
Show HN: Verb Master –  A site for practising Spanish verbs - andycloke
https://andycloke.github.io/verb-master/
======
dharmon
Looks pretty nice.

I actually run a site that does something pretty similar [0]. The major
difference is that I "group" verbs into sets with identical conjugations.

I then use spaced repetition to generate the "flashcards", but substitute
grouped verbs at random. The idea is for you to get a feel for a conjugation
so that when you see a new verb in the future you should have a good sense of
how it conjugates. (as a trivial example, if you know how to conjugate _tener_
, you should know how to conjugation _detener_ ).

I built it for myself years ago to quickly master all the verb conjugations
for all tenses (it takes about 4-6 months), then cleaned it up for others.

I also give a multiple choice option, since on mobile its not always
convenient to type.

[0]: [https://maestrospanish.com/beta](https://maestrospanish.com/beta)

~~~
dantle
I followed the same flow for learning Spanish as you, and your site looks
excellent. I too have a bunch of infinitives memorized via Anki, but would
like to practice all forms of conjugation, and manually creating more
flashcards is simply too labor-intensive.

One thing I'd like to see is the flashcard interface translated to Spanish. I
learned Spanish in Spanish, for the most part, and I get confused when I see
"imperfect" and I have to remember that it's really what I learned as
"pasado/preterito imperfecto." Built-in pronunciation via TTS would also rock!
One could probably write a userscript to do this, but it's always nicer to be
built in.

~~~
andycloke
Thanks! I found anki is great for vocab but for verbs there are just so many
conjugations that you end up with too many flashcards. Plus making them is a
bore as you say...

This is already a feature but maybe it's not clear. Click on the drop down in
the top right to change the language to Spanish

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andycloke
Creator here. I only started learning to code properly 7 months ago and react
~3 months ago, so I'd love any feedback.

I hope to add audio, more tenses and more feedback (on your progress through
each round) soon.

I wrote a blog post on the development here for anyone interested:
[https://andycloke.github.io/Building-Verb-
Master/](https://andycloke.github.io/Building-Verb-Master/)

This was my CS50 final project. Can't recommend the course highly enough.

~~~
andygcook
Very impressive for less than a year's worth of development experience.
Appreciate the simple, clean design too. Congratulations on the launch!

How did you load the verbs + conjugations into the system?

~~~
andycloke
Thanks a lot man! Most of the design credit should go to React Toolbox:
[http://react-toolbox.com](http://react-toolbox.com)

The verb data is from: [https://github.com/ghidinelli/fred-jehle-spanish-
verbs](https://github.com/ghidinelli/fred-jehle-spanish-verbs). I wrote a node
script to turn it into a more efficient format.

If you're interested I wrote a little post about making it here:
[https://andycloke.github.io/Building-Verb-
Master/](https://andycloke.github.io/Building-Verb-Master/)

------
Philomath
Funny, I am Spanish and I just realised how confusing the verb 'to feel' can
be.

The app translated it to 'sentirse', and I didn't do it correctly. Just after
that I found the error.

'To feel' can be translated to 'sentir' or to 'sentirse' and both are correct
depending on the context. 'To feel the wind' would be 'sentir el viento', but
'to feel bad' would be 'sentirse mal'. I conjugated 'sentir' and it was asking
for 'sentirse'.

~~~
edko
I don't think there is anything special about the verb "sentir". "Sentirse" is
just using it in a reflexive way, and the same holds for many other verbs:
acostar, cepillar, duchar, levantar, etc.

~~~
solipsism
Was going to say exactly this. Nothing out of the ordinary here. OP appears
bilingual but must not spend much time translating between languages. You will
face such problems (maybe they can be thought of as an example of an impedence
mismatch [0]) whenever going between languages, especially when you're
crossing language families.

[0]
[http://wiki.c2.com/?ImpedanceMismatch](http://wiki.c2.com/?ImpedanceMismatch)

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sutee
Great minds think alike! My friend and I built a similar web app for learning
Spanish conjugations:
[http://practicarapp.herokuapp.com/](http://practicarapp.herokuapp.com/). I
found that it was a perfectly-sized project for learning React/Redux.

~~~
andycloke
Nice work! Yeah couldn't agree more. It really brought home how great Redux is
even for smallish projects like these

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Jemaclus
Looks fun. Congrats on learning React. I haven't wrapped my head around it
yet. (But then again, I avoid front-end like the plague...)

I found an "undefined" thing: [http://d.pr/i/Dd2eA](http://d.pr/i/Dd2eA)

Also, the steps aren't really clear. I got "tener - to have" and "Yo", and I
put in "tengo" and hit Enter, and it took me back to the main page, where I
had to hit "Play" again. I would have expected it to give me another tense or
another verb, but that's not what happened.

I tried again by hitting the envelope arrow, but it basically did the same
thing.

It's a neat concept (and reminded me that I need to retake Spanish 101) but it
could probably use some more documentation and testing. Hope that was helpful!

