Hints
The Vocab Trainer offers users a range of hints when items are proving difficult. These hints range from minor to major, with more helpful hints appearing when the item is proving particularly difficult, or when the user's current performance is dropping below the desired target. Most of these hints are unavailable if the item has already been learned and is appearing as a revision item (known as a 'Confirmation item').
Minor Hints
Gender hints. The program may colour the question according to the gender of the German item (blue for masculine, pink for feminine, grey for neuter, and purple for non-nouns). This also helps the gender stay in the user's memory.
Initial letter. The program may provide the first letter of a verb or adjective, or the definite article plus first letter of a noun.
Number of words. The prgram may indicate the number of words in a phrase. This always applies to the first answer in the case of multiple possible answers.
Major hints
Alternate letters. The program may reveal every second letter of the answer.
Realtime color-formatting. While the user is typing the answer, the program may colour the answer red, to indicate an error, green, to indicate a correct English answer, or with another colour for the foreign-item colours (blue, pink, grey or purple). As soon as the answer is corrected, the colour changes. If this feedback is unavailable, the answer appears in plain black text. Note that there is a limit to the number of times this feedback may be provided for any single item; this is to stop users searching through the entire alphabet for the next letter.
Audio hints. When an item is new, the program plays its associated audio regardless of whether the required answer is in the language being learned, or English. (The audio can be switched off if desired) As the item becomes more familiar, the audio is only played when the desired answer is in English. Finally, if the answer is nearly known, the audio is not played, unless the overall session accuracy is low.
Sentence hints. If the accuracy for an item is very low, then the item is shown in full context, with its associated sentence and audio. Definitions are provided for other words in the sentence, enabling the user to deduce the meaning of the item. Note that the form of the word in the sentence might differ from the the dictionary form: for instance, a verb or adjective might appear in a declined form, or a noun might be in the plural form. By default, dictionary items should appear in the undeclined, singular, nominative form unless the required form is clearly indicated with a prompt (See 'Prompts and warnings').
Multichoice. If the accuracy for an item is low, or the overall session accuracy is low, then the program will provide multichoice questions. In this way, the user does not need to worry about the spelling of difficult items.
User-initiated Hints
By pressing the 'Hint' button, or entering an asterix ('*'), the user can ask the program for a hint. The actual hint returned depends on the user's overall progress in the current session, and how well they know the item, but usually the program reveals every second letter of the answer and turns on colour-formatting. When the item is correctly answered with the help of a hint, half a credit is awarded for the item.
Feedback
The program allows users five attempts to answer each question. Following each incorrect answer, the program gives an indication of how close the answer last attempted answer was, using a percentage scale from 0% meaning no similarity to 80-90% meaning a single letter is incorrect. If the answer has a simple mistake in just one place, the program may indicate that, for instance, one or two letters need changing or deleting. If the gender is wrong AND the rest of the answer is wrong, the program indicates this. If the gender is the only thing wrong, however, the program considers the answer to be half-right. A 'Try Again' dialog will appear, giving the user another chance to guess the gender, and reinforcing the correct gender with colour feedback.