WO2013153447A2 - Processes to use pictures as language units - Google Patents

Abstract

I disclose processes and methods that, by combining pictures in specific ways, could boost, enforce, and/or optimize language training. Herein I disclose several forms of combining pictures: the combination of several pictures all of them related to the same word; the combination of a word and a variety of pictures, when at least one of the pictures is related to the word; the combination of a word and a variety of pictures, when one or more pictures are not related to the word; the use or pictures as language replacers in a traditional text; the use of pictures as surrogate headings in traditional multi-choice tests. Finally, as practical/industrial applications of this method, I provide a method to train a language, as well as a game that can be both entertaining and educational.

Description

PROCESSES TO USE PICTURES AS LANGUAGE UNITS

DESCRIPTION TECHNICAL FIELD

The subject invention relates to processes and methods, in particular to those based on analysing and interpreting pictures as well as combining and associating them with words in specific manners.

BACKGROUND ART

Although the invention is presented as methods and apparatus to train and practice a language of interest, it would easily appear to those skilled in the art that processes and methods of this invention can be applied to training any imaginable field of knowledge, like natural sciences in general, geography, social sciences, philosophy, history, literature, etc.

That pictures are not the same as words seems to be an obvious statement, but it has been widely shown that a type of realistic pictures like photographs elicit emotional responses, as well as meanings, that are different to the responses elicited by words. Moreover, the language extension response to photos is different in preschool children as compared with adults. Indeed, when preschool-aged children are asked to 'find another' example of a novel word after being shown a picture (e.g. the picture of a baseball), they choose shape responses (e.g. orange), more than taxonomic responses (e.g. a basketball, or a football, etc.), whereas adults choose taxonomic choices more often.

Other than conventional modern written languages (i.e. conventional words constructed from alphabets), graphic representations conveying words or more complex meanings can be (in a limited non exhaustive list) of different kinds: Symbols are particular marks that represent some piece of information

Ideograms or ideographs that are graphic symbols that represent an idea or concept.

Pictograms, are ideograms that resemble the physical object they represent.

Pictographs are a type of pictograms that have a pictorial appearance. For instance, traffic or informative signs. There are also games based on pictographs (pictograph game, pictographic labyrinth, etc.).

Drawings: works produced by representing objects or forms on a surface chiefly by means of lines.

Images: They record perceptions that have similar appearance to some subject, thus providing a depiction of it.

Photograms or photos are images that capture the light of real life objects usually on a film or an electronic image such as a chip.

Photos (in particular colour photographs) constitute an especially interesting case in that they are the more faithful graphic reproduction of reality among the representations in the non-extensive list above.

In recent years there has been a proliferation of open access sites that make use of photographs or pictures to convey, reinforce, underline or interpret a text. In these compositions, the picture usually plays a secondary role as the background, tone, brightness of a preferred text (a poem, a quote, a statement, etc.), etc.

For instance in some open access places like "sayingimages.com" what is shown is a set of pictures overlaid by words: In this format, pictures serve as a background to enforce or to underline a text, such for example a poem. Similar combinations can be found in quotes and images, although in this case the text and the associated picture are physically separated. Other interesting sites that work around the same concept can be found in "Pinterest.com", "photoswordspeople.com", "sadanduseless.com", An interesting case of a method to develop language skills is The Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM) originally developed by Emily Calhoun and aimed at teaching the reading of a language. It uses pictures containing familiar objects, actions and scenes, to draw out familiar words from students' listening and speaking vocabularies. This strategy is aimed at helping students add words to their sight reading vocabulary, as well as their writing vocabulary, and to examine and categorize phonetic and structural principles present in those words.

With the advent of the digital era (and particularly in the last decade), image/photo repositories/galleries have exponentially grown. Nowadays one can for instance search for images using simple key words in an online search engine and find thousands of images that correspond to the word entry. So that, if one want to represent a specific word, it is relatively easy to find the corresponding images/pictures by searching in the internet.

ORIGINS OF THE INVENTION

Although they have the advantage of immediately raise memories or complex thoughts in the observer's mind (something that may not occur with more simple depictions like pictograms, or, particularly ideograms), photos, as single, isolated images, however, are not necessarily the best representations of words. In fact, particularly in the case of object representation but also in many other cases such as actions, etc., photographs can have a disadvantage when compared with more symbolic simple depictions. Indeed, in addition to the subject/action of interest, photos capture all the details of the environment, being thus, by definition, a complex image of the subject of interest.

I thus thought that perhaps by combining pictures all of them being related to the same word, one could overcome this caveat and, therefore, any observer could automatically think in the right word by unconsciously excluding subjects/actions that are not present in all the pictures of the combination, and therefore are not relevant to the process.

By playing myself a spontaneous game, I started to realize the potential of combining pictures in order to convey a specific word. At the beginning, I used open access repositories like Flickr Creative Commons, but I soon realized that, if I wanted to really produce the desired combination, I needed to take my own pictures, thinking already, while shooting the pictures, in the final shape that the combination of photos will take for a given word.

After performing preliminary tests with friends and family, I soon realized the potential of photo based combinations as a basic process to be of utility in language acquisition, language learning, and language extension. In addition, I clearly saw that by asking my Spanish family members to guess the right word in English, after being shown a number of these combinations, they would remember many of the words that they had to guess (in some cases, after having to use a dictionary). Indeed, they had acquired a very valuable new vocabulary just by playing and having fun with a very simple use of one of the processes of the invention.

Further delving into the original idea, I have developed a system that is now essentially based on the use of pictures as surrogate units of any language.

