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Autogrammatik II: Active / Passive voice. ┌─────────┐ ╔═══════════════════╗ ┌─────┴───┐ │ (R) ║ MEMBER: ║ ──│ │o │────────────────── ║ Educational ║ │ ┌─────┴╨──┐ │ Association of ║ Software ║ │ │ │─┘ Shareware ║ Cooperative ║ └───│ o │ Professionals ╚═══════════════════╝ ──────│ ║ │──────────────────── └────╨────┘ MEMBER Fill in the correct active or passive forms of German sentences and receive immediate feedback. The program can be set from easy (one verb tense / test verbs only) to difficult (all verb tenses / type entire sentence). An on-line dictionary and help for the forms of the principal parts of the verb and as well as an on-line manual are available at all times. This program covers the active and passive verb forms for all tenses from the present tense to future perfect. Copyright 1994 Portions of the program Paul R. Widergren Copyright 1982-88 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Microsoft Co. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This software and user's guide are copyright 1994 by Paul R. Widergren. They are protected by both United States copyright law and international treaty provisions. All Rights Reserved. Autogrammatik II: Active / Passive Voice was created and compiled using Microsoft QuickBASIC 4.5. MS-DOS, Microsoft Mouse, Windows, Microsoft Visual Basic, and Microsoft QuickBASIC 4.5 are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. IBM, AT, and XT are registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. PKWARE, PKZIP and PKUNZIP are registered trademarks of PKWARE, Inc. PLEASE READ THE LICENSE AGREEMENT AND LIMITED WARRANTY PRIOR TO USING THIS SOFTWARE. Use of this software indicates your acceptance of the terms and conditions of the license agreement and the limited warranty. LICENSE AGREEMENT AUTOGRAMMATIK II: ACTIVE / PASSIVE VOICE is offered as shareware. Shareware is not free software, but primarily a distribution system whereby the user is free to try the software for a modest fee before buying it at the full registration fee. You are free to copy this program for your own use and copy it or load it onto bulletin boards. Shareware vendors may distribute the shareware version of this program (passhare.exe) to others to others for a modest distribution fee (up to $10) as long as all program and data files remain intact, but the author retains all rights to the program. Please understand that the program is not free, and is not in the public-domain. If after a reasonable time, you are regularly using the program at home or in the classroom, you are expected to register it by purchasing a registered copy for $19.95 from the author of the program. You will then receive a copy (on either a 3½" or 5¼" disk) of the most recent version of the program. Note to German Teachers: One registered copy is expressly considered a site-license. This is done to increase the usefulness of the disk for educational purposes. If you buy my programs and have access to an IBM computer lab, you may then legally make multiple copies of this program for all your students to use on multiple computers. You may even let students take the program home and use it there. UNCONDITIONAL LIMITED WARRANTY Autogrammatik diskettes are guaranteed to be free from defects in materials and workmanship. Disks, which are returned to me will be replaced, no questions asked, with the most current version of the program. The warranty will be limited to replacement of the physical diskettes and shall not encompass other damages, including but not limited to loss of profit, special, incidental, consequential, or other similar claims. The user accepts the program "As Is" in lieu of all other warranties and conditions, expressed or implied. Copies which are obtained from shareware vendors or bulletin boards are out of my control and the user agrees to accept these programs "As Is" in lieu of any warranty or condition, expressed or implied. I am, however, interested in discovering possible sources of corrupted versions of this program and welcome any information which will allow me to supply the source of the faulty version of this program with the newest update and correct the problem. I will replace the disk with the most current version of the program. Getting Started: 1. The Autogrammatik programs are distributed on a single archived file which will first have to be "unzipped". To install Autogrammtik I on a hard drive. C:\>md\autogram - make a new directory on the hard drive. C:\>A: - switch to the drive which contains the shareware disk. For shareware versions not obtained directly from me: Most shareware vendors currently sell programs which use PKWARE's .zip standard. To unzip the program, you will have to have a copy of PKUNZIP, which is available from the large on- line services, or any number of shareware vendors. C:\AUTOGRAM>copy a:passha.zip c: C:\AUTOGRAM>cd\pkware <- subdirectory containing pkunzip C:\PKWARE>pkunzip c:\autogram\passha.zip c:\autogram C:\PKWARE>cd\autogram C:\AUTOGRAM> For the registered version: The program is distributed as a self-dearcing .exe file (Yoshi .lzh standard). No program is need to unzip the file, rather when you run the program it unzips itself. This has beem done primarily to compress the dictionary so that the entire program fits onto one 360k disk. C:\AUTOGRAM>passreg c:\autogram - the archived file will then copy all files from a: to c:\autogram. 2. To run the program, type: C:\AUTOGRAM>passive 3. To print an order form (order.doc), type: C:\AUTOGRAM>type order.doc >lpt1 or load the file into a word processor and print it using the word processor. 