Introduction to Your Verb Trainer
The verbs of Romance languages have a bunch of different forms. If you want to really become fluent in a language, you’ll have to learn many of these different forms, and be able to use them correctly. The VerbTrainer gives you a tool to do just that.
When I started to learn Spanish, I could not find a way to learn those verbs. Spanish has 89 forms of each verb, and a Spanish speaker uses about two-thirds of them regularly. I tried flash cards, note cards, conjugation books and websites, but with little success. What I needed was a way to drill myself randomly. Finally, I wrote a small program that ran on my laptop, created a database of all 89 forms of 500 verbs, and started drilling myself. I honestly believe I would not have learned how to use Spanish verbs properly without that program.
The iPhone and iPod Touch gave me an even better opportunity -- now I could drill myself without needing my laptop. I re-wrote the VerbTrainer to run on the iPhone and iPod Touch; now whenever I have five minutes of spare time, I can start the program and get a bit of refresher training.
Your Verb Trainer has all the forms for about 500 verbs in it. Your goal is not to memorize every form of every verb (that would be somewhere around 55,000 - 75,000 forms), but to use the Verb Trainer to see and learn the patterns of verb forms. You’ll know you’re making progress when you can give the correct verb form for a verb you’ve never seen before.
Your Verb Trainer is not difficult to use. This mini-manual will show you how to quiz yourself and choose what verbs and verb forms you'd like to use. Buena suerte! Bon chance! Buona fortuna!
Table of Contents
How to Quiz Yourself on Verbs
When you start up the VerbTrainer, you’ll go right to the Quiz View, as shown below. (Note: in this manual, we use the French Verb Trainer; if you have the Verb Trainer for another language, the verbs will, of course, be different, but the operation is the same.)
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The Quiz View cycles through two steps. The one shown in Figure 1 presents a verb infinitive, a tense, and the pronoun representing a person/number form of the verb. In the example, you're asked to say what the proper verb form is for the infinitive cambiar, in the présente de l’indicatif tense, for the pronoun je, which is first-person singular.
Now, in your mind or out loud, say what you think is the correct form for the verb, tense and person/number.
When you’ve done that, touch anywhere on the screen to see the answer. Figure 2 shows the answer view.
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Touch again anywhere on the screen to get the next verb quiz. You can continue this Quiz-Answer-Quiz cycle as long as you want. I’ve found there are times it’s good to do this for 20 minutes, but the design of the Verb Trainer allows you to open it up and do just a few cycles when you’ve got a spare moment. The constant refresher training really helps.
Orientation
Your Verbtrainer works in both Portrait and Landscape orientations; just rotate your iPhone or iPod Touch and the view will adapt itself to the changed orientation. Many users report that the Landscape orientation works better because the answers don't get divided between lines as much. (Note: it seems that very occasionally, the Verbtrainer gets confused about what orientation it should be showing. I've tried to manage all the possibilities in the program, but if you find a screen that just isn't right, do a rotation or two and Verbtrainer will catch up.)
In the rest of this How-To Manual, I'll show just the Portrait orientations.
Seeing a Conjugation
If you want to review the conjugation for the verb and tense shown on the Quiz View, press the Conjugation button on the left side of the Title bar. The Conjugation View, shown in Figure 3, will appear.
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From the Conjugation screen, you can see the verb's entire conjugation by pressing the ”Full” button on the right side of the Navigation bar (at the top). This will take you to a scrolling view of the verb's entire conjugation.
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Pressing the ”Return to Quiz View” button does just that-returns you to the Quiz View.
The Selections Menu
You control what verbs to use for quizzes, what types and tenses to quiz on, and manage verb lists from the Selections Menu. Touch the Selections button on the Navigation bar of the Quiz View to reach the Selections Table, shown below.
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Managing Verb Lists
A new feature of Verbtrainers allows you to create and save as many verb lists as you want. You can then select one as the "Active" verb list. Once selected, you can choose to quiz yourself on verbs from just that list. You manage verb lists from the ”Select” table.
Creating a new Verb List
Select ”Manage Verb Lists” from the Select menu.
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You will see the ”Manage Verb Lists”view, as below.
