Sprechen.c

A German learning application written in C using GTK 4.

Description

Sprechen.c is an educational program designed for practicing German language skills, aimed at high school and gymnasium students. The UI is written in Czech and is built as a single C file (sprechen.c) that renders a modern, CSS-styled GTK 4 interface with a Catppuccin Mocha dark theme.

Features

• Welcome screen – branded greeting with a description of the program and a "Pokračuj" button to get started
• Learning roadmap – a wave-shaped "Učební plán" path with 10 units that scrolls horizontally
  • each unit numbered and labeled with its topic (e.g. "Neue Freunde")
  • current unit highlighted with a mauve→blue gradient and glow
  • completed units shown in green with a checkmark
  • locked units dimmed with a lock icon
  • finish flag at the end of the path
• Back navigation – themed circular back button (top-left) returns to the welcome screen
• Unit 1 exercises – "Neue Freunde" opens an interactive bubble map with 13 exercises (dialogs, sentence building, numbers, verb conjugation, greeting sorting and more), each with German prompts and a "Zkontrolovat" check
• Progress tracking – completed exercises are marked green; progress is saved to progress/unit1.conf and restored on startup
• Catppuccin Mocha theme – gradient background, rounded cards, glowing buttons and nodes, all driven by an embedded CSS stylesheet
• Keyboard quit shortcuts – Super/Cmd+Q or Alt+F4 closes the app
• Single-file C codebase, cross-platform (Linux and macOS supported)

Installation

Prerequisites

1. GTK 4 development libraries

macOS:

brew install gtk4

Linux (Debian / Ubuntu):

sudo apt install libgtk-4-dev

Linux (Fedora):

sudo dnf install gtk4-devel

Linux (Arch):

sudo pacman -S gtk4

2. Build tools (compiler, Make, pkg-config)

macOS – install all of these explicitly, they are not preinstalled:

# installs the GNU C compiler, Make, and pkg-config
brew install gcc make pkg-config
# if you prefer Apple's Clang toolchain instead, you can run:
# xcode-select --install

Linux – no need to install gcc, it is already preinstalled on most distributions (it ships with build-essential/base-devel):

# Debian / Ubuntu: make sure you have the base toolchain and pkg-config
sudo apt install build-essential pkg-config

# Fedora
sudo dnf groupinstall "Development Tools"
sudo dnf install pkgconf-pkg-config

# Arch
sudo pacman -S base-devel pkgconf

Building the Application

1. Clone or download this repository
2. Navigate to the project directory
3. Build using the provided Makefile:

make

Or manually:

gcc -o sprechen sprechen.c `pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk4` -lm

Running the Application

make run

or

./sprechen

Usage

When launched, the application shows the welcome screen. From there:

1. Click "Pokračuj" to open the learning roadmap.
2. Browse the units along the path; the roadmap scrolls horizontally if the window is too narrow.
3. Click the "Neue Freunde" node to open the unit's exercise map, then pick any bubble to start an exercise.
4. Use the back button in the top-left corner to return to the previous screen.

Only the first unit is currently implemented. Locked units do nothing – they are placeholders until lessons are added. Completed exercises stay green and are saved to progress/unit1.conf (created next to the app on first finish).

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Super/Cmd + Q	Quit application
Alt + F4	Quit application

Project structure

sprechen.c          entire application (UI, navigation, path drawing, styling)
Makefile            build & run targets
README.md           this file
LICENSE             MIT license

Theming

Colors follow the Catppuccin Mocha palette and are applied through a CSS string embedded at the top of sprechen.c. To tweak the look (colors, node glow, gradients, spacing), edit that stylesheet and rebuild.

To-Do Plans

Future enhancements planned for Sprechen.c:

• Wire unit nodes to actual German vocabulary/grammar exercises
  • Unit 1 ("Neue Freunde") – 13 interactive exercises with progress saving
• Lesson progression and unlock system for the remaining units
• Add audio pronunciation features
• Add user settings panel
• Implement spaced repetition system for vocabulary
• Add listening and reading comprehension exercises
• Add writing practice with feedback
• Implement progress tracking and statistics
• Move CSS styling to an external file
• Split the UI code into multiple files
• Add internationalization support (gettext)
• Add unit testing framework

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgments

• Created as a learning exercise in C and GTK programming
• Inspired by language learning applications
• Built with GTK 4 for modern GUI development