Recipes¶

A collection of worked scenarios for common goals. Each recipe walks through the actual taps in the app — not a generic suggestion. Mix and match the steps as your needs change.

Recipe 1 — Learning a new Latin declension (3rd-decl i-stem)¶

You've decided to add the 3rd-decl i-stem nouns to your Latin (civis, urbs, mare, hostis, mons, ars). They share the regular 3rd-decl endings but pick up an extra -i- in three cells (abl.sg, gen.pl, neut nom/acc.pl) that catches everyone out. Here's a focused week.

Day 1 — See the pattern¶

From the home screen with Latin active, tap Self Study → Nouns.
Tap Declension paradigms (Study). Scroll to 3rd-decl and find an i-stem example (e.g. cīvis).
Compare the paradigm side-by-side with a non-i-stem 3rd-decl noun like rēx. Note the three cells where i-stems differ: abl.sg -e → -ī, gen.pl -um → -ium, neut nom/acc.pl -a → -ia.

Days 2–4 — Drill the pool¶

Tap Select declensions under Setup. Restrict to 3rd-decl only.
Run Decline the noun under Test. The drill picks i-stem and non-i-stem nouns at random; you'll see the contrast in practice.
The default answer-check is lenient on macrons. If you want vowel length in your fingers, flip Settings → Strict macrons on for these sessions.

Day 5 — Recognition¶

Switch to Recognise the form (Test). The drill gives you a form and asks for the case + number.
The trick cells — abl.sg vs gen.sg (both look similar) and the three i-stem markers — show up disproportionately. Aim for 90%+.

Day 6+ — Apply in real Latin¶

Self Study → Identify a Form (sentence mode). Paste a short Caesar passage (BG 1.1 has Gallia, partēs, Belgae, Aquitānī, Gallī — a mix of declensions including i-stem).
Tap each chip and confirm the parse. The 3rd-decl i-stems should now read fluently rather than as a class of confusion.

Recipe 2 — Studying a new Spanish tense (Pretérito Imperfecto)¶

You've decided to add the imperfect past tense to your Spanish. Here's a focused two-week plan that takes it from "never seen it" to "automatic for regular verbs and the three irregulars".

Day 1 — Read the rules¶

From the home screen with Spanish active, tap Self Study → Verbs → Setup → Select Tenses.
Tap the info icon on Pretérito Imperfecto to read the endings table and usage notes.

Days 2–4 — Drill the regular pattern¶

Select Tenses: enable only Pretérito Imperfecto.
Select Verbs: filter to A1 + A2, Very Common, Regular -ar / -er / -ir only.
Run Conjugation Drill until you can produce the -aba / -ía endings without thinking.

Days 5–7 — Tackle the irregulars¶

The three Spanish imperfect irregulars are ser, ir, ver. Switch the verb-group filter to include just those three (or use a personal topic to corral them) and drill until era / iba / veía roll off without effort. These three are responsible for almost every imperfect mistake in real Spanish.

Days 8–14 — Lock it in with mixed practice¶

Broaden the verb pool back to A1 + A2, Very Common (any group).
Keep Pretérito Imperfecto enabled, optionally add Presente for revision.
Aim for two short sessions a day.

When you're done¶

Open My Progress → Accuracy → By tense — you should see Pretérito Imperfecto sitting near the top of your hit-rate list. If it's still under 80%, run another few mixed sessions. If it's over 90%, add Pretérito Indefinido as a natural next step.

Recipe 3 — Reading real Latin with the sentence parser¶

You're working through a Latin reader (Caesar, the Vulgate, Wheelock's Sententiae Antiquae, whatever) and want to use LinguaMorpha as a parser-backed reference instead of a paper grammar.

Self Study → Identify a Form. Toggle Word → Sentence.
Type or paste the sentence you're working on. Macrons optional — the parser folds them.
Tap Parse. Every word becomes a chip.
For each chip you don't immediately recognise, tap to expand. You'll see:
- Lemma + dictionary form
- Full parse (case + number + gender / tense + voice + person)
- Translation in the active display language
- Tap-through to the full paradigm
Words with multiple parses (Latin is full of these) show every parse stacked, sorted by pedagogical likelihood. That's a feature: the parser tells you the ambiguity is real, then lets you decide from context.