4. Using Autogrammatik with WINDOWS. Autogrammatik is not a Windows program and does not require Windows to use. It can, however, be launched from the Windows interface in Real or Enhanced Mode without a problem. See your Windows guide for further details on how to run non-windows programs. An icon FLGGERM.ICO is included on the disk for use with the program. Using the function keys and setting up the program: Before starting the program, it is a good idea to format it according to your specifications, by setting the VERB TENSES (f5), and the OPTIONS (f8) values according to your liking. Press one of the active function keys. A box appears showing a menu. Highlight the appropriate menu item and press the SPACE bar. This will either toggle a format value on or off, or show an appropriate help screen. Once the command line is active, it is possible to move from one function to the next by using the left and right arrow keys. Then use the up and down arrow keys to highlight the desired menu item. To return to the program, press ESC. Start off with only a few values active and gradually increase the complexity. Use the dictionary and the help screen as much as necessary. The settings are then saved when you exit the program. The next time you begin the program, the program will be formatted the same way it was the last time you had worked with the program. The Help Screens: Press f1 to enter HELP. A menu appears with three choices. Highlight the appropriate choice with the up and down arrow keys and press ENTER. Press ESC to return to the program. Credits: Pressing ENTER when Credits is highlighted shows the opening title screen. Press any key to continue. Instructions: Pressing ENTER when Instructions is highlighted tells how to use the program. Press any key after you have finished reading it. Read manual: Pressing ENTER when Read Manual is highlighted loads the manual reader in order to make it possible to read this manual on-line. After you are finished reading the help screens, return to the program by pressing ENTER. Dictionary: Pressing f2 accesses the dictionary. The main vocabulary used in the sentences are shown without without endings along with an English translation. Press ESC to return to the program. Show verb forms: Pressing f4 accesses the verb forms. The principal parts of the verb currently being tested are given, including the infinitive, the 3rd. person singular, the imperfect, and the past participle. Press ESC to return to the program. Showing active and passive relationships: Active and passive voice sentences have identical meanings but a different perspective. There are three important relationships connecting the two sentences. They are: The Subject of the Active sentence is the Agent of the passive sentence. The active verb has a corresponding passive verb form. The direct object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence (Generally only sentences containing transitive verbs can be made into passive sentences). By default, the program is set to show the relationship between the two verb forms by highlighting the verbs in yellow. Pressing the left or right arrow keys before you begin typing, however, shows the other two relationships. Experiment with this feature to get a feel for the mechanics involved. Verb tenses: After the program has loaded and starts running, the credit screen appears. Press any key to continue and begin the program. The current values of the verb tenses and the optional settings can be seen by pressing the function keys f5 and f8 respectively. The Default verb tense value when the program is shipped has only present active. That means that the program will select only present tense sentences the first time the program is used. To change the values to test a different group of tenses, press f5, and use the arrow keys to highlight the tenses which are to be turned on or off, and press the SPACE bar. A check before the tense indicates the verb tense is active. If there is no check, the tense will not be used with the sentences in the program. After the tenses are set the way you would like them to be, press ENTER or ESC to return to the program and resume the exercise. Start off with only a few values active and gradually increase the complexity. Use the dictionary and the help screens as much as necessary. Options: There are several options that can be set to your liking. First the general program options. In the right hand corner, there is a small clock. If you would prefer not to show the clock, highlight SHOW CLOCK and press the SPACE bar to toggle the value to off. The program beeps whenever you type in a wrong letter. To turn off the beep, highlight SOUND BEEP and press the SPACE bar to toggle the value to off. When you work with the program, the gender is indicated in the blue box along with the desired case. If you would like to make the exercise more difficult and not show the grammar information which borders each box while you are doing the exercise, highlight SHOW GRAMMAR and press the SPACE bar to toggle the value to off. Finally, If the reward flag travel too slowly or too quickly, the speed can be altered by higlighting the option SPEED and pressing the SPACE bar. A larger value slows down the flag, a small value speeds the flag up. Press ENTER OR ESC to return to the main program. In addition, there are format options to customize the program to test specific aspects of active and passive relationships. By default the program writes an active sentence to the screen and the user types the passive equivalent. Highlighting Active/Passive and pressing the SPACE bar switches the order, so that the user types the active equivalent of passive sentences written on the screen. The next three options control what is tested. The default value tests verb forms only. However, it is possible to highlight and tag (by pressing the SPACE bar) both the Subj./Agent relationship and the Direct Object/Subject relationship. Thereafter all the active options will be tested in the sentences. If all three options are turned off, then the sentences will be displayed, but nothing will be tested. After these options are set the way you would like them to be, press ENTER or ESC to return to the program and resume the exercise. Start off with only a few values active and gradually increase the complexity. Use the