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Show HN: Learn German with Games
I just started learning German, and it has been a frustrating experience, to say the least. There are so many seemingly arbitrary rules that make pattern recognition very difficult. Therefore, I have been looking for ways to make memorization a bit easier and fun. So, I came up with a bunch of games to make learning German a bit more engaging. Hope you find it useful as well!
- xg15 11mo agoIt'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 11mo agoYep, 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.
- tobi_bsf 11mo agoNice, 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 11mo agoThere 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 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 :)
- predictand 11mo agoThe 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 11mo agoI had "Jugendliche". "Der" can make sense for a male person. But "die" would also work, for the female person.
- leipert 11mo agoAlso for „See“. Der See - the lake. Die See - the sea.
- 1718627440 11mo ago> I am a complete beginner in German, but I thought the artikel for plurals is always 'die'. Correct. > However, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of exceptions to that rule. Not to this one.
- weinzierl 11mo agoSometimes 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).
- 1718627440 11mo ago> with "Geschwister" I never heard that used as a singular noun. Maybe it is a Swiss thing. If anything you could say 'das Geschwisterkind'.
- rob74 11mo agoActually, the Duden article I linked above says (under "Bedeutungen"): 1. (männliche wie weibliche) Kinder gleicher Eltern, nur im Plural. Beispiele: "die Geschwister sehen sich alle ähnlich", "ich habe drei Geschwister (wir sind vier Geschwister)" 2. einzelner Geschwisterteil. Gebrauch: Fachsprache; auch schweizerisch Beispiel: "das ältere Geschwister" So, you are correct, the singular form is only used by the Swiss and as a technical term. So maybe the game shouldn't contain it at all? Or accept both "das" and "die", in case someone thinks it has to be plural?
- rspoerri 11mo agoI 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.
- IAmBroom 11mo agoIt's gamified. People like winning games. People dislike taking tests.
- rspoerri 11mo agoIt'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 11mo agoI 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.
- rspoerri 11mo agoI thought about that probem as well, and i think an important aspect that you could improve is by showing the correct answer much more visibly. Right now it's hidden in a corner (iirc), so that i can barely see it. By showing the task and the answer next to each other when doing it wrong, the players might learn something of it. What i typically recommend my students is to try to transform a learning task in a way that you need to apply a skill, without needing to do the skill itself. For example playing english text adventure games is a very fun way to learn english. Players need to figure out what to enter using the keyboard and they use classical methods of figuring out the correct content (dictionary, translation) and they still have fun doing so. Even if it's hard work (not so much anymore with deepl etc, but back in the day it was). This can be applied to tons of tasks. - make sure you are not cheated when trading in a game. - keep up your reaction time by playing race games (a very good thing for elderly who want to keep theyr driving skills) - train your dictionary skills in scrabble. - ...
- merelysounds 11mo agoCongrats 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 11mo agoFair enough! I should try to introduce other options that are more game-like.
- rwoerz 11mo agoCongrats. Some German natives may argue that the time short forms are wrong as they prefer "dreiviertel" instead of "viertel vor".
- brettermeier 11mo agoStay with "viertel vor" please :D Well, it depends on where you are in germany...
- rob74 11mo agoLet'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 11mo agoIt 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.
- 1718627440 11mo agoYes. The other explanation is that time is nothing special, it gets just counted like everything else. You wouldn't say it's a quarter to a full cake either.
- rob74 11mo agoIf we follow your argument, the number 3.25 would be read "point two five to four" istead of "three point two five". Which is to say, the fact that the quarters are mentioned in connection to the next hour, not the previous one, is indeed unusual.
- elicash 11mo agoOn 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-simlish-with https://dasboudicca.substack.com/p/i-learned-german-and-siml... (This writer has lots of game learning reviews)
- predictand 11mo agoThat's a really good recommendation! Also, a great excuse to spend more time gaming.
- HK-NC 11mo agoI had a game called Tom Clancy's Division, and a sequel. Theyre very long, grindy, repetitive games with a lot of text, a lot of spoken dialogue with full subtitles, and plenty of collectible audio things that can be replayed. I learned a lot of Russian amd German playing both these games.
- fnands 11mo agoNice! It's a bit similar to Grammatisch, although that just focuses on the grammar.
- nxor 11mo agoSomewhat related: if you think German is hard, prepare yourself for the friendly and talkative culture :)
- kleiba 11mo agoWhat do you mean?
