How these exercises work

These exercises are built on a research finding called the pretesting effect (Pan & Chua, NUS 2026): attempting an answer before you've fully learned the material — even when you'll likely get it wrong — strengthens later memory more than passive study, provided you receive immediate corrective feedback.

So: you'll be asked to guess, often without knowing. Wrong guesses are not failures. They're the mechanism. What matters is that you read the feedback after each item and let the correct answer land.

The pretest score at the end of each skill is not a grade. It's a private signal of what to revisit. Class itself is where the actual learning happens; these exercises prime your memory for it.

The XP system rewards attempts (retrieval), retakes (spaced consolidation), and daily contact (spacing) — the three mechanisms the research points to.
NUS Centre for Language Studies

Choose a unit

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Unit 0

The Basics

Alphabet, pronouns, numbers, days, colours, greetings, and naming.

11 skills · ~2 h
Unit 1

Identity & introductions

Name, nationality, profession, age, languages. Être, avoir, and first irregular verbs.

11 skills · ~2.5 h
Unit 2

Daily life & activities

Faire, aller, vouloir, partitive articles, time, places, preferences, possessives.

13 skills · ~3 h
Unit 3

La ville & les directions

Weather, ordinals, venir & prendre, questions, adjective agreement, city vocab, directions.

11 skills · ~3 h
Unit 4

Coming soon

Released later in the semester.

Locked