The Latin learning app by a Latin teacher

What a good Latin app needs to do

Latin tests are about translating. An app that is meant to help therefore has to do more than test vocabulary:

• Practise forms and syntax, not just words – because without secure endings and sentence elements no sentence works out.
• Help when you make a mistake, instead of just saying “wrong” or giving away the solution.
• Check precisely but fairly: in an ending every letter counts, a forgotten full stop does not.
• Review vocabulary systematically, so that it lasts longer than until tomorrow.
• Fit with lessons at school, whatever textbook the class uses.
• Be safe for children: no ads, no tracking, data in the EU.

How Disce ludens does it

Disce ludens was created between 1997 and 2005 in Thomas Wegener’s classes at the Dillmann-Gymnasium in Stuttgart and was tried out there over many years. Today it runs as a web app, with the same teaching method:

• Three programs: Disce ludens I with 31 lessons for beginners, Disce ludens II with 31 lessons for advanced learners and Verte ludens with seven translation exercises on sentences based on Caesar.
• Many types of exercise: identify parts of speech and sentence elements, build words from letters, type in forms, put sentence parts in order, translate sentences step by step.
• Graded hints: hints are always free, usually two per exercise; the solution costs error points. More about the method.
• Vocabulary box with seven stages from daily to half-yearly. To the vocabulary trainer.
• Independent of any textbook: the order comes from the classroom, but every lesson can also be opened on its own.

The app is in German: exercises, hints and meanings are German, as in the original.

On which devices

Disce ludens runs in the browser on phone, tablet and computer, without installation. Apps for iPhone, iPad and Android are planned. There are two display modes: modern is contemporary, made for touch, light or dark, and works with keyboard and screen reader. Nostalgia shows the exercises as in 1998 and is meant for large screens, on a phone in landscape. You can switch at any time.

Because answers are checked on the server, the app needs an internet connection.

Privacy for children

To try it out and at school, Disce ludens needs no email address. Names stay on the device; the server in Germany only knows an anonymous identifier and the learning progress. There are never ads. Google Analytics loads only if “adults” was chosen at the start and consent was given; never for pupils, parents or teachers. Anyone who buys a licence of their own signs in with an email address and a code, without a password; under 16, with a parent’s address. The app’s privacy policy.

Who the app is for

• Pupils who practise alongside their lessons or prepare for a test.
• Parents who want to support their child without knowing Latin themselves.
• Teachers looking for practice at home; schools get everything for €3 per child per year.
• Adults who are learning Latin (again) or laying the foundations for the Latinum.

Try it

A real exercise from Disce ludens:

What Disce ludens does – and what it doesn’t

Frequently asked questions