Упражнения

Spanish Conjumania

Version 1.2

Written by Jon Sargeant

Copyright © 1999-2003

E-mail: delta17@cox.net

Webpage: members.cox.net/~delta17/spanish/

Features:

• Verb Tutor: Perhaps the best way to learn verb conjugation is through repetition. This utility is a great way to become familiar with verbs. Set up the level of difficulty to suit yourself, then specialize in one or more tenses. When you finish typing the verb, hit enter and you will immediately know if you got it right. If you entered the verb correctly, the next verb appears. If not, the box will turn red momentarily and the correct conjugation will appear.

• Print Report: This is useful if you are installing the program in a school computer lab and you wish to know how many exercises your students completed. The report shows the student's name, the date, the exercises he completed, and the number he answered correctly.

• Conjugation Wizard: This utility displays every imaginable conjugation of a verb. Enter a Spanish infinitive and the computer does the rest. I organized the conjugations into five tabs so that you can rapidly find the conjugation you're looking for. Use this utility as a quick reference.

• Translator Utility: This feature translates verbs from English to Spanish and vice versa. Enter the verb phrase and the computer produces a list of matches. The utility is somewhat limited, however, because it only translates subject pronouns, auxiliary verbs.

• Spanish Verb Manager: I built this program after I completed Spanish Conjumania. Use this utility to add new verbs and add additional meanings for verbs. Quickly set up the verb's conjugation by selecting the stem change or irregularity from a list. Then view a list showing the verb's conjugation in each test to make sure the verb is setup correctly.

Installation:

Spanish Conjumania consists of 4 files:

spanish.exe

spanverb.txt

spanvm.exe

spanhelp.doc

Spanish.exe is the main program. Spanverb.txt is the database consisting of about 500 Spanish infinitives and their English counterparts. Both of these are required to run the program. Spanvm.exe is an add-on application which allows you to manage the verb database. See below for details. Copy these files into the same directory. No further installation is required.

Using the Verb Tutor:

When you run Spanish Conjumania, you are greeted with a colorful menu. Below the title are two boxes titled "Language" and "Difficulty". The "Language" box is fairly self-explanatory. If you select "Translate from Spanish to English", you are presented with a Spanish verb, and you must enter the English translation. If you enter "Conjugate Infinitives", you are presented with an infinitive, a tense, and a subject, and you must conjugate it correctly. The Difficulty box has a slider bar with four settings. Each IS described below:

• Regular Verbs: This setting uses a handful of elementary verbs with no orthographic changes, irregularities, stem changes, etc. Use this setting if you are learning a new tense, and you only want to conjugate really easy verbs.

• Easy: These are the easiest verbs in the database. "Easy" consists of verbs you might learn in second-year Spanish.

• Medium: This level corresponds to third-year Spanish. Use this setting if you are fairly fluent in Spanish.

• Hard: This setting utilizes all of the verbs in the database. Use "Hard" if you are looking for a real challenge.

Once you select the language and difficulty, choose one of the eleven categories of tenses from below. A few deserve special mention. “Perfect Tenses Part 1” only employs present perfect. “Perfect Tenses Part 2” employs all perfect tenses (i.e. pluperfect, future perfect, conditional perfect). The same goes for Subjunctive Parts 1 and 2. “Subjunctive Part 1” uses only present subjunctive. “Subjunctive Part 2” uses all forms of the subjunctive tense. Finally, “Prepare Custom Lesson” lets you design your own lesson. Select this option if you want to concentrate on a certain group of verbs or tenses. When you click “Prepare Custom Lesson” a window appears divided into two sections. The top half lets you choose the verbs you wish to conjugate. Drag the desired verbs from the box on right to the box on left, or click the button pointing to the left. To remove a verb from the selection, drag the verb to the right box, or click the button pointing to the right. If you wish to conjugate all of the verbs or remove all of the verbs from the selection, use the buttons labeled “<>”. Once you have chosen the verbs, choose the tenses in which you wish to conjugate these verbs using the two boxes beneath.