~~~
andycloke
This was a bug, Sorry! I'd previously set the target score to 15, but I
changed it to 1 whilst debugging something this afternoon. Noob error - Fixed
now :)

Edit: Not sure what the undefined bug was will keep looking, ... thanks for
flagging it up.

I added the tooltips in the game to explain what to do but I agree it could be
more intuitive.

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pmontra
By looking at the first page, Spanish verbs are so similar to Italian and
French ones, almost certainly Portuguese and maybe Romanian. I wonder if
translating the data file at [https://github.com/andycloke/verb-master-
development/blob/ma...](https://github.com/andycloke/verb-master-
development/blob/master/src/data/index.js) would be enough to make a similar
site for those languages. There are some differences in the pronouns to
account for but it's probably a little work on software and a lot of work at
building the database.

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joshvm
This is awesome, though there's a bug somewhere that causes any character
input into the field to submit. Perhaps triggered by going back and forth to
the main menu.

Also it would be useful if you could have a 'hint' mode for the tense so you
can remember which one it is. I can never remember the _names_ of the tenses!

EDIT: Seems to be triggered reliably if I get something wrong. Then any
character entered into the box will cause it to submit. Quitting and going
back resets it.

~~~
andycloke
Thanks! Great shout on the hint mode.

I don't quite understand the bug - could you post steps to recreate? For me
submitting a wrong answer shows the conjugation table, then takes you to the
next question :/

~~~
joshvm
Perhaps it's a Firefox problem? I'll try it in Safari (EDIT - seems to only
trigger in Firefox, so might be a plugin conflict or something weird -
probably wouldn't worry too much).

1) Load site, play

2) Get verb wrong - shows the hint table

3) Get to next question, first character entered into the box submits the form
(usually incorrectly, of course!)

4) Normal behaviour resumes if I hit quit and play again

~~~
andycloke
Will take a look at this tomorrow - thanks

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jamessb
On a apge liek this [1], the tooltip when mousing pver 'present' is numbered
'2.', and the tooltip when mousing over 'hervir - to boil' is '1.', which is
the opposite of the order on the page.

[1]: [https://andycloke.github.io/verb-
master/#/?_k=efs1q4](https://andycloke.github.io/verb-master/#/?_k=efs1q4) Whe
I mouse-over

~~~
andycloke
Hi cheers for the feedback.

The thinking behind that was that when you on first start it says: '1 -
conjugate this verb' '2 - for this person' etc. Which I think is the most
logical order.

However I wanted to keep the verb close to the input box so that you can see
it close by as you type your answer. That's why the numbers don't follow the
order on the page.

I might do this differently in the future - I could maybe get rid of the
numbers when you put your mouse over them, but keep them for the initial
intro.

------
GroupsOne
Great work!!. Are there any techniques to remember tough Spanish words while
practising ?

In case if its English verbs,I am able to see few listed here.

[http://learn.groupsone.com/how-to-remember-english-words-
for...](http://learn.groupsone.com/how-to-remember-english-words-for-gre/)

Can you help me out with similar techniques for Spanish?

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themonkeybob11
Very cool! It looks like the 3rd person singular and the 2nd person plural
forms are swapped throughout the imperative though: "nadad" should be swapped
with "nade" in the imperative affirmative, no "pidáis" and "no pidas", etc.

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robalfonso
This is great, I'm spanish and I never learned to speak (read pretty well). My
conjugation is abysmal so I sound like some kind of backwoods hill billy (the
spanish version of that). I may give this a go, get conversational. Great
project!

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smcl
I did this when I was studying Czech -
[http://conjugate.io](http://conjugate.io)

I think I spent more time futzing around with the app instead of learning the
language :-D

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feiss
very nice, congrats! :) I only miss to enter words by pressing Enter instead
of clicking on the arrow button

~~~
andycloke
thanks a lot - I forgot to add that to the shortcuts table but have added it
now

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rasmus1610
The Hamburger Menu Icon is also shown on bigger viewports... something you
might wanna fix ;)

~~~
andycloke
Thanks - Unfortunately that's just the way the component library (React
Toolbox) behaves. I could probably force a 'display: none' or something but
I'd rather spend my time adding more feature :)

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taormina
I have a trip to Spain coming up soon, thanks!

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pgcosta
congrats it's very nice!

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alando46
sweet man really great work. excited to see more languages on this. :)

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Safety1stClyde
It's a blank page.

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deadprogram
Useful. Thanks, Andy!

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jefe_
this is super cool

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kutkloon7
Awesome! I have been trying duolingo, but it's kind of a drag and I feel like
I never understand verbs well. This is a nice complement!

Also like the nice and clean look. I know I've seen it before somewhere. Where
did you get the inspiration for it?

~~~
andycloke
Cheers! The look is all Material Design using the React Toolbox library

