Market Analysis: Software for Latin
In order to determine which products the to-be software Machina Callida might have to compete with, a brief market analysis was carried out. It was evident that dictionaries of various kinds are dominant. Latin specific (and free) learning programs are much less common.
Latin-specific, digital tools
Roughly speaking, all tools can be sorted according to their degree of availability: There are many free tools as well as some tools you have to pay for. Furthermore, dictionaries dominate the "Latin market". The overview gives the following picture:
Free dictionaries (partly with advertising)
- www.frag-caesar.de (infinitives, form identification, form translation, all existing forms)
- www.auxilium-online.net (2008; 1st ed.; word class, mnemonic, references (collocation))
- https://de.pons.com/%C3%BCbersetzung/latein-deutsch (Latin exampls, collocation, (all?) German meanings, no form identification)
- https://de.langenscheidt.com/latein-deutsch/ (phrases, no form identification)
- http://www.navigium.de/suchfunktion.html (infinitives, meaning, phrases, European cognates, part of speech, references to authors, form identification; plus: junctures, word formation rules, idioms)
Paid "dictionaries"
- Dictionaries or basic vocabulary of the publishing houses as part of their textbooks
- Teaching assistant of the publishing houses as part of their textbooks
- Textbook-independent, e.g. a Langenscheidt dictionary
Free vocabulary training software
- http://www.lucius-hartmann.ch/unterricht/altesprachen/index.php (for Latin and ancient Greek; exercise types, e.g. test, memory, matching, identification of forms, word list, crosswords, flash cards)
Paid vocabulary training software
- Numerous (older) vocabulary software (layout resp. operating system outdated)
- Form training software from publishing houses (as part of the textbooks)
- Navigium (2017): Cloud, PC, App
General tools for vocabulary work
Most programs, web solutions, and apps are free with their basic functions. However, if you want to use useful extensions (e.g. voice recordings for Quizlet), you have to purchase them for a fee.
- Quizlet (freemium)
- LearningApps (free)
- LearningSnacks (free)
- Phase 6 (fee-based)
- Clozemaster (100, 200, ... 10,000 most important words of a language, cloze) (free)
- Rosettastone (language acquisition via image - word matching) (freemium)
- Memrise (including original voiceover for sample videos) (freemium)
- DuoLingo (including listening, speaking, writing words and phrases) (free)
- Kahoot (game-based learning) (freemium)
- ...
This selection should only show that there is no lack of apps or web-based solutions for vocabulary work (modern languages). And many of these tools give ideas about what the Machina Callida might look like and what it could do.
Existing exercise formats
Overall, the following exercise types are emerging:
- Flashcards (index cards), including explanations, e.g. sentence examples, grammatical information
- Multiple-choice
- Assignments: Text-Text, Audio-Text, Video-Text
- Games: Wordsearch, anagram, hangman, puzzle...
- True/False questions
- Identify the object to be described
- Cloze (with and without translations)