When you choose an item, a tutor window appears. Enter the correct translation in the box and press ENTER or click "OK". If you wish to return to the menu, click "Menu". To enter accents, click on the row of buttons or type CTRL plus the letter. I included the latter feature because I know how annoying it is to repeatedly position the mouse and click. To enter a tilde of the n, type CTRL + 'n'. To enter a direthesis over the 'u', type CTRL + SHIFT + 'u'. The number of verbs you conjugated correctly appears on the right. After you conjugate twenty verbs, you are returned to the menu.

How to translate a verb:

• Subjects: It is difficult to translate Spanish subjects because the subjects, tú and vosotros, have the same meaning in English. To make matters worse, a Spanish subject's connotation often varies with the context. For example, third person singular corresponds to "he" and "you" (formal). Third person plural corresponds to "they" and "you" (plural). So, to eliminate the ambiguity between subjects, I assigned each Spanish subject one or more unique English subjects. If the Spanish subject has more than one meaning in English, you may choose any subject you like. Use the chart below to translate Spanish subjects to English and vice versa.

Spanish: English:

First person singular (yo) I

Second person singular (tú) you

Third person singular (él) he

she

it

one

First person plural (nosotros) we

Second person plural (vosotros) you guys

Third person plural (ellos, ellas) they

you all

• Parenthetical expressions: You will notice many words in parenthesis as you are translating verbs. Do not translate these words, however. These words are here simply to show the connotation or sense of the sentence and eliminate any ambiguity. When you translate verbs in the subjunctive tense, you will see the expression "It's possible that..." or "Es posible que...". I added this to illustrate a sense of doubt, thus requiring the subjunctive. After the verb, you might see a subject in parenthesis or a direct object.

• Commands: Commands are a bit tricky since English commands are conjugated the same way for all subjects. Hence, "Go!" might correspond to "va", "vaya", "id", or "vayan". To overcome this ambiguity, I added a clarifier to the end of the verb. Use the chart below to select the correct subject. If you see "let's" plus a command, this implies first person plural. (i.e.Vámonos! = Let's go!)

English: Spanish:

(What you will see) (What subject you should use)

[command] (familiar) Second person singular (tú)

[command] (sir) Third person singular (Ud.)

let's [command] First person plural (nosotros)

[command] (you guys) Second person plural (vosotros)

[command] (gentlemen) Third person plural (Uds.)

I employed a similar set of parenthetical expression to distinguish Spanish verbs from the present subjunctive and the present indicative (i.e. "va" by itself might be a command in the tú form or an action in third person singular). When conjugating commands alone, this does not pose a problem; however, there is a room for ambiguity when conjugating "All Tenses". Here are the expressions which indicate that the verb is a command:

(Ud.)

(Uds.)

(Vd.)

(Vds.)

(por favor)

• General nformation about entering a translation: I tried to make the tutor as forgiving as possible. No punctuation or capital letters are necessary. In many cases the English verbs will correspond to many Spanish verbs or vice versa. For example, "to walk" is translated as "caminar", "andar", "marchar", or "pasear". If this is the case, you may choose any synonym you like. The computer will check your entry against all of the synonyms for that verb in its database.

• Entering English verbs: You will generally enter the translation in the form:

subject + verb + [reflexive pronoun]

The subject is always required unless the verb is a command. For more information on entering a subject, see the section labeled Subjects above. To enter a command, omit the subject if the subject is "you". For example, if you see "va (por favor)", simply enter "go". If the subject is "us", precede the verb with "let's". So, if you see "vámonos", enter "let's go".

Occasionally, you will come across a reflexive English verb. For example, "mirarse"means "to look at oneself". If the verb is reflexive, add the correct reflexive pronoun to the end of the verb. In most cases, this is self-explanatory. See the chart below:

English subject: English reflexive pronoun:

I myself

you yourself

he himself

she herself

it itself

we ourselves

you guys yourselves

they themselves

From time to time, it will be impossible to convey the "sense" of a Spanish conjugation in English. For example, there is no way to accurately express the subjunctive in English. Use the following table you help you translate from Spanish to English:

Spanish tense: English keywords:

Present

Imperfect used to, was + present participle

Preterite

Future will

Conditional would

Present perfect have

Pluperfect had

Future perfect will have

Conditional perfect would have

Present Subjunctive same as present tense

Imperfect Subjunctive same as preterite

Perfect Subjunctive same as present perfect

Pluperfect Subjunctive same as pluperfect

• Entering Spanish verbs: Spanish conjugations will usually be one word unless the verb is preceded by an auxiliary verb or a reflexive pronoun. Never include the subject since it is implied in the connotation. Proper accent marks are required.