dictionary and the help screens as much as necessary. Using the program: Once the program is formatted to your wishes, you may begin. Each exercise has twenty questions which are randomly generated according to the format values you entered. A sample active sentence appears in the red box and the passive equivalent below in the blue box. Parts of one of the two sentences are missing. By default, the program is initially set so that the passive voice sentence is missing the passive verb in the present tense, but as seen above, the program can be configured to many other variants. Try experimenting changing the verb tenses (f5) and option values (f8). When you are ready to begin, complete the answer by typing in the missing forms using the keyboard. If the letters you input are correct, the program proceeds. Otherwise there is a beep and you have to try again. If you input the endings without error (which is not easy), a reward flag is tripped. After twenty questions, the program ends normally and an evaluation of your work is given. There is no penalty for using the dictionary or the help screens. Start out with only a few of the verb tense and option values active and gradually add more and more. Keep practicing one level until you can answer at least 80% of the questions without error. If you simply do not know the answer and do not wish to guess it either, press f10. The answer will then be shown and you may proceed to the next question. You may change the format at any time. After the format has been changed as described above, the exercise will simply continue with the new format values active. Generally, it is, however, better to format the program to your wishes before starting to type in the answers. Ending the program: The program ends normally after twenty questions have been completed. If you need to end before you have answered twenty questions, press ESC. The program will end, but there is a substantial penalty in your "grade". Press any key after you have finished looking at your grade. A box appears, which says: Exit from program. Are you sure? If you want to exit from the program, press Y for Yes. To return to the program press N and you will start again at the point in the program where you left off. If you had finished all twenty sentences questions, the program begins again with twenty new sentences. If you press Y for yes or the ESC key, the program says good bye and exits to DOS. Conclusion: Active and Passive voice relationships are difficult for advancing students of the German language to assimilate. Although passive voice is not used with great frequency in normal day to day speech, students should be able to recognize and understand passive sentences when they are encountered. For older students, this usually requires an cognitive understanding of the concepts involved. Computer programs will not appeal to everyone and should never be seen as a cure-all, and this program is not really intended to be used in place of a teacher and textbooks. Rather it should supplement and automate what has been covered elsewhere. The program patiently drills a new concept until they become somewhat automatic, thereby freeing their instructor to spend more time with language acquisition. The student retains most of the control over his or her learning. One aspect of German that I found relatively easy is the verb tense system. The verb tenses are so systematic, that they can be programmed on a computer utilizing a few basic rules. Active and passive verb forms may seem daunting when encounting pages of charts, but if the student can internalize the structures and realize the fundamental relationships of person, tense, and voice, the hundreds of various forms can be boiled down to a few relatively simple rules. January 12, 1995 Paul R. Widergren P.O Box 13 Delafield, WI 53018 APPENDIX A What is shareware? Shareware is a marketing method which offers low risk both to the authors of quality software and to you - the user. Shareware programs are fully-functional (not demo) programs which rival commercial programs, but which have been made available to shareware vendors, bulletin-boards (BBS's) and computer clubs for distribution. The distributors then make the programs available to you for a nominal cost for preview. Shareware programs are not free, or in the public-domain. The method of distribution is intended simply to make the program accessible and available for preview. If you like a program, and use it for an extended period of time, you are expected to register the program buy usually by sending a registration fee directly to the author. So, please register my shareware you continue to use, as this is the only way I receive any payment for my work. When you register you will also receive the following: 1) A disk containing latest version of the program, registered in your name. 2) A site license which allows the registered owner to make as many copies as needed to be used at one site. This is particularly useful for German teachers and schools. 3) Telephone, mail, or E-mail support to help in installing or operating the program. 