[HN Gopher] Show HN: Learn German with Games
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Show HN: Learn German with Games
I just started learning German, and it has been a frustrating
experience, to say the least. There are so many seemingly arbitrary
rules that make pattern recognition very difficult. Therefore, I
have been looking for ways to make memorization a bit easier and
fun. So, I came up with a bunch of games to make learning German a
bit more engaging. Hope you find it useful as well!
Author : predictand
Score : 87 points
Date : 2025-10-29 11:50 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.learngermanwithgames.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.learngermanwithgames.com)
| xg15 wrote:
| It's a really cool idea! Watch out for AI mistakes though,
| especially when generating content in a foreign language. I see
| one mistake in the "Time Short Form Game" image where the image
| has "habl" for what should probably mean "halb".
|
| Also, I'm not sure if converting between 5 digit numbers and
| words is a good starting task, unless you want to dive right in
| with German's (in)famous word chaining ability.
| predictand wrote:
| Yep, I noticed AI is terrible with words on images, and that
| seems to have slipped my attention. Thanks for the callout! I
| tried to keep the number games tamed by only going up to 3
| digits.
| tobi_bsf wrote:
| Nice, not sure if "Guess the Artikel" makes sense this way.
| Sometimes it's not clear whether the word is singular or plural,
| which affects the article. For example, I got "Auslander," which
| can either be "die" for plural or "der" for singular.
| rob74 wrote:
| There are words that can have several Artikel, sometimes
| depending on regional differences (e.g. Austrians have
| different preferences than Germans), sometimes because of
| multiple meanings of a word. In that case, I would expect the
| game to accept all valid answers. But I got the impression that
| all words were singular, so "der" would be the only valid
| option for "Auslander". I had a similar issue with
| "Geschwister", where I picked "das" (correct according to
| https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Geschwister), but the game
| expected "die" (which IMHO only makes sense for the plural
| form). Looks like it needs a bit more QA :)
| predictand wrote:
| The intention with that game was to pick the artikels for the
| singular form of the words. I am a complete beginner in
| German, but I thought the artikel for plurals is always
| 'die'. However, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot
| of exceptions to that rule. As for Geschwister, yep, that
| seems wrong. I will fix it!
| Lutzb wrote:
| I had "Jugendliche". "Der" can make sense for a male
| person. But "die" would also work, for the female person.
| leipert wrote:
| Also for ,,See". Der See - the lake. Die See - the sea.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| > I am a complete beginner in German, but I thought the
| artikel for plurals is always 'die'.
|
| Correct.
|
| > However, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of
| exceptions to that rule.
|
| Not to this one.
| weinzierl wrote:
| Sometimes it's not regional but depends on the intended
| meaning. _" der Schild"_ is the thing you wear for protection
| (shield), _" das Schild"_ tells you the way (sign).
| 1718627440 wrote:
| > with "Geschwister"
|
| I never heard that used as a singular noun. Maybe it is a
| Swiss thing. If anything you could say 'das Geschwisterkind'.
| rspoerri wrote:
| I don't see how people can learn a language by tests, which are
| only telling you if you did it right or wrong. I can see how this
| is used to verify the existing knowledge, but I don't see any
| usage in learning.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| It's gamified. People like winning games. People dislike taking
| tests.
| rspoerri wrote:
| It's still not learning, it's verification of existing
| knowledge. It might be more fun than taking tests,
| nevertheless you cannot learn knowledge by testing knowledge,
| you can only verify it. Only if the user answers correctly
| you might consolidate the already existing knowledge.
| predictand wrote:
| I think it is fair to call it more practice than learning.
| I hope to add more games in the future that focus on the
| learning aspect of things. However, as a beginner, I still
| find that it helps me learn new words. If I continuously
| make the same mistake and receive feedback on my answer, it
| eventually makes me learn what is correct.
| rspoerri wrote:
| I thought about that probem as well, and i think an
| important aspect that you could improve is by showing the
| correct answer much more visibly.
|
| Right now it's hidden in a corner (iirc), so that i can
| barely see it. By showing the task and the answer next to
| each other when doing it wrong, the players might learn
| something of it.
|
| What i typically recommend my students is to try to
| transform a learning task in a way that you need to apply
| a skill, without needing to do the skill itself.
