Table of Contents
This documentation gives an overview about the LingoTeach language teaching application and explains how to install, configure and use it. It is meant to be an introduction into LingoTeach.
Whenever this document talks about "LingoTeach", it actually refers to the user application, which is shipped with the lingoteach-ui package. The "LingoTeach Project instead refers to the whole project.
LingoTeach was originally introduced in 1999 as a java-based application, but then was rewritten using C and Gtk. At the moment (March 2005) it is still based on C and uses the GTK+ toolkit version 2 as widget set for its default user interface.
LingoTeach's backend, LibLingoTeach, uses an own type definition for the lessons, LingoTeach can use. Though the free language teaching projects out there do not interact very well with each other due to the lack of a common standard, LingoTeach tries to help out with its own format and a library, any other language teaching application can use.
LingoTeach and its main components (LibLingoteach and the 'official' lesson and sound packages) are all free software. They are released under the terms of the GPL and BSD license.
If you are looking for more information about the LingoTeach project, you should take a look at the resources in this list:
The following section describes the process to install and run LingoTeach.
You will need the following dependencies before you can install LingoTeach or one of its necessary components:
libXML2
liblingoteach
[GTK+ version 2.x]
Please refer to the documentation of the respective package about how to install it.
The LingoTeach project team does not officially offer binary packages. However, it will link user made packages, if there are no equivalents for that specific opaerting system or distribution. It is recommended that you check those first, if they provide those packages.
You can check the LingoTeach download page for third party binary packages, if you do not have any official binary package from your vendor or for your distribution. You also can build and install LingoTeach from source.
After donwloading the component packages from the LingoTeach website and unpacking their contents, it is quite simple to build and install them. While being in the top source directory, just type:
./configure && make && make install
The packages can have some special extra configuration options, so assure, that you read either the README file shipped with the package or look at the output of ./configure --help.
The components depend on pkg-config, liblingoteach additionally on libxml2 and lingoteach-ui optionally on GTK+ >= 2.6.0.
Using the latest development sources is possible via CVS.
You can get information about how to use the Sourceforge CVS repository from the LingoTeach CVS page.
Warning
Keep in mind that using the development sources can cause higher risks to your environment than the usual releases can do. Thus it is highly recommended, that you subscribe yourself to the lingoteach-translation mailing list, where actual development ist discussed.
The LingoTeach project offers some additional software packages, which enhace LingoTeach by adding new lessons and sound files. Those can be downloaded at the LingoTeach project website.
To start LingoTeach, simply type the command
lingoteach
in your shell and execute it. Assuming that you configured and installed LingoTeach with Gtk2, the graphical user interface of LingoTeach will start now.
Important
If you changed the installation prefix to be somewhat not included in your $PATH environment variable, you have to input the complete path to the lingoteach executable.
The following section will deal with the configuration options you can adjust in LingoTeach to fit the application to your needs. As you can see in Figure 1, “LingoTeach after the first start”, you will be noted to set the preferences first. Simply click on that button or use the entry of the menu.
Note
If you are coming from a prior version, it is recommended, that you read the UPDATING section of the README file shipped with the lingoteach-ui package.
- Soundpath
The path to look for sound snippets.
Example 1. Sound path adjustment
If you installed LingoTeach to the prefix /usr/local, you usually will find its data files in /usr/local/share/lingoteach/data. If you install the lingoteach-sound package now to the prefix /usr/local, the sound files will be installed to /usr/local/share/lingoteach/data, too. Thus your path for the sound files would resolve to /usr/local/share/lingoteach/data.
- Sound player
The sound player to use for playing the sound snippets. The player can take additional arguments as shown in Figure 2, “General preferences”.
- Web browser
The web browser to use for various operations within the application (e.g. displaying this help). The setting can take additional arguments, too.
- Words to learn
The default amount of meanings to learn in a session. This is a default value, which can be overriden within the learn session wizard.
- Enable hints
This toggle enables or disables the display of addtional descriptions and images within a session. This is a default value, which can be overriden within the learn session wizard.
- Access method
What kind of access method should be used for fetching the meanings from a lesson.
- Default languages to use
The languages used by that session. There are two possibilities for each language:
Use: Treat the language as one you want to learn. The translations would be dispayed in the bottom of the learn session. Learn from: Treat the language as the one you want to learn from. The meaning of that language will be displayed at the top of the learn session.
- Words to test
The default amount of meanings to test for in a session. This is a default value, which can be overriden within the train session wizard.
- Enable hints
This toggle enables or disables the display of addtional descriptions and images in a session. This is a default value, which can be overriden within the train session wizard.
- Access method
What kind of access method should be used for fetching the meanings from a lesson.
- Default languages to use
The languages used by that session. There are two possibilities for each language:
Use: Treat the language as one you want to test yourself in. The translations would be dispayed in the bottom of the train session. Train with: Treat the language as the one you want to train from. The meaning of that language will be displayed at the top of the train session.
By selecting from the menu you can create a new learn session.
After selecting the item and clicking on , a wizard dialog will start and guide you through the process of setting up a new learn session.
Note
Read the dialogs of the wizard carefully. All of them are self-explanatory. If you made a wrong selection in one of them, you can go back anytime to a previous step.
By choosing from the menu, you can choose to open an existing learn session.
After selecting the item and clicking on , you can select a previously saved learn session file from disk.
The learn sessions of LingoTeach are - as the name already says - used for learning languages. The following paragraphs will cover the things you can do while being in a learn session.
After you set up your learn session using the friendly wizard, you will have several possibilities within that learn session. First of all you can step through the meanings using the and buttons in the lower right corner (4). The button lets you abort (and optionally save) the session. The topmost section (1) displays the meaning in the language you selected to learn from. Below that (2) you might find more details about that meaning, if you enabled the checkbox at the last page of the wizard. The last part of the learn session is the translation section (3). Here you will find the translations for the languages you selected to learn. By double clicking on one of the translation rows, you can play the sound for that translation (if installed and available).
