BACKGROUND
We wanted to learn Spanish, and set ourselves two objectives: to pass a high-school exam (in our case GCSE), and to have conversations in Spanish with a native from Spain or South America. The first objective was easier, but we were frustrated at how hard it is to have a conversation in Spanish!

Several suggestions were made to us: spend three years of total immersion in a Spanish culture; take a Spanish lover; take a course at college. These options were either not appropriate or too slow. So we started writing our own app! Every time we thought of a way of speeding up the learning process - making the app easier to use, making it more effective - we added it to the app. For example we had lots of idle time travelling to school or work; we started using our app; but typing while travelling is sometimes a bit tricky, and it makes some of us feel sick! Also our app was too fussy, telling us off for minor errors (the cat? Hang on, I know that, un gato; no, it’s el gato!)

The main features we came up with are below.

MAIN FEATURES
Learn Mode: get the next 10 words; read and listen to the Spanish and translate into English; go through the same 10 words but translate from English to Spanish. If your answer to a word is wrong, that word is added to the Failed list, and must then be answered correctly twice before moving to the next level.

Topic Mode: words are selected by topic, e.g. food, travel, hobbies.

With both the above modes, the app poses questions from the current level or topic, intermingled with words from levels you’ve already completed, plus any words you failed at the previous level.

Practice Mode: words randomly chosen from previous levels.

Question/Answer styles: the question can be spoken or printed or both; the answer can be typed or spoken (if there is an internet connection, as the app uses Google voice recognition), or just thought! You think the answer, click GO, the app tells you the correct answer, and you say whether or not you were right. You can choose to alternate the questions between spoken Spanish and printed English, almost as if you were having a conversation with someone; this style goes well with Practice Mode.

Audio Mode: similar to Practice Mode, except the app speaks the question, pauses, speaks the answer, then goes on to the next question, alternating between English to Spanish and Spanish to English - all completely hands free! Works well with earphones, sitting on a bus or on the beach.

In all modes - Learn, Topic, Practice & Audio - verbs are randomly conjugated.

Numbers Game: as a bit of fun, you race to keep ahead of the chasing baddy by typing in the numbers being spoken to you. It’s a good way of learning Spanish numbers instinctively, without actually translating them in your head into English.

Word Lookup: you can look up any word in the Revise Spanish dictionary; if it is a verb, the app will automatically conjugate it for you.