# The &klettres; Handbook

Anne-Marie
Mahfouf

    annma@kde.org

2001
Anne-Marie Mahfouf
&FDLNotice;
2004-05-07
1.3

&klettres; is an application specially designed to do help the user to learn alphabet in a new language and then to learn to read simple syllables. The user can be a young child aged from two and a half or an adult that wants to learn the basics of a foreign language.

Seven languages are available at the moment: Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Italian and Slovak.

KLettres is really easy to use. The language can be changed using the Languages menu. The user can also choose the Level from 1 to 4 in a drop-down box in the toolbar. Finally, the style can be changed from kid to grown-up using a button in the toolbar.

KDE
kdeedu
klettres
alphabet
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
French
Italian
Slovak
language

## Introduction

&klettres; is a very simple application that helps a child or an adult to learn the alphabet and some simple sounds in his own language or in another language. The program picks up a letter or a syllable in random, this letter/syllable is displayed and the sound is played. The user should then type this letter or syllable. Training is done in the levels where the letter/syllable is not displayed, only the sound is played. The user does not need to know how to use the mouse, the keyboard only is needed.

There are seven languages available at the moment: Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Italian and Slovak. If your KDE language is Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Italian or Slovak then your language is taken as default, optherwise French is the default. You can easily get any additional available language by using the File menu and Get A New Language... menu item, provided that your computer is connected to the internet.

Two different Look and Feels allow you to adapt &klettres; to your need. For a child, the menu bar and the language button are not visible. We assume that a child will not want to set the language himself. A drop-down box allows him to choose the different levels. For an older user, the background is not so childish and the menuBar is present in the Grown-Up style.

You do not need the language keyboard layout anymore as you can use the Special Characters Toolbar to type any special character in each language. In the Settings menu, Toolbars, select Show Characters and the toolbar will appear at the bottom of KLettres. Click on the letter you want and it will be shown in the input field. This toolbar can be dragged anywhere on your screen.

If you prefer having the language keyboard layout, please use &kcontrol;, in the section Peripherals and submenu Keyboard in order to set the correct keyboard layout.

## Using &klettres;

&klettres; has 4 levels. Levels 1 and 2 deal with the alphabet and levels 3 and 4 concern syllables. For a very young child (2 1/2 to 4), I would suggest that he/she is sitting on your lap in front of the computer and that you do the game together.

### Levels 1 and 2

Screenshot of &klettres; Level 1
&klettres; level1

This screenshot shows &klettres; defaults: level is Level 1, language is French and look-and-feel is grown-up.

If your KDE language is set to Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Italian or Slovak, then this will be the default language the first time you run KLetttres. For other languages, French is the default. KLettres comes with French and your default language if among those listed above and you can get additional languages via File Get A New Language... provided you have an internet connection.

In level 1, the user sees the letter and hears the sound. He then has to type in the letter in the box. If it is correct, the next letter appears (without having to press Enter or whatever). If the user types the wrong letter, he hears the sound again. In this level, the user memorizes the letters and recognizes them on the keyboard.

The user can type in either lower or upper case letters. The letters are automatically put in upper case so that a child will match them with the keyboard. He can type only one letter at a time.

When you type a letter in the input field, there is no need to press Enter and the program waits for a short while before testing if the letter is right. This short wait is to leave time to a young child to understand what he/she just typed, especially if this is the wrong letter. You can change this time by using the Settings menu, Set Timer which will bring you a dialog where you can set two differeent times: one for the kid mode and one for the grown-up mode.

After the first time, the language setting is saved in a configuration file on closing of &klettres; and loaded the next time, with Level 1.

The look-and-feel is saved in the config file and therefore is kept until you change.

The letters appear in random order. They are not the same consecutively.

Screenshot of &klettres; Level 2 &klettres; level2

Here is a screenshot of Level 2 with the kid look and Danish language.

Clicking in the Level combo-box and choosing Level 2 or using the Levels menu brings you to level 2. In that level, the user only hears the sound of the letter and has to type in the letter. If he is wrong, the letter appears to help him.

### Levels 3 and 4

Screenshot of &klettres; Level 3 &klettres; level3

Here you can see &klettres; level 3, grown-up look-and-feel and Czech language.

In level 3, the user sees the syllable and hears the sound. He then has to type in the letters in the box. If the first letter of the sound is wrong, the user cannot type in the second one. The letter disappears and he has to try again. The number of letters is two or three, it depends of the language.

Screenshot of &klettres; Level 4
&klettres; level4

Here you can see &klettres; level 4, kid look-and-feel and Slovak language.

The sounds appear in random order.

Clicking in the Level combo-box or using the Levels menu in the menuBar and choosing Level 4 brings you to level 4. In that level, the user only hears the sound of the syllable and has to type in the letters. This level is quite difficult for a young child.

### About fonts

There is one more setting you can change: the font that displays the letters. In some distribution, the default font used from the system is really ugly. In Grow-up style, in the Settings menu, there is a Change Font menu item that brings you a font chooser dialog.

