palabra or la palabra?

[Wolfe]

tried googling and searching for the diffrerence between these two words but all i seem to get is palabra is a word or speach and la palabra is a famous musician, not off to a great start in learning spanish

[lili]

I think it just wants to know whether you want the article (the "la" in this case) displayed

[Tinker Jet]

Keep in mind: you're studying a Latin-based language hence "la" is indicative of a female noun.

As for the literal meaning, they both mean "word", but "palabra" is "word" by itself and "la palabra" is "the word".

If you need any help with Spanish, feel free to add me on Steam. I already speak it competently, but bought the program to refresh my memory on everyday vocabulary I haven't used in a while. =)

[Edit:] I just opened the game for the first time and see what you mean. I still don't know the difference (that is, how it affects the words you're given), but I assume one has the gender (el/la) added and the other doesn't. I'll update when I can conclude this.

[Another edit:] Verified. My theory was correct. =)

"El" is maculine; "la" is feminine.

[Wolfe]

Thanks Tinker Jet.
Ended up just going with the default (palabra) but great to learn what it meant.

[Tinker Jet]

Definitely.

With that said, I prefer to play "la palabra".

That way, it will indicate which words are treated as which gender, and make the language much easier to speak. =)

[Arno]

Over 7 years later and the UI for this is still confusing. :) So that's the only difference, then? Choosing "La palabra" is the equivalent of a checkbox for "Show each noun's gendered article along with the word"?

I kinda figured like that would just happen organically in context; does the program only teach individual words? I'm about to fire it up for the first time so I guess I'll find that out soon enough, but if there's any more nuance to the OP's original question then it'd be nice to know for the longer term (if the dev wants to chime in, etc.).

[Tinker Jet]

Originally posted by Arno:

Over 7 years later and the UI for this is still confusing. :) So that's the only difference, then? Choosing "La palabra" is the equivalent of a checkbox for "Show each noun's gendered article along with the word"?

I kinda figured like that would just happen organically in context; does the program only teach individual words? I'm about to fire it up for the first time so I guess I'll find that out soon enough, but if there's any more nuance to the OP's original question then it'd be nice to know for the longer term (if the dev wants to chime in, etc.).

Hi, you're correct. It's been a while since I've used Influent, but as I recall, you wander around a home and discover the words for different articles. You can take quizzes and things like that as well.

It wasn't quite as immersive as I'd prefer, but I appreciate the goal of helping people learn using things that may already be present in their own homes. It encourages study and practice for retention, but you won't learn things like sentence formation from it. (Unless they've updated since I last used it.)

It should be used primarily as a vocabulary builder. For the best results, you can combine it with online courses and other educational apps.

[Armed and Gelatinous]

Originally posted by Arno:

Over 7 years later and the UI for this is still confusing. :) So that's the only difference, then? Choosing "La palabra" is the equivalent of a checkbox for "Show each noun's gendered article along with the word"?

I kinda figured like that would just happen organically in context; does the program only teach individual words? I'm about to fire it up for the first time so I guess I'll find that out soon enough, but if there's any more nuance to the OP's original question then it'd be nice to know for the longer term (if the dev wants to chime in, etc.).

Yeah it's not a great way to explain how it works. I've since fixed this confusing UI and forced the gendered particles on for the mobile version. This update will make its way to Steam eventually but the codebase had to be completely rebuilt in C# for iOS and Android so it all needs to be ported back to PC. Apologies for the long wait.

[Arno]

Originally posted by Armed and Gelatinous:

Yeah it's not a great way to explain how it works. I've since fixed this confusing UI and forced the gendered particles on for the mobile version. This update will make its way to Steam eventually but the codebase had to be completely rebuilt in C# for iOS and Android so it all needs to be ported back to PC. Apologies for the long wait.

Sounds like quite a slog. :) But, if it's in C# then shouldn't it run on any platform with a C# interpreter? I mean, given the fact that the issue exists, I guess it's not that simple (GUI widget toolkits, maybe). Well, good luck with it!

I do have one suggestion that I think would make things a lot more effective, at least/especially for brand new learners. I get what you're going for with the "total immersion" concept, but I feel like it would help new learners get a foothold if you provided the "reference" word ("reference" meaning from the language the learner already speaks) along with the new word.

For example, if I'm an English speaker learning Spanish, and I hover the mouse over a bed with a green sheet on it and it says "cama", is that the word for "bed"? "sheet"? "green"? "sleep"?

Anyway, I'm hesitant to suggest another change to the codebase when you're already wrestling with the porting, but that's something that really stuck out when I ran the program. I actually do know some Spanish so I know what "cama" means already, but if I were doing a language that I'm completely unfamiliar with it seems like that would really trip me up.

[Armed and Gelatinous]

Originally posted by Arno:

Originally posted by Armed and Gelatinous:

Yeah it's not a great way to explain how it works. I've since fixed this confusing UI and forced the gendered particles on for the mobile version. This update will make its way to Steam eventually but the codebase had to be completely rebuilt in C# for iOS and Android so it all needs to be ported back to PC. Apologies for the long wait.

Sounds like quite a slog. :) But, if it's in C# then shouldn't it run on any platform with a C# interpreter? I mean, given the fact that the issue exists, I guess it's not that simple (GUI widget toolkits, maybe). Well, good luck with it!

I do have one suggestion that I think would make things a lot more effective, at least/especially for brand new learners. I get what you're going for with the "total immersion" concept, but I feel like it would help new learners get a foothold if you provided the "reference" word ("reference" meaning from the language the learner already speaks) along with the new word.

For example, if I'm an English speaker learning Spanish, and I hover the mouse over a bed with a green sheet on it and it says "cama", is that the word for "bed"? "sheet"? "green"? "sleep"?

Anyway, I'm hesitant to suggest another change to the codebase when you're already wrestling with the porting, but that's something that really stuck out when I ran the program. I actually do know some Spanish so I know what "cama" means already, but if I were doing a language that I'm completely unfamiliar with it seems like that would really trip me up.

The game is now in C# after spending a year converting it from JavaScript/UnityScript after Unity dropped support. When I started this project, I was a novice programmer and chose the wrong language. I guess I figured if I was using Unity, I should use UnityScript. Anyway, it's finally running perfectly in C# on iOS and Android, which were my first-priority targets for the latest update so now I need to add back Keyboard and Mouse support and strip out all the mobile-specific stuff I did so it doesn't break the game.

As for the reference word, if you double click on an object, it'll bring up the info menu and there's a little eye-con you can click to see the reference word. I have it hidden by default for players who want to be fully immersed.

Hopefully that's what you were looking for!