If a word comes back as unrecognised, it's probably a proper noun or a rare form not in the catalogue. The chip shows the surface form in grey with an "unknown" hint.

Recipe 4 — Drilling a confusable Spanish pair (por vs para)¶

The classic Spanish trap. Use a personal topic to corral the relevant words and drill them as a unit.

Open the detail view for the word por (find it in Words → Browse Words or the search).
Tap the + in the Topics row and create a personal topic called por-para.
Open para's detail view and tag it with the same por-para topic.
Add any other prepositions you find tricky (hasta, desde, durante) to the same tag.
Self Study → Words → Setup → Select Words. Filter by the por-para personal topic (it appears in the Topic list with a small person icon).
Run Word Meanings flashcards. Switch the direction to Native → Spanish — producing the right preposition from a meaning is harder than recognising it from the Spanish form, and harder is what you need.

For a richer drill, do the same with example sentences: the detail view shows three example sentences per word, and reading those alongside the flashcard drill consolidates the contrast.

Recipe 5 — Locking in Spanish noun gender¶

If el problema and la mano still catch you out, you need a focused gender drill. The Noun Groups feature makes this fast.

Self Study → Nouns → Setup → Select Nouns and switch to the Noun Groups tab.
Tick the groups you want to drill:
- Gender traps (mano, foto, día, problema, …)
- Greek -ema / -ama / -oma (problema, tema, sistema, idioma, programa, …)
- Stressed a + feminine (el agua / las aguas)
Untick Regular so your pool is just the tricky cases.
Run Pick the Correct Article until you're scoring 95%+. This is a binary tap drill — you'll cover the whole set fast.
Once the article drill feels automatic, swap to Meaning Test with the same selection. Producing the meaning while remembering the article is a slightly harder skill that consolidates everything.

When you can hit consistent 95% on the gender traps, swap back to the Criteria tab and broaden your selection. The patterns will now hold for new vocabulary too.

Recipe 6 — Mastering Latin adjective concordance¶

Latin adjectives have to agree with their nouns in case, number, and gender. Most learners can produce a paradigm in isolation; almost nobody can pick the right form for a noun whose features they have to figure out from context. The Concordance Drill targets exactly that.

Self Study → Adjectives. Make sure your Setup pool (Select adjective patterns) covers what you're learning.
Test → Agreement drill (the concordance drill).
Read the sentence carefully. Identify the noun's gender, case, and number from context — that's the actual skill being trained.
Pick the adjective form. Wrong-answer feedback explains which axis you got wrong — "bonum agrees with a neuter noun — puella is feminine."
Aim for 90%+ before broadening the adjective pattern selection (start with -us / -a / -um only, then add fortis / -e, then ingens, then the rare three-ending patterns).

The concordance drill is the most pedagogically dense screen in the Latin module — every round trains noun parsing AND adjective form picking AND agreement logic in one tap.

Recipe 7 — Preparing for a lesson with your teacher¶

You have a Spanish or Latin lesson coming up and want to revise before it.

Open My Progress → Word Performance. The top of the list is what you've been struggling with — those are the words to bring up with your teacher.
From that list, tap each word to open its detail view. Read the example sentences and try to use the word in a sentence aloud.
If the lesson focuses on a specific tense or declension, open the matching Select screen and disable everything except that for a short focused warm-up.
Open My Progress and tap Share (top right) to export a PDF of your progress report. Bring it to the lesson — your teacher can see exactly where you're strong and where you're weak.

Building your own recipe¶

The pattern in every recipe above is the same:

Decide your scope — what tenses / declensions / patterns / topics / CEFR level / specific words.
Narrow the selection via the relevant Select screen.
Pick the right drill for the skill you're building (recognition vs production, meaning vs gender, regular pattern vs irregular, paradigm vs concordance).
Check My Progress weekly to see whether the scope still matches your goals. Broaden when you're consistently above 90%; tighten when you're below 70%.

That's the whole loop. Everything else in the app is in service of making each of those four steps cheap to do.