11

My daughter is learning to read; I am learning TeX. So I need your help on this:

I have an array/a list of nouns (basically names of people and two mythical creatures called Fara and Fu:

noun = ["Fu", "Fara", "Uta", "Mama", "Mami", "Ralf", "Lara", "Mara", "Murat", "Marta", "Mamut", "Ira", "Mira", "Maria" ]

Together with this goes a list of verbs she can read:

verb = ["malt", "ruft", "umarmt" ]

I am looking for a way to automatically typeset all possible and sensible permutations of nouns and verb, such as this list my simple ruby script already generates:

Maria umarmt Mama.
Maria malt Uta mit mir.
Mara malt Maria.
Fu malt Mamut.
Marta malt Mama.

By "sensible" I mean not having things like

Fu umarmt Fu.

as it is physically impossible to hug oneself (unless you are James Bond).

Randomly the text " mit mir" (together with me) might be added to each sentence.

Why LaTeX? rubyonly outputs text, and here comes request number two:

The syllables of the words need to be colored blue-red-blue-red-.... for first-second-third-... syllable, such as this:

wortliste

In the name of my daughter (and myself of course) - Thank you!

My current setup as per my comment below:

\documentclass[18pt,oneside,a4paper]{scrartcl}

\usepackage{pgfmath,color}
\usepackage[doublespacing]{setspace}

%Einstellungen der Seitenrnder
\renewcommand{\familydefault}{\sfdefault}
\usepackage{helvet}
\usepackage[left=4cm,right=3cm,top=3cm,bottom=3cm,includeheadfoot]{geometry}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancyhf{}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0.5pt}

%Fu§zeile mittig
\fancyfoot[C]{\thepage}
%Linie unten
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0.5pt}

%neue Rechtschreibung
\usepackage{ngerman}

\def\noun{%
{{Fu}},{{Fa}{ra}},{{U}{ta}},{{Ma}{ma}},%
{{Ma}{mi}},{{Ralf}},{{La}{ra}},%
{Ma}{ra},{{Mu}{rat}},{{Mar}{ta}},%
{{Ma}{mut}},{I}{ra},{Mi}{ra},{{Ma}{ri}{a}}%
}

\def\verb{{{malt}},{{ruft}},{{um}{armt}}%
}

\def\zc{\expandafter\zzblue}
\def\zzblue#1{%
\ifx\relax#1\else\textcolor{blue}{#1}%
\expandafter\zzred
\fi}

\def\zzred#1{%
\ifx\relax#1\else\textcolor{red}{#1}%
\expandafter\zzblue
\fi}

\begin{document}

\makeatletter


\@for\za:=\noun\do{%
\@for\zb:=\noun\do{%
\ifx\za\zb\else
\@for\v:=\verb\do{
\par\zc\za\relax\ \zc\v\relax\ \zc\zb\relax
\pgfmathparse{random(2)}%
\ifnum\pgfmathresult=1\ \textcolor{blue}{mit mir}\fi.

}%
\fi
}}

\end{document}


\pgfmathparse{random(8)}%
\let\zza\pgfmathresult

\pgfmathparse{random(8)}%
\show\pgfmathresult
Christian
  • 1,435

1 Answers1

12
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pgfmath,color}
\def\noun{%
{{Fu}},{Fa}{ra},{{Uta}},{Ma}{ma},%
{Ma}{mi},{{Ralf}},{La}{ra},%
{Ma}{ra},{Mu}{rat},{Mar}{ta},%
{Ma}{mut},{Ir}{a},{Mir}{a},{Ma}{ri}{a}%
}

\def\verb{{{malt}},{{ruft}},{um}{armt}%
}

\def\zc{\expandafter\zzblue}
\def\zzblue#1{%
\ifx\relax#1\else\textcolor{blue}{#1}%
\expandafter\zzred
\fi}

\def\zzred#1{%
\ifx\relax#1\else\textcolor{red}{#1}%
\expandafter\zzblue
\fi}

\begin{document}

\makeatletter


\@for\za:=\noun\do{%
\@for\zb:=\noun\do{%
\ifx\za\zb\else
\@for\v:=\verb\do{
\par\zc\za\relax\ \zc\v\relax\ \zc\zb\relax
\pgfmathparse{random(2)}%
\ifnum\pgfmathresult=1\ \textcolor{blue}{mit mir}\fi.

}%
\fi
}}

\end{document}


\pgfmathparse{random(8)}%
\let\zza\pgfmathresult

\pgfmathparse{random(8)}%
\show\pgfmathresult
David Carlisle
  • 757,742
  • Shouldn't the line with \verb of your beautiful answer be \def\verb{{malt}{},{ruft}{},{um}{armt}%? Now it colours malt character by character... – Przemysław Scherwentke Sep 30 '14 at 18:47
  • @PrzemysławScherwentke oops yes you need to double brace single words as I did for {{Ralf}} (or an empty brace would work, but make an empty colour group) I'll fix, thanks – David Carlisle Sep 30 '14 at 19:47
  • @DavidCarlisle Amazing, great, fantastic, ... - if I could upvote by more then one I would certainly do so. Thank you! – Christian Oct 01 '14 at 06:41
  • I have added my current "setup" above (she can't read Serif fonts well yet and things need to be a little bigger with more linespacing) - would there be a way to randomize the lines? The current way of doing it (though perfect!) has n lines each start with the same noun, randomizing them would make the reading experience more interesting I suppose (plus - less guessing and more actual reading if I remember my Morse Code practice correctly (which, If I might say so, puts "learning to read" in a whole new perspective.)). – Christian Oct 01 '14 at 06:53
  • @Christian You'll note that I use pgfmath's random number generator already, for the extra text \pgfmathparse{random(10)} would leave a random integer between 1 and 10 in \pgfmathresult so easiest thing would be instead of the comma separated list, set things up as \@namedef{noun1}{David} \@namedef{noun2}{Christian}... then you could replace the nested loop by \pgfmathparse{random(10)}\edef\za{\@nameuse{noun\pgfmathresult}}\pgfmathparse{random(10)}\edef\zb{\@nameuse{noun\pgfmathresult}} to pick up two nouns – David Carlisle Oct 01 '14 at 11:17