|
| For example playing english text adventure games is a
| very fun way to learn english. Players need to figure out
| what to enter using the keyboard and they use classical
| methods of figuring out the correct content (dictionary,
| translation) and they still have fun doing so. Even if
| it's hard work (not so much anymore with deepl etc, but
| back in the day it was). This can be applied to tons of
| tasks. - make sure you are not cheated when trading in a
| game. - keep up your reaction time by playing race games
| (a very good thing for elderly who want to keep theyr
| driving skills) - train your dictionary skills in
| scrabble. - ...
| watwut wrote:
| I mean specifically for articles, there are only three
| options. So, eventually you will figure out the correct one
| based on the feedback.
| vunderba wrote:
| It's a nicely laid out site, but I tried every single
| activity on the site. Calling them games is... really
| stretching the definition. They are all interactive quizzes.
| rob74 wrote:
| Of course, these games won't help improve your fluency in
| speaking German, but they might help you e.g. remember the
| correct gender of a noun (and thus its "Artikel"), which is one
| of the most difficult aspects of German and can only be done
| through rote memorization.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| I agree with this, I didn't see it as a game or learning
| anything. It didn't even give me the correct answers if I got
| it wrong.
|
| This is more of a "quiz" format, not learning. There is a
| difference.
| gf000 wrote:
| I like to think of grammar rules and the accompanying tests
| that make you remember them as.. rules you can use to generate
| any number of examples to better the language.
|
| You learn a language by being exposed to it countless times,
| but most of us doesn't have the opportunity to be immersed 100%
| into a foreign language. Simple rules let us try out new
| sentences and do some self-checks to cull out the definitely
| wrong ones.
|
| This makes your "training set" significantly larger without
| having to "collect that data". Of course it doesn't replace
| anything, but it is a useful part of the language learning
| journey, especially the early part. Later on, nothing can
| replace simple exposure.
| merelysounds wrote:
| Congrats on the launch!
|
| Quick feedback: the website looks very polished and intuitive. I
| especially liked the test about articles, where I didn't have to
| type. I liked that the website works well on mobile too. The
| content is not what I'd call games though; based on the name I
| expected something different than test questions and quizzes.
| predictand wrote:
| Fair enough! I should try to introduce other options that are
| more game-like.
| rwoerz wrote:
| Congrats.
|
| Some German natives may argue that the time short forms are wrong
| as they prefer "dreiviertel" instead of "viertel vor".
| brettermeier wrote:
| Stay with "viertel vor" please :D Well, it depends on where you
| are in germany...
| rob74 wrote:
| Let's not get started with that... those same people also say
| "viertel vier" to mean 3:15 (one quarter of the "fourth hour"
| has passed), which is really confusing to the uninitiated, so
| "viertel nach"/"viertel vor" is preferable IMHO...
| ce4 wrote:
| It does make sense though (once you know where it comes
| from):
|
| Before the ubiquity of watches, time was announced using
| church clocks and bell strikes. There's a big bell for hours
| (low pitch) and a smaller one for announcing quarters (higher
| pitch).
|
| Signalling zero is not possible using "zero bell strikes", so
| 00:00 is signalled by 4 strikes of the quarters bell and 12
| strikes of the hour bell.
|
| Thus, the sequences go like:
|
| 11:15 1x quarter bell
|
| 11:30 2x quarter bell
|
| 11:45 3x quarter bell
|
| 12:00 4x quarter bell + 1x hour bell
|
| Basically it makes sense then as all the quarters belong to
| the same hour.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| Yes. The other explanation is that time is nothing special,
| it gets just counted like everything else. You wouldn't say
| it's a quarter to a full cake either.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| We can agree that there is a big disagreement, but "viertel
| nach"/"viertel vor" just sounds plain wrong to me.
| elicash wrote:
| On the topic of learning German with games, the recommendation
| I've seen before is that many games have language options and
| depending on the type of game you can learn a lot that way just
| because you spend SO many hours in it.
|
| So the Sims, I'd guess, is probably a good example for building
| vocabulary. Edit: example
| https://dasboudicca.substack.com/p/i-learned-german-and-siml...
| (This writer has lots of game learning reviews)
| predictand wrote:
| That's a really good recommendation! Also, a great excuse to
| spend more time gaming.