4) Notification of new programs and updates. APPENDIX B How to Register: An order blank is contained in the file order.doc. To print the file, type: C:\AUTOGRAM>type order.doc >lpt1 or load the file into your word processor and print it. If you are a CompuServe member, you can also register this program by the CompuServe Shareware Registration Service. GO SWREG and follow the directions. Autogrammatik II: Active/Passive Voicer is Shareware Reg. #4163. The registration fee will be automatically charged to your CompuServe account and you will receive the registered version in the mail in a few days. APPENDIX C Other Programs currently available from Paul Widergren: A. Wortleiter und so weiter (version 3.12). (SWREG #4160) Wortleiter und so weiter consists of several computer programs for IBM-compatible computers to aid in learning German vocabulary and several important grammar concepts quickly and easily. The disk comes complete with three fully-developed, menu-driven programs, a file-creation module, a 7200 word dictionary and 25 sample vocabulary files. The registered version also includes a on-line manual reader and may include additional vocabulary files; however, the shareware disk and the registered version of the disk are not substantially different. Older versions (such as v. 2.12) of the disk may still be in circulation. Users who order registered copies will always be sent the most current version of the program, the data files, and the most updated version of the manual. Wortleiter und so weiter includes: Wortleiter: Learn vocabulary quickly and easily. The disk contains 25 sample files grouped according to topic (Clothes, Geography, Animals, Travel). Using the file editor and the dictionary you can easily make additional files to accompany the textbook you are using. In addition, numerous variations of the program can be attempted by resetting the values on the format screen. 3 levels are possible for each file. Quiz: Uses Wortleiter files, but this time you have to type the words in. Either German-English or English-German. Verb files can also test the principal parts of the verb. 3 levels possible. Memory: Select twelve words from one of the files for a "Concentration"-type memory game using colorful character based graphics. The dictionary and file creation module has also been included in order to make it easy to make new files and edit old ones. The dictionary includes 7200 words and contains virtually all of the standard vocabulary to be found in elementary and intermediate German textbooks. All you need to do is find the German word in the dictionary, tag it, and then save the completed file to the disk. Afterwards it is possible to modify the file and assign levels of difficulty to each word (3 levels possible). Registration fee: $29.95 plus $2.00 shipping and handling. B. Es ist um die Zeit (SWREG #4161) Es ist um die Zeit is a new series of programs of a slightly different type. The computer is used primarily as a discovery tool. Rather than the computer asking the questions and the student giving the answers, the student has the questions and the computer gives the answers. The registered version of Es geht um die Zeit comes complete with three menu-driven programs. The programs incorporate simple animation and graphics and require an IBM or IBM-compatible computer with a graphics monitor (at least a 286 AT-computer and EGA color monitor recommended). Es geht um die Zeit includes: Wie spät ist es?: Explore the German way of telling time using an animated cuckoo clock. After the student is sufficiently acquainted with the necessary vocabulary and concepts through self-discovery, he or she can test themselves using one of two modules: Stell die Uhr! - given a time in German, set the clock to that time by pushing the appropriate function keys. Wie spät ist es? - Type in the time indicated on the clock. Kalender: The program is a perpetual calendar which can be set to display any month from January 1600 on. It can be used to learn about and practice the days of the week, months of the year, birthdays, historical events, and future events. For example, most students do not know what day of the week they born on. The computer can determine that in a flash. Convert: The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world not to use the metric system. Germans use the metric system almost exclusively, so it is instructive for American students to know information about themselves in the metric measurements of meters, liters and kilograms as well as feet, gallons, and pounds. Convert is a tool to make these conversions simply and easily. There are conversion tables available for: Temperature (fahrenheit - centigrade) Distance (miles - kilometers) Height (inches - centimeters) Weight (pounds - kilograms) Liquid measure (gallons - liters) Money (dollar - DM (resettable to current $ rate)) Registration fee: $19.95 plus $2.00 shipping and handling. C. Autogrammatik I. Adjective endings: (SWREG #4162) Fill in the correct adjective endings and receive immediate feedback. The program can be set from easy (one case / definite article only) to difficult (all cases / all articles and personal pronouns). An on-line dictionary and help in the form of charts are available at all time. This program probably contains the most succinct explanation of German adjective endings that you will see anywhere! Registration fee: $19.95 plus $2.00 shipping and handling. D. Scalae verborum - Latin Word Ladder (SWREG #4164) A Latin version of Wortleiter is also available. It includes a 3400 word dictionary which includes almost all of the common beginning and intermediate vocabulary commonly found in Latin textbooks. Registration fee: $29.95 plus $2.00 shipping and handling. APPENDIX D ┌─────────┐ ┌─────┴───┐ │ (R) ──│ │o │────────────────── │ ┌─────┴╨──┐ │ Association of │ │ │─┘ Shareware └───│ o │ Professionals ──────│ ║ │──────────────────── └────╨────┘ MEMBER Paul R. Widergren is a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442-9427 USA, FAX 616-788-2765 or send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536. APPENDIX E ORDERING INFORMATION: Autogrammatik II: Active/Passive Voice (registered version) Registration fee: $19.95 plus $2.00 shipping and handling. Wisconsin residents please add 5% sales tax. For an order form for Autogrammatik I or II, Wortleiter und so weiter, or any of the other programs mentioned in Appendix A: C:\AUTOGRAM>type order.doc > lpt1 Paul R. Widergren Tel: (414) 569-5740 P.O. Box 13 CompuServe: 74632,612 Delafield, WI 53018 America On-Line: PWidergren INTERNET: 74632.612@compuserve.com After June 1995, my address and telephone number may have changed. If you are unable to E-Mail me, please contact me care of the following address or check the address in the advertisement in the current issue of the magazine GERMAN LIFE: 1209 Widergren Drive Rockford, IL 61108