The method: help, not answers

Graded hints instead of a ready-made solution

If you don’t know an answer, you shouldn’t give up or copy it, but find the next step. That is why almost every exercise has two hints:

1. Hint 1 reminds you of the rule, e.g. “The short -i has been weakened to -e before -re.”
2. Hint 2 gives away part of the answer, e.g. cupe…….
3. The solution is available too, but it costs 1 or 3 error points depending on the lesson, once per card and round.

Hints are always free. That is intentional: whoever gets help and then finds the answer learns more than someone who reads the solution.

Precise, but fair

Latin does not forgive a wrong ending, but nobody should fail because of a space. Disce ludens therefore checks tolerantly where Latin is not at stake, and strictly where it matters:

• Spaces, a final full stop and capitalisation of the first letter are ignored.
• ß and ss count as the same; commas in whole sentences are ignored.
• For forms and grammatical terms every letter counts.
• If there are several correct answers, the answer is compared with all of them.

If you want it as in the original, switch to strict checking.

Vocabulary: a box with seven stages

The vocabulary trainer works like a flashcard box. Each word moves through seven stages. If you know it at the first attempt, it moves up one stage and comes back later:

A word only moves up after a correct answer at the first attempt. Revealing the solution costs no error points, but the card goes back to stage 1. Latin → German and German → Latin have separate boxes, and the weakest words come first.

Like a patient Latin tutor

A good tutor doesn’t give you the answer but asks the right question. That is how the hints in Disce ludens work: they show the next step, and only when you are really stuck is there the solution. Unlike a human tutor, the app does not explain things in conversation – but it is always there and never gets impatient. Whether you learn with the app, on paper or both is a question of everyday habits; see digital or on paper.

Why it works

• Retrieval instead of rereading. Actively recalling knowledge keeps it longer than simply rereading (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006). Every card asks for your own answer.
• Spaced practice. Spreading practice out works better than cramming (Cepeda et al., 2006). The intervals of the box are based on this.
• Graded help. Support that helps only as much as needed lets learners get there themselves (Wood, Bruner & Ross, 1976).
• Immediate feedback. Feedback is among the strongest influences on learning (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Disce ludens tells you after every answer whether it is right.

Exercises that fit the topic

Depending on the topic, Disce ludens uses different tasks: identifying parts of speech and sentence elements, building words from letters, typing in forms, putting sentence parts in the right order and, in Verte ludens, translating sentences based on Caesar step by step. The principle is always the same: try it yourself first, then a hint, the solution last. The app is in German: exercises, hints and meanings are German, as in the original.

Try it

A real exercise from Disce ludens:

What Disce ludens does – and what it doesn’t

Frequently asked questions