Skedus

I am IT technician in a hospital, and I am passionate about languages as well. This is why Skedus is for me, at the same time, a great challenge to take up [, a lot of problems to solve], a great source of satisfaction and perhaps, who knows, even an opportunity to discover new people.

I'm no data seller and, since I don't eat cookies, I don't ask you. I want all the cooking to be homemade in Skedus, even when it smells of smoke... That said, you can always give me some advices, but I warn you, I could follow them, good or not!

I live at the very end of Brittany, the wonderful Celtic part of France. As its Celtic language too, Breton, is endangered, I am particularly sensitive to the cause of minority languages.

I wanted Skedus to be... the way I would have wanted it to be, well, I mean, if I hadn't created it. Of course, it can sometimes be very puzzling to know what we would have wanted if...! This is why I tried to focus myself to principles of common sense:

First of all, I wanted Skedus to be useful, and I put myself in learners' shoes. It was within my reach, since I'm a learner myself. For example, I thought it would be a little bit silly to ask questions if the answers would not have been given to learn before.

Next, I wanted Skedus to be practical, and I put myself in users' shoes. There again, I was not completely caught out of guard, because at the hospital where I work, the users (even doctors and... even me) are not always very comfortable with certain IT tools.

Finally, I wanted Skedus to prove enjoyable. And this really wasn't easy at all. Then in doubt, I let you set up almost everything I could. I tried to put everything in its right place, but how would I know where it is? About tastes and colors, feel free to complain.

My development skills may be helpful to grow Skedus, but the fact is that I cannot do everything myself. I can of course rely on the free work of other people, and I would like to thank once again the whole team of Game Icons for the icons that fill out the grid, but it doesn't always happen that way.

For example, I have to host the website on a server, but I can't get it for free. Slow website? Poor performance? Skedus doesn't work very well? This sometimes happens when the service I can pay for doesn't make enough.

...And, as I said, I am no data seller. This means I obviously do not make turnover, gains or benefits of any kind. In a nutshell, Skedus also works because you help me make it work. To do this, just click on the link below:

If you don't have money, or if you don't want to spend it here (and it's your right), know that there are many other ways to help me. Skedus brings together various strands of skills and know-how. You certainly have something to contribute! A few examples may give you some inspiration.

If you teach languages, or if you know people who learn them, do not hesitate to promote Skedus around you. The more the merrier!

If you speak more than one language, you can of course send me lists of words, so that I can feed the game. As of yet, only languages I myself know more or less can be found on Skedus, but feel free to add other languages. This might be a good opportunity for you if you wish to help people learn minority languages, as I did for Breton.

In a rush? At least, send me an email to say hello or even share your views, feelings, impressions... This shed more light on my way.

At first, I didn't think that Skedus would deal with more than two languages. I just wanted to stimulate people who learn Breton (for those who don't know, Breton is the last Celtic languages spoken on the continent).

It's just that I wanted Skedus to be made available to french speakers, who could play french vs breton, as well as to english speakers, who could play english vs breton (and vice versa). I only found out afterwards that, hence, they could play french vs english or english vs french...

What a surprise! Well, I only had to go into it, and so I added two more languages I learned in school, german and russian (and that was not easy at all, I had a little rust).

Of course, I don't think I was fully aware of the challenges involved in this, for the mere fact that the same word be translated from A to B, and then from B to C, doesn't imply it could be directly translated from A to C without wavering. Ouch!