Print Report:

Click on "Print Report" to open the "Print Report" dialog box. A box at the top prompts you for your name. Everything else is handled automatically. Below your name, a window displays the exercises you completed, your settings, and your score. Click "Print" to send the report to the printer; "Main Menu" returns you to the main menu. The print-out will contain the following information:

• name

• date

• exercises completed

• language (English to Spanish, Spanish to English, or conjugate infinitives)

• difficulty (regular verbs, easy, medium, difficult)

• score

Conjugation Wizard:

To open the Conjugation Wizard, click "Conjugation Wizard" at the bottom of the menu. Enter a Spanish infinitive and hit ENTER or click "Go!” To insert accents, use the buttons beneath the text box or type CTRL plus the letter. The key combinations are the same as those of the Verb Tutor.

When you enter the infinitive, a list of conjugations will appear organized by tense and subject. You may receive a warning saying "Verb not found in database. Verb may be conjugated incorrectly." This means the computer could not find the verb in its database, so it will attempt to conjugate the verb the best it can using some built-in rules (i.e. verbs ending in -car change to -qué in (yo) preterite). If you receive this warning, the verb will generally be conjugated correctly, unless it contains a stem change.

I divided the verb conjugations into five pages: indicative tenses, perfect tenses, subjunctive tenses, commands, and the gerund. To view each tense, click on the corresponding button at the bottom of the screen. Click "Menu" to return to the main menu.

Translator Utility:

Click "Translator Utility" on the main menu to open the Translator Utility. The Translator Utility allows you to translate from English to Spanish, or Spanish to English. When you select one or the other, the directions in the box beneath will change. Enter a phrase in the box "Enter phrase here", then hit ENTER or click "Go!" A list of possible matches will appear below in the Results box. If no matches were found, the computer will print "no matches found". The computer checks the verb you enter against every verb in its database so you might see several synonyms. When you are finished, click "Menu" to return to the main menu.

• English to Spanish: The instructions I provided in Translator Utility are fairly self-explanatory. The important thing to remember is that the translator cannot translate nouns. It only translates subject pronouns and verbs. Ignore punctuation and capital letters. The program understands contractions such as "didn't" and "won't". To enter a command, omit the subject or precede the verb with "let's". You will often see two versions of each match: one indicative and the other subjunctive. You will know which ones are subjunctive since they are preceded by "Es posible que...".

• Spanish to English: Similar to the Verb Tutor, do not enter the subject pronoun. If the verb is ambiguous, both meanings will appear. For example, if you type "limpiamos", you will see both "we clean" and "we cleaned".

Spanish Verb Manager:

The Spanish Verb Manager is a separate utility which allows you to manage program's verb database. To run this utility, run spanvm.exe. You will see a list box containing verbs on the left side of the screen, and a series of tabs on the right side of the screen. When you run the Spanish Verb Manager, the verbs appear in the order that they are stored in the data file. To sort the verbs, use the "Sort by Spanish" and "Sort by English" buttons at the bottom of the list box. You may wish to sort the verbs if you are searching for a particular verb, or you wish to see the synonyms of a verb. Below the two search buttons there are three record operation buttons. The "New" button creates a blank record at the end of the database and positions the cursor in the "infinitive box", ready for you to enter the verb's infinitive. When you finish entering the Spanish and English infinitive, you will notice they appear in the list of verbs. The "Duplicate" button creates an exact copy of the selected verb and inserts directly above the cursor. This action is useful for adding additional meanings to a verb. If you are adding additional meanings to a Spanish verb, duplicate the verb, then modify the "English" tab to reflect the new meaning. If you are adding additional translations to a English verb, duplicate the verb, then modify the "Spanish" tab.