VerbTest

by Richard Mawhood


VerbTest is a program intended to help GCSE & A Level students learning and revising French verb paradigms though it is very good for anyone learning French. It is no substitute for a French course or a French teacher, but can be a very useful aid to practice.

Start VerbTest by double-clicking on the !VerbTest icon. As the user will sometimes need to input accented characters, it is suggested that the utility Chars is run on screen alongside VerbTest. Chars can be loaded by clicking on the Apps icon on the icon bar of RISC OS 3, and then clicking on !Chars. If you have RISC OS 2, you may have !Chars on disc, if you don't, then you may be able to use the !1stChars application supplied with 1st Word Plus. Whichever version you use, you can enter accented characters at the caret by clicking on them in the !Chars or !1stChars window. VerbTest installs an icon on the icon bar. Clicking on this icon with the Select or Adjust opens the main VerbTest window. Clicking it with the Menu brings up a menu offering the following options: Info (usual program information), A Level, GCSE (select your level), and Quit.

The VerbTest window
Before starting a test, the user must choose the verb and tense. Call up the main menu by pressing Menu over the VerbTest window, and choose verb and tense from the menu in the usual way. If selections are made with Adjust, more than one verb or tense can be chosen. Alternatively, click on Select all for a comprehensive test. Finish off by clicking Select on Start.

This is where testing takes place. On the left, from the top, the verb, tense, and subject are specified, eg. faire - Present - vous. The user types in the subject and corresponding verb form into a space at the bottom left, and must press the Return key when satisfied with the answer.

On the right is a 3 x 3 grid, elements of which are selected at random, one at a time. If the user's answer is correct, the selected square is ticked green; if the answer is wrong, the user is asked to try again, until 3 attempts have been made. If the answer is still wrong, or if the user presses Return without typing anything, the selected square is crossed red. Testing continues until there are 3 ticks or 3 crosses in a line (noughts-and-crosses fashion), or until all 9 squares have been filled in. An overall score is then printed at top right; this takes account not only of right and wrong answers, but also of the number of attempts made at each answer.

Please note that the user may re-select verb or tense at any time; it is not necessary to complete the test in order to do so. Equally the test may be restarted at any time; the program is completely flexible.

Technical note for linguists
Data for the verbs is stored in the text file VerbData. Each verb has 9 lines:

infinitive
present tense first stem (je/tu/il)
present tense second stem (nous/vous)
present tense third stem (ils)
present tense endings array number (stored in the text file TenseData)
future tense stem
auxiliary verb number (0=avoir, 1=tre)
past participle
past historic tense stem + final letter to indicate endings array

The program manipulates this data using language rules in order to construct the answers.

 Copyright RISC User 1994
