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May Newsletter Catch-up
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And welcome to the newsletter summary of May. I got a lot of positive feedback from you for this last time, so we'll make this a thing now.
Many of you don't really always have the time or leisure to read the newsletter I send out or check the articles, even though you would like to.
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And then, time moves on, our inboxes breathe emails in and out, and the reality is we just never go back to that email we wanted to read.
And NO... that doesn't mean that it wasn't important enough. It just means that we were busy.
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Anyway, for those of you, I am writing this summary of what I posted in May, and also what other things I worked on to make YDG the best place ever to learn German.
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May - Articles and Tools
First up, I made a tool that lets you drill which locations go with which preposition. So stuff like nach Berlin fahren (go to Berlin) and zu meinem Bruder fahren (go to my brother).
It covers pretty much all the common locations, including abstract ones like emails or books and I tried to account for less clear cases where multiple options are possible.
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Also, the new speaking mode lets you practice this stuff while also practice speaking.
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Next up, I made a significant upgrade to my dictionary.
I added indications for:
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- Goethe CEFR Level of a word
- Position on the Word Frequency list for nouns, verbs and adjectives
I also rolled out my new family tree explorer tool 1.0.
You can now quickly browse through word families, compare meanings with one click and drill down whenever you want.
Check out my rundown of the new features (with screenshots) here:
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Then, I showed you my new case chart learning game.
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If you want to (or have to) actually learn the case tables for articles and also adjectives, this game is PERFECT!!
It started out as a simple memory game, but since I posted it, I have already added several other play modes that let you practice the case tables in a really fun and engaging way.
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If you tried the game on day 1... try again. It's much better now :)
Find the explanation here:
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Last but not least, I did a classic Word of the Day lesson for the word sich weigern.
We explore how to use it and also look at its family with words like verweigern, Weigerung, Verweigerung and see how they are different.
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I also made a learning quiz for it AND it has my new text comprehension tool that lets you practice the vocabulary in context on your level, in a format that's like the reading comprehension modules in TestDaf or similar exams.
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Dark Mode getting Good
One of my big projects for May was to create a consistent design system. I'm not done yet, because my site has grown organically over a decade and the code is messy, but I'm making good progress.
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And the most important thing is: Dark Mode is finally about to be reliable.
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For one thing, I have started making all these new drill tools dark mode ready, so you're not blinded by random white surfaces anymore when you study after dark :).
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It's not complete yet, but I'm working on it. If you see a glitch somewhere, please let me know. Goal is to have dark mode stable.
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What's coming in June
Besides further cleaning up dark mode and the look overall, I have two things already that I'm sure I'll release in June.
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1) Reflexive Verb Practice Tool
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Yes, a tool that let's you practice reflexive in German and also helps understand which verbs are reflexive and which are just used in a reflexive way.
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2) Family Tree Explorer 2.0
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It's much better and lets you explore prefixes and compounds much more intuitively.
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And then, there's two "maybes":
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a) Proper article pages in the dictionary that show you case tables and possible also a little game mode right there.
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b) Noun Gender trainer 2.0. I already posted my noun gender game in December, but I am working on one that is connected to my dictionary AND that is methodical about what to learn based on noun frequency. You train the most common ones first!
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And I'll also post a quiz or two and at least a Word of the Day, but I'm not sure what just yet.
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Lots coming, so stay tuned.
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Last but not least, a quick reminder for my super supporter option.
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Those of you who have locked in lifetime but still want to support my work on an ongoing bases have the option to get a monthly Super Supporter membership.
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It's $5 per month, until you cancel, and you'd get ... nothing extra because you already have lifetime :).
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If you love what I do, and you want to support beyond the normal... you can find the details here:
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Oh, and one more thing... I am quite happy to report that I seem to have managed to turn around my traffic.
Like every website and blog, I have been losing traffic since the rise of AI, but it looks like I managed to stop it and turn it around slightly.
I'm REALLY happy about that (and am working hard to make it happen).
Fingers crossed :)!
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Have a great rest of the week, stay tuned for all the cool June stuff and bis bald.
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