Learning games for classical languages

Ideas and sketches.

See also: Elicited repetition in Moodle

Begin

Phase 1

Phase 2 / solution

Here's a sentence:

ad eum concursum est

Here are its permutations (e. g. using Algorithm::Permute; cf. also an explanation of permutations in Croatian, Faculty of Medicine, University of Zagreb):

ad eum est concursum
ad est eum concursum
est ad eum concursum
ad concursum eum est
ad concursum est eum
ad est concursum eum
est ad concursum eum
concursum ad eum est
concursum ad est eum
concursum est ad eum
est concursum ad eum
eum ad concursum est
eum ad est concursum
eum est ad concursum
est eum ad concursum
eum concursum ad est
eum concursum est ad
eum est concursum ad
est eum concursum ad
concursum eum ad est
concursum eum est ad
concursum est eum ad
est concursum eum ad

The game throws permutations at you — you have to decide (that is, put each into a basket) whether permutations are: a) impossible, that is meaningless; b) possible, but meaning something else; c) acceptable (but rare); d) probable.

Computer can play against you.

Horizontal treebanking; preserves word order.

Permutations, but using the throwing dice (or jackpot) metaphor. Can have blanks to fill in!

Inspired by predictive text entry. Use frequency data from the text we're reading to offer possibilities among which the player has to choose. Multiple grammatically correct, and linguistically possible, answers are offered, but Pythia shows no mercy, and accepts only what the author has actually written.

Meanings could be introduced as hints (then, of course, you lose some points).

What can be used, what is there: http://media.cidles.eu/poio/pressagio/, see http://www.peterbouda.eu/pressagio-a-predictive-text-system-in-python.html; or an autocomplete javascript (https://github.com/twitter/typeahead.js, http://complete-ly.appspot.com/, etc).

A sketch:

“haec” inq…

inquam
inquies
inquietaris
inquietas
inquieti
inquinant
inquis
inquit

“haec” inquit “loc…

loca
loci
loco
locorum
locum
locus
locutus

“haec” inquit “locutus subl…

sublimem
sublimi
sublimis

“haec” inquit “locutus sublimis abi…

abi
abiens
abierit
abigit
abiit
abin
abiret
abis
abite

“haec” inquit “locutus sublimis abiit.”

Congratulations! 2 out of 4!

A tall, dark stranger will have more fun than you.