| HK-NC wrote:
| I had a game called Tom Clancy's Division, and a sequel. Theyre
| very long, grindy, repetitive games with a lot of text, a lot
| of spoken dialogue with full subtitles, and plenty of
| collectible audio things that can be replayed. I learned a lot
| of Russian amd German playing both these games.
| fnands wrote:
| Nice!
|
| It's a bit similar to Grammatisch, although that just focuses on
| the grammar.
| nxor wrote:
| Somewhat related: if you think German is hard, prepare yourself
| for the friendly and talkative culture :)
| kleiba wrote:
| What do you mean?
| nxor wrote:
| What do I mean? Where to start. Interact with some people
| from the region and you will find out. As most learners of
| German know, the hard part of German isn't der die das, it's
| the exclusive culture. I have C1 in German and have been told
| "You sound unnatural like a Turk" (I am not a Turk) and
| "Children sound more natural than you" (of course - they are
| native speakers). You can get every case, every article, and
| every syllable correct and they will still find a way to
| laugh at you. Ask for help in Germany and you will be
| ignored. Or better yet, "I don't want to help you." Then they
| wonder why people fail to learn their language. Frankly I
| wish I could unlearn the language.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| > You can get every case, every article, and every syllable
| correct
|
| For articles, natives say sentences with wrong articles in
| them too. Seldomly because they don't know it (still
| happens), but because they change what they want to say
| mid-sentence. Cases are always a fight between the pendants
| and people who don't care.
|
| Plain incorrect grammar will of course be noticeable, but
| grammar isn't everything.
| nxor wrote:
| That's not what I meant, and I too switch words mid-
| sentence.
|
| And even if my word choice, register, or what have you is
| wrong, I don't understand the attitude. Because when they
| make mistakes in English I don't even comment.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| I think this really depend on the people you surround
| yourself with. I'm a native German and I get "complaints"
| that I do not correct enough, because I just try to have
| a conversation instead of being a language tutor.
| HK-NC wrote:
| I've never had an experience like this, but my only
| practice in-country has been in Osterreich, and majority in
| Wien.
| rcarmo wrote:
| You're doing the Austrians and Swiss Germans a disservice :)
| nxor wrote:
| I didn't name a specific country :)
| predictand wrote:
| I lived in Canada, Germany, and Switzerland. In my experience,
| Canadians and Swiss are really nice on average; however, my
| experience with Germans has generally been on the margins. They
| have either been very rude or super friendly. I guess that's
| what you get when people simply speak their mind.
| ixxie wrote:
| Sprachspiele!
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| fyi, the account confirmation email redirects and ends up on a
| tab with address localhost:3000. looks like it did work, i was
| able to login after that, but many users may assume it failed and
| give up
| vr46 wrote:
| Took me to my local grafana instance, which was a surprise :D
| predictand wrote:
| oooo, good to know!
| tEMporality7 wrote:
| Looks like this been made with AI. It seems too "clean" and
| simple and others have pointed out some issues.
| whatamidoingyo wrote:
| Vercel, React, Tailwind, and Supabase. Most likely made with
| AI. The hover animations area a giveaway too.
| predictand wrote:
| Yep, I definitely leveraged AI when building it; however, it is
| still built by me. So far it is a weekend project, not meant to
| be a production-grade app with polish.
| fainpul wrote:
| https://www.languagetransfer.org/courses#german
| rcarmo wrote:
| Nice, but as someone who can read some German but not write it
| accurately, I found it rather hard to type any accurate answers.
| Having some sort of multiple choice options would be very useful
| to begin with.
| predictand wrote:
| Thanks! I definitely want to implement it as well to also make
| it more mobile-friendly
| layer8 wrote:
| The Time Short Form Game image has a spelling error, and also the
| clock time doesn't match the words.
|
| This smells too much like AI slop.
| predictand wrote:
| I am a beginner to the language, and it is helping me remember
| the artikels and learn new words.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| How do you know it's correct.
| predictand wrote:
| I am going to the course at the same time and live in a
| German-speaking country. So, I am able to contextualize and
| cross-reference my learnings.
| culebron21 wrote:
| I've tried lots of German text books, and 99% of them are
| essentially very easy grammar tests, which you quickly learn to
| fill, without actually learning to speak. In Goethe Institut's
| courses you also simply fill many tests, but in a group. This may
| help preparing for an exam, but not to learn anything.