- nxor 11mo agoWhat do I mean? Where to start. Interact with some people from the region and you will find out. As most learners of German know, the hard part of German isn't der die das, it's the exclusive culture. I have C1 in German and have been told "You sound unnatural like a Turk" (I am not a Turk) and "Children sound more natural than you" (of course - they are native speakers). You can get every case, every article, and every syllable correct and they will still find a way to laugh at you. Ask for help in Germany and you will be ignored. Or better yet, "I don't want to help you." Then they wonder why people fail to learn their language. Frankly I wish I could unlearn the language.
- cindyllm 11mo ago[dead]
- 1718627440 11mo ago> You can get every case, every article, and every syllable correct For articles, natives say sentences with wrong articles in them too. Seldomly because they don't know it (still happens), but because they change what they want to say mid-sentence. Cases are always a fight between the pendants and people who don't care. Plain incorrect grammar will of course be noticeable, but grammar isn't everything.
- nxor 11mo agoThat's not what I meant, and I too switch words mid-sentence. And even if my word choice, register, or what have you is wrong, I don't understand the attitude. Because when they make mistakes in English I don't even comment.
- ixxie 11mo agoSprachspiele!
- ghufran_syed 11mo agofyi, 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 11mo agoTook me to my local grafana instance, which was a surprise :D
- predictand 11mo agooooo, good to know!
- tEMporality7 11mo agoLooks like this been made with AI. It seems too "clean" and simple and others have pointed out some issues.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- whatamidoingyo 11mo agoVercel, React, Tailwind, and Supabase. Most likely made with AI. The hover animations area a giveaway too.
- predictand 11mo agoYep, I definitely leveraged AI when building it; however, it is still built by me. So far it is a weekend project, not meant to be a production-grade app with polish.
- fainpul 11mo agohttps://www.languagetransfer.org/courses#german https://www.languagetransfer.org/courses#german
- rcarmo 11mo agoNice, 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.
- predictand 11mo agoThanks! I definitely want to implement it as well to also make it more mobile-friendly
- layer8 11mo agoThe 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.
- predictand 11mo agoI am a beginner to the language, and it is helping me remember the artikels and learn new words.
- 1718627440 11mo agoHow do you know it's correct.
- predictand 11mo agoI am going to the course at the same time and live in a German-speaking country. So, I am able to contextualize and cross-reference my learnings.
- culebron21 11mo agoI'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.
- ludicrousdispla 11mo agoI find the 'Deutschkurse Passau" workbooks [0] to be the best at focusing on grammar structure and providing useful practice. They can be worked through without an instructor (provided you've had some exposure to the grammar at each level.) 0. https://www.deutschkurse-passau.de/JM/index.php/downloads https://www.deutschkurse-passau.de/JM/index.php/downloads My main complaint with most of the other German language coursebooks is the grammar lessons are too scattered, and the main effort in doing the exercises is figuring out what they want you to do.
- Panzerschrek 11mo agoYour answer: fünfundzwanzig nach elf. Correct: fünfunddreißig vor zwölf. Your answer: mittag. Correct: punkt zwölf. Your answer: acht Uhr. Correct: punkt acht. Was zum Teufel?
- 1718627440 11mo agoInteresting. 'um X' gets labelled wrong as well. I guess at least with times OP needs to throw away the notion of the single correct answer. But yes a lot of these 'correct answers' sound uncommon in talking or in general.
- chopin 11mo agoYour first one gets me puzzled. Normally, you take the shorter time to the full hour. Nobody says 'fünfundvierzig vor zwölf', for example. I never said or heard 'fünfunddreißig vor zwölf'. Before half past an hour everyone says '... nach elf'.
- elaus 11mo agoYeah the clock game is weird. One solution was "fünfundzwanzig vor zwei" which I never heard in my life (native German). At least in my region one would say "fünf nach halb zwei" or "Ein Uhr fünfunddreißig".
- 1718627440 11mo agoA thing that OP might also not know: 'punkt acht' is 'precisely at eight', if you want to say 'eight o'clock', that's 'um acht'. The literally meaning of something being 'um' is, that something has passed fully, or is completed.
- schluete 11mo agoNative german speaker here, this is pretty nice! One mistake I found though: in the clock game the game's solution for one o'clock times is "eins", like "eins Uhr dreissig" for 1:30am/pm. That's not correct, you'd use "ein" instead of "eins", so the correct solution would be "ein Uhr dreissig" Keep up learning german, I know from non-german coworkers how hard the language can be to get a grasp on!
- predictand 11mo agoThanks for the correction! That's good to know. I also noticed it isn't dreizig but dreissig, whereas it is vierzig (and not vierssig). I have to double-check whether it is my source that's wrong or just another exception to memorize.