Changing font is also nice as some fonts (helvetica for example) do not display correctly East-European languages as Czeck and Slovak. If some letters or syllables are not displayed, please change the font and choose Arial for example.

You can also choose here the size you like the best.

Screenshot of &klettres; Font Chooser Dialog
&klettres; Font Chooser Dialog

Here you can see &klettres; Font Chooser Dialog.

## Command Reference

### The main &klettres; window

#### The File Menu

&Ctrl;Q File Quit

  Quits &klettres;

#### The Languages Menu

&Alt;C Languages Czech

  Choose the Czech language

&Alt;D Languages Danish

  Choose the Danish language

&Alt;F Languages French

  Choose the French language

&Alt;U Languages Dutch

  Choose the Dutch language

&Alt;I Languages Italian

  Choose the Italian language

&Alt;S Languages Slovak

  Choose the Slovak language

#### The Settings Menu

&Ctrl;M Settings Show MenuBar

  Toggle the MenuBar

&Alt;T Settings Show ToolBar

  Toggle the ToolBar

&Alt;A Settings Show Statusbar

  Toggle the StatusBar

&Ctrl;F Settings Change Font

  Choose a new font for &klettres;

&Ctrl;T Settings Set Timer

  Set a delay time for both kid and grown-up mode during which the letter is displayed after being typed

&Alt;h Settings Configure Shortcuts...

  Configure &klettres; shortcuts

&Alt;b Settings Configure Toolbars...

  Configure &klettres; toolbars

## Adding Sounds to &klettres;

If you would like to add sounds in your own language, it is very easy to do so. Record the alphabet sounds and place them in a folder named 'alpha'. Please write the letters (one per line) in a text file and save it with utf8 encoding in the 'alpha' folder. Then record the most current syllables and put them in a folder named 'syllab'. Write the syllables (one per line) in a text file and save it with utf8 encoding in the 'syllab' folder. The sounds should be in wav or ogg format and long enough for KAudioPlayer to play them (between 1.5 and 2 seconds long, please add some silence if they are too short). Then make a tarball of all that and send it to me. Additionally you can tell me about special letters in your language so I can easily generate the Special Characters Toolbar.

See the KLettres website for more detailed instructions on how to add a new language.

## Questions and Answers

&reporting.bugs; &updating.documentation;

The background picture does not appear.

You need to configure with the `--prefix` option set to your &kde; folder or to add this folder to your path.

I don't see some letters on the icons on the Special Characters Toolbar. I see rectangles instead for some languages.

KLettres in Czech and Slovak needs Arial and if you don't have this font installed, please ask your distribution support how to install it.

If you have Windows on your machine, you can use the TTF fonts from Windows (Arial is in those) via KControl -> System Administration -> Font Installer (click on 'Administrator mode' and add the Windows Font folder).

The letters on the icons on the Special Characters Toolbar are too small for some languages.

KLettres in Czech and Slovak needs Arial and if you don't have this font installed, please ask your distribution support how to install it.

If you have Windows on your machine, you can use the TTF fonts from Windows (Arial is in those) via KControl -> System Administration -> Font Installer (click on 'Administrator mode' and add the Windows Font folder).

Why are there only seven languages?

In order for me to add a new language, I need the sounds for the alphabet and some basic syllables. Someone speaking natively the new language must record these sounds in wav, mp3 or preferably, ogg format. For levels 3 and 4, the syllables must be chosen by a teacher or someone who knows how children learn: these must be the syllables you have to learn just after the alphabet in order to learn well the basics of this language. Please send me a mail if you are able to do that. See the KLettres website for detailed instructions on how to add a new language.

## Credits and License

&klettres;

Program copyright 2001 Anne-Marie Mahfouf annma@kde.org

I am very grateful to the following people whose contribution has been greatly valuable:

- Czech sounds: Eva Mikulčíková evmi@seznam.cz

- Dutch sounds: Geert Stams geert@pa3csg.myweb.nl

- Danish sounds: Erik Kjaer Pedersen erik@binghamton.edu

- French sounds: Ludovic Grossard grossard@kde.org

- Slovak sounds: Silvia Motyčková and Jozef Říha silviamotycka@seznam.cz

- Italian sounds: Pietro Pasotti pietro@itopen.it

- English sounds: Robert Wadley robntina AT juno DOT com

- Background picture: Renaud Blanchard kisukuma@chez.com

- Original icons: Primoz Anzur zerokode@yahoo.com

- Support and coding guidance: Robert Gogolok mail@robert-gogolok.de

- SVG icon: Chris Luetchford chris@os11.com

- Code for generating special characters icons: Peter Hedlund peter@peterandlinda.com

- Port to KConfig XT, coding help: Waldo Bastian bastian@kde.org

- Kids and grownup svg icons: Danny Allen dannya40uk@yahoo.co.uk

Documentation copyright 2001 Anne-Marie Mahfouf annma@kde.org

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