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If you wish to create a new list, touch the top button. If you wish to edit an existing list, touch the row of that list. If you wish to delete a list, touch the Delete button; you'll see delete icons
appear to the left of each list. Touch the delete icon, confirm by touching the Delete bar that appears, and the verb list will be erased. Note: this is not ”un-doable;” it's gone for good when you do this.
Whether you are creating a new list or editing an existing list, you will see the edit list view. (Shown here are two verb lists. On the left is a new list, with no verbs included, and on the right an existing list, showing the verbs on the list.)
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Touching the delete icon deletes that word from the list. To add words, touch one of the two buttons at the bottom of the screen. This will take you to a list of verbs in Verbtrainer's database.
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Touching an infinitive adds it or removes it from the list -- you'll know if it's already in the list because infinitives that are already in the list have a green checkmark to the right. Touch the infinitive to add it or remove it from the list.
Saving a Verb List
On the ”Manage Verb List” screen you’ll save the Verb List. Give it a unique name and touch the Save button. If you have changed the Verb List and try to leave this screen without saving it, you’ll get a warning message. Likewise, if you try to save the Verb List with an already-used name, you’ll get a warning. You can overwrite an existing verb list from the warning dialog.
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Using Verb Lists
Verb lists give you great flexibility in choosing what words to quiz yourself on. This section describes how to use the verb lists you've created and saved.
First, you need to set one of your verb lists as the "Active" list. To do this, touch Set Active Verb List on the Selection view.
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You’ll see the a table ofthe verb lists you’ve created; in the example, there are three verb lists: ”List 1”,”popular list 1” and ”popular verbs”. None of them have been selected as the active veb list.
Select a verb list to be the active verb list by touching it in this table. A green check mark appears to the right of the verb list title, showing that it is the active verb list
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When you return to the Selections view, you’ll see that the verb list you selected is now shown as the acttive verb list.
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Returning now to the Quiz View, you’ll see two changes. First, the verbs will be from your verb list. Secondly, there will be an icon in the upper right hand corner of the Quiz View.
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If, while using the verb list to quiz yourself, you decide you want to remove the verb that has appeared in the Quiz View from the list, you can do so by simply touching the 
icon.
If you choose to use all verbs, you can return to the Selections table and do that by touching ”Use All Verbs”. A checkmark on that row will indicate this choice.
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Using all verbs, you will see a change to the Quiz View screen. Now in the upper-right-hand corner is another icon:
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Now, as you quiz yourself on all verbs, if you see one you’d like to add to the active verb list, touching the 
icon will do that.
Selecting Verb Tenses
You can choose what tenses you want to drill yourself on. This is helpful when you’re studying a new tense and want to learn only that tense.
To select the tense or tenses you wish to study, press on the Select button in the Quiz View Title Bar. You’ll see the Selections choices, shown in Figure 18.
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Touch anywhere a row to get to a detailed view. For instance, if you want to choose from Simple Verb tenses, touch that row, and you will see the Simple Verb Tenses choices, as shown in Figure 19. The accompanying image shows the selection after touching the ”All Simple Tenses” cell; all Simple Tense forms are now selected. Touching that same row again de-selects all Simple Tense Forms.
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You can touch any row to select that verb tense. You can select as many as you like; the Quiz View will then select verbs and quiz you only on the tenses you’ve selected.
Remember that you will have to select at least one tense, either from the Simple Verb Forms list or the Compound Verb Forms list. You’ll get an Alert if you have not selected any verb tenses.
Setting Verb Types and Endings
You can also select verb types and verb endings to use for the quizzes. Do this in the same way that you chose tenses (above).
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Seeing a verb's full conjugation
You can see the entire conjugation of a verb from the Select menu.
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Touch on ”View Conjugation.” You’ll see a list of all the verbs in the Verbtrainer database. Scroll to the verbs you want to see, touch it, and the Full Conjugation View will appear. Touch the Selections button to return.
Seeing the Sample conjugation
The Sample Conjugation shows an English translation for each form of a verb. This can be helpful when you’re wondering how to use a verb form.
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Seeing the Help screen
If you touch Help you’ll see a small help screen, not as complete as this page you’re reading now, but helpful if you don't have access to this screen.
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Info
Touch the info to read a bit about Verbtrainer, and how to contact me if you need help, find a bug or an error or any other reason.
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