- 1718627440 11mo ago> dreizig but dreissig Actually it's 'dreißig'. It can't be 'dreissig', since a double consonant like 'ss' indicates a short vowel, which a diphthong like 'ei' can never be.
- chmod775 11mo agoA hundred years ago you might've still commonly seen it spelled "dreiszig".
- 1718627440 11mo agoThey are the same thing, when you don't use latin characters.
- chmod775 11mo agoInteresting nitpick, but I must be missing your point somehow. >They are the same thing No, that's in fact not the same characters (obviously?), even if they can be used to represent the same phoneme and could thus be viewed as interchangeable. I've made it explicitly clear my comment concerned spelling though. >when you don't use latin characters. I have no idea how to parse this, given that all three of them are letters used in latin script. I suppose one of them wouldn't be considered part of the basic latin alphabet, but then your sentence still doesn't make sense to me.
- 1718627440 11mo agoAt least https://www.learngermanwithgames.com/games/german-verbs-to-english https://www.learngermanwithgames.com/games/german-verbs-to-e... : has a bug. It shows correct, as soon as your substring matches. Thus, you can enter the first letter of the word and it will show it as correct.
- predictand 11mo agoThat's a good catch! Thanks for reporting.
- 1718627440 11mo agoI'm curious, how do you write such a bug? Accidental early return in the comparison function or what?
- predictand 11mo agoSo, in that particular game, I wanted to match a substring, since my data source includes some responses written as "let/allow" or "drive (vehicle)", which isn't realistic to expect the user to type. So, I just figured I would quickly work around that by allowing a substring match. However, I didn't really think about the edge cases all that much.
- 1718627440 11mo agoYeah, I guess you should just split your source data into words.
- 1718627440 11mo agoThe 'German Time Game' is confusing (at least to a native). The answers you want to hear are words you would say about a digital clock, it's highly uncommon to use this to tell the time from an analog clock. Maybe you should consider showing a digital clock for this game. What you would use for an analog clock is what you call 'Time Short Form'.
- predictand 11mo agoWe have been told that it might be normal to tell the time like that from an analog clock in places where precision matters (like train stations or airports). As a beginner, this is how we started to learn it as well in the course I am taking. I think it makes your brain work harder by making it do more processing (you need to interpret the clock + the numbers, whereas a digital clock simply gives the number to you, so less mental processing is needed). I see where you are coming from, but it helps me with my learning and coursework.
- 1718627440 11mo ago> where precision matters (like train stations or airports). That is true. That is called e.g. 'Bahnhofszeit' and follows different rules than normal time telling. You should include that in the game description, otherwise learners may think that is how you tell the time to each other in everyday life. I think it is less about precision as e.g. 'zwei vor dreiviertel Elf' is as precise as 'zehn Uhr dreiundvierzig', but more about the way of measuring times. E.g. you do round normal time, but truncate 'train station time'.
- 1718627440 11mo agoFor 'Numbers to Words' you could display the summary ordered by value instead of time. I guess that's more useful for a learner.
- donq1xote1 11mo agoGot some problems opening your site. Love to see more such Gameficition Apps in the education area.
- predictand 11mo agoThere was a small problem with the redirect after registration, but it should now be fixed. Thanks for trying!
- jjuliano 11mo agoI did something similar back in 2019 but for learning Dutch with games, which I made originally for my child but this kinda helps me remember many A2 words and helps me with the exams. Now I have the Dutch citizenship. Not as extensive as the site but with the images, interactions, it helps with remembering the vocabularies. https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Joel+Bryan+Juliano https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Joel+Bryan+J...
- predictand 11mo agoVery cool! I really need to work on my mobile development skills.
- 8mobile 11mo agoI tried the app because I'd like to improve my German. The UI is well-designed, but it would be nice to have prompts like Duolingo, as this is a bit too difficult. I'll test it more, congratulations.
- predictand 11mo agoThanks for trying! I have been using Duolingo as well and I definitely am considering to add more click-based games.
- JayDustheadz 11mo agoI apologize for an offtopic but...anyone happen to know anything similar for Ukrainian?
- martin1027 11mo agoIt looks interesting!
- anakaine 11mo agoThese are flashcards at best, and thus become memory tools. There's little no no learning occurring here for someone who wants to learn German, but has not yet started. Sorry. The layout looks nice.
- dravenCore 11mo agoLearning German can feel tough, but turning it into a game makes it way more fun and less scary.
- jimmydin7 11mo agothats very nice! i tried it! maybe a leaderboard would be cool