|
| That said, I'd love to see excercises on a really hard matter:
| verb controlling the noun. E.g. ich vermeide <which prep?>
| <noun|infinitive>. And not just random verb + random object, but
| sequences of the same verb, to get it remembered.
| ludicrousdispla wrote:
| I find the 'Deutschkurse Passau" workbooks [0] to be the best
| at focusing on grammar structure and providing useful practice.
| They can be worked through without an instructor (provided
| you've had some exposure to the grammar at each level.)
|
| 0. https://www.deutschkurse-passau.de/JM/index.php/downloads
|
| My main complaint with most of the other German language
| coursebooks is the grammar lessons are too scattered, and the
| main effort in doing the exercises is figuring out what they
| want you to do.
| Panzerschrek wrote:
| Your answer: funfundzwanzig nach elf. Correct: funfunddreissig
| vor zwolf.
|
| Your answer: mittag. Correct: punkt zwolf.
|
| Your answer: acht Uhr. Correct: punkt acht.
|
| Was zum Teufel?
| 1718627440 wrote:
| Interesting. 'um X' gets labelled wrong as well. I guess at
| least with times OP needs to throw away the notion of the
| single correct answer. But yes a lot of these 'correct answers'
| sound uncommon in talking or in general.
| schluete wrote:
| Native german speaker here, this is pretty nice!
|
| One mistake I found though: in the clock game the game's solution
| for one o'clock times is "eins", like "eins Uhr dreissig" for
| 1:30am/pm. That's not correct, you'd use "ein" instead of "eins",
| so the correct solution would be "ein Uhr dreissig"
|
| Keep up learning german, I know from non-german coworkers how
| hard the language can be to get a grasp on!
| predictand wrote:
| Thanks for the correction! That's good to know. I also noticed
| it isn't dreizig but dreissig, whereas it is vierzig (and not
| vierssig). I have to double-check whether it is my source
| that's wrong or just another exception to memorize.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| > dreizig but dreissig
|
| Actually it's 'dreissig'. It can't be 'dreissig', since a
| double consonant like 'ss' indicates a short vowel, which a
| diphthong like 'ei' can never be.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| At least https://www.learngermanwithgames.com/games/german-verbs-
| to-e... : has a bug. It shows correct, as soon as your substring
| matches. Thus, you can enter the first letter of the word and it
| will show it as correct.
| predictand wrote:
| That's a good catch! Thanks for reporting.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| I'm curious, how do you write such a bug? Accidental early
| return in the comparison function or what?
| predictand wrote:
| So, in that particular game, I wanted to match a substring,
| since my data source includes some responses written as
| "let/allow" or "drive (vehicle)", which isn't realistic to
| expect the user to type. So, I just figured I would quickly
| work around that by allowing a substring match. However, I
| didn't really think about the edge cases all that much.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| Yeah, I guess you should just split your source data into
| words.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| The 'German Time Game' is confusing (at least to a native). The
| answers you want to hear are words you would say about a digital
| clock, it's highly uncommon to use this to tell the time from an
| analog clock. Maybe you should consider showing a digital clock
| for this game. What you would use for an analog clock is what you
| call 'Time Short Form'.
| predictand wrote:
| We have been told that it might be normal to tell the time like
| that from an analog clock in places where precision matters
| (like train stations or airports). As a beginner, this is how
| we started to learn it as well in the course I am taking. I
| think it makes your brain work harder by making it do more
| processing (you need to interpret the clock + the numbers,
| whereas a digital clock simply gives the number to you, so less
| mental processing is needed). I see where you are coming from,
| but it helps me with my learning and coursework.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| > where precision matters (like train stations or airports).
|
| That is true. That is called e.g. 'Bahnhofszeit' and follows
| different rules than normal time telling. You should include
| that in the game description, otherwise learners may think
| that is how you tell the time to each other in everyday life.
|
| I think it is less about precision as e.g. 'zwei vor
| dreiviertel Elf' is as precise as 'zehn Uhr dreiundvierzig',
| but more about the way of measuring times. E.g. you do round
| normal time, but truncate 'train station time'.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| For 'Numbers to Words' you could display the summary ordered by
| value instead of time. I guess that's more useful for a learner.
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