lots of programs like that for the Pilot (or whatever they're calling it now), but most of them are based on the idea of flash-cards. That's probably more palmpilot-like and easier to use, but I find that the more work I make myself go to, the more likely I am to actually learn the vocabulary. Thus, this program makes you actually scribble in the answer and checks it. It also tries to keep track of what words you've answered correctly a lot and/or recently, and asks those words less frequently. If you really want to use it as flash-cards, just hit "Enter" when the question comes up, then press "Ignore" in the error dialog if you think you got it right or "OK" if you thought you got it wrong. Released under the terms of the GNU Public License. I make no guarantees that this will work, or that it won't mess up your Pilot/Palm Device/Whatever they're calling it these days... --------------------------- Release Notes ------------------------------- 0.11.3: - Fixed a bug wherein the ask threshold was being initially set to zero for new installs. - Better progress display when selecting question to ask. 0.11.2: - When taking a test, the "Enter" character is equivalent to pressing the "Enter" button. This is quite useful when running within POSE or with an attached keyboard. - You can now specify within the preferences how frequently questions should come up for review. - Added Hawaiian and French tests. 0.11.1: - Fixed an error in the memo import function (I could have sworn someone managed to use this correctly before...). Removed some debug alerts. Oops! 0.11.0: - Added a function to randomly resort the questions (useful if you entered a table of pronouns in the expected order or something). One of these days I might allow specification of a range or something... - Added a function to forget all user-specific knowledge so that you can give someone a fresh copy of a test. 0.10.0: - Changed test-taking so that it no longer chooses which questions to ask randomly. Instead, it asks a question if it thinks there's a 75% percent probability that you've forgotten the answer. I find this makes the program much easier to work with. I have vague plans in the future to make the 75% cutoff thing a user-changeable setting. For that matter, we could make random selection an option, but I really do think this way is better. 0.9.3: - Fixed some display issues on the Tungsten T. 0.9.2: - The program now automatically finds any tests you have loaded on your system. Before it was really lame :). 0.9.1: - Can't change preferences while taking a test. 0.9.0: - Added a preference dialog to set the number of questions to review. Note that you actually end up answering four times this number of questions, since you answer this many unknowns from L1 to L2, then L2 to L1, then review this many questions you've already answered (L1 to L2, L2 to L1). Before That: Earlier changes are lost in the mists of time... Sorry. ------------------------------- Included Tests ----------------------- 1) SpanishK.pdb/SpanishU.pdb - this is vocabulary from various Spanish translations of English-language books I like (I know, I'm lame). One of these days I'll get good enough in Spanish to read Garcia Marquez and stuff like that. 2) GermanK.pdb/GermanU.pdb - Donated by Nathan Everett Johnson -- thanks! 3) quechuaK.pdb/quechuaU.pdb - Stuff from a Quechua class at UCLA. It's Bolivian Quechua, so it might be a little different from what you want if you're going to Peru or something. 4) Wheelock's LatinK.pdb/Wheelock's LatinU.pdb - Latin vocabulary from the first few chapters of Wheelock's Latin book (from a fairly old edition). Since the Pilot has no macron character, I have used an acute accent. 5) FrenchK.pdb/FrenchU.pdb - first two or three chapters of "Teach Yourself Basic French." 6) HawaiianK.pdb/HawaiianU.pdb - first two or three chapters of "Let's Speak Hawaiian." For whatever reason I used the umlaut character for a macron in these. -------------------- Import File Format -------------------- If you want to develop tests on a desktop or import tests from some other program, you can import them from MemoPad files. They should be in the following format: The expected format of the memo is: \n QL1\n :\n AL2_1\n [ .\n AL2_2\n ]* [ :\n QL2\n :\n AL1_1\n [ .\n AL1_2\n ]* ] ; For example, a file for Quechua might appear as follows: quechua kichay : to open ; astawan : more . more often : more/more often : astawan . aswan ; Here the first question for a Quechua-to-English test is "kichay." The answer is "to open." The second question is "astawan," to which the answer is "more" or "more often." The first question on the English- to-Quechua side is "to open," the answer being "kichay." The next question is "more/more often," possible answers being "aswan" and "astawan." One of these days I should probably write an export function. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to submit a language test for inclusion: 1) Make a test. Take it a few times, etc. 2) Back up your copy of the test, copy it somewhere for safekeeping. 3) Go to the edit screen, and select "Mark All Qs Unknown" from the menu. 4) Hot-sync to back up the new copy of the test. It will be two files: U.pdb and K.pdb. The U.pdb one should be larger, and the K.pdb one shoud be quite small (152 bytes?). 5) Email me the files :). (albro@humnet.ucla.NOSPAM.edu)