Relevant References

PATENT DOCUMENTS

US 5,882202 A 3/1999 Sameth et al.

EP 1 ,344203 A1 9/2003 Johnson et al.

US 6,343935 B1 2/2002 Clements

EP 1 ,156414 B1 8/2008 Yamada

US 7,563099 B1 7/2009 Iftikhar US 7,689407 B2 3/2010 Chang et al.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Houts PS, Witmer JT, Egeth HE, Loscalzo MJ, Zabora JR. (2001 ). Using pictographs to enhance recall of spoken medical instructions II.

Patient Educ Couns pp: 231 -42.

Schlochtermeier LH, Kuchinke L, Pehrs C, Urton K, Kappelhoff H, Jacobs AM. (2013). Emotional picture and word processing: an FMRI study on effects of stimulus complexity. PLoS One. pp: e55619.

Tare M, Gelman SA. (2010). Determining that a label is kind-referring: factors that influence children's and adults' novel word extensions.

J Child Lang, pp: 1007-26.

CLAIMED PRIORITY

The present patent disclosure claims the priority date of the previous provisional application (US 61/617,401 ), and is continuation of a posterior provisional application (US 61/714,468).

DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

I provide herein new processes and methods that take advantage of the specific combination of different language modules (particularly pictures and words).

In a first embodiment of the invention pictures can be combined in such a way that they can be immediately and unmistakably associated with a word or a meaning and only with one. The key to develop this method is to create a multi-photographic context of said picture, or a written language context, or, in some cases, a context that is a mixture of photos and written language. This can be otherwise explained by using examples. For instance, an object (and the word thereof) shown in a single photo can elicit a variety of words/meanings in the observer's mind. However, two, three or four photos (i.e. two or more) showing different aspects of said object, immediately convey the word thereof. In this particular case, the multi-photographic context is created with the use of other meaningful photos (e.g. all the photos relate to one word and only to one word).

Conversely, one can single out a photo among a variety of them provided that we simultaneously show the written word that is associated with said photo. In this particular embodiment of the method, the multi-photographic context are bulk photos that are unrelated to the written word or that have a non-meaningful relationship with it (e.g. the word represented by one bulk photo could sound similar to the written word that is shown in this particular embodiment) .

In yet another embodiment, photos can be intermingled with text in such a way that they become language units that can be integrated in the written language as surrogate words or even more complex language compositions like phrases, sentences or paragraphs.

In yet another embodiment of the process, one can use a photo to partially or totally substitute the heading in a classical multi-choice test. Photographs thereof can represent simple objects (e.g. a car) or can be as complex as needed in order to make the wording of the question partially or, even, completely unnecessary. In this particular form, the context of said picture is the written language (i.e. the text in a multi-choice question)

Although a preferred embodiment of this invention is the use of photographs as the image part of the different processes above, it is easy to imagine for one skilled in the art that any form of image (like pictures, drawings symbols, shadows, etc.) can substitute or combine in any way (for instance one photo, one drawing and one symbol can the three of them relate to the same word and only to that word, etc.).

A method to train a language, and preferably a foreign language is also provided, whereby, the different processes outlined above are used accordingly to the degree of knowledge of the person being trained in a language of interest. In a preferred embodiment, the method is used to learn a foreign language (i.e. a second language), but for any skilled in the art, it will be apparent that the method could be applied to learning and training any language (including the maternal, first language of the student).

Finally and as a way of practical example of this methodology, a game is provided that makes use of some of the processes of the invention and that can be both entertaining and educational, by challenging the player's ability to associate words with pictures. For the skilled in the art, it would appear evident that the board game that I disclose here is just an example of the multiple game applications of the processes and methods of this patent disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In these invention, the use of photographs as essential components of the different processes is preferred to other forms of graphic representations like (without exhausting the list of different types of depictions) ideograms, pictograms, drawings, images or any other form of visual representation known by the skilled in the art. Also, although a preferred version of this invention uses different combinations of photos or of photos and words, it will become apparent that, for somebody skilled in the art of using image representations, in other imaginable forms of the invention, photos can be substituted by (or combined with) other kind of graphic representations like in the list above (symbols, pictographs, pictograms, pictures, ideograms, etc.). The only condition being that the actual structure of the processes described in detail below is maintained.

EXAMPLES

EXAMPLE 1 : A SET OF PHOTOS CONVEYING A UNIQUE WORD. In the provisional application related to the present filing, I described an art of combining pictures in a way to convey one word and only one word. A word in this combination can be an adjective, a name, a verb, an adverb, a pronoun or any other part of the speech. Depending on the type of use that one could give to the invention, the different parts of the speech that a given word can play could easily be codified (as in the game provided in this document) in order to direct the observer to the right word. Otherwise, genders or plural or singular forms of words can be either negligible or required, again depending on the use of said combination. When required, they can also be codified as in the board game provided in this specification. Several examples of this process are shown in Figure 1.

This process of the invention usually comprises three pictures but it can contain any number of them as long as they all relate to the same word and only to the same word.

As a way of example, one can imagine a picture that shows a mushroom in the middle of the grass with a backyard and a house in the background. Depending on our interests, our mind set, even our culinary preferences, or any other circumstance that can influence our way of thinking, the picture can elicit the word mushroom, but also the word grass, the word backyard, the word house, the word peace, the word work, etc. It can also elicit more complex language units like sentences, phrases, paragraphs or simply verbally nonconcrete thoughts. Said picture in the example can also elicit emotions that can or cannot have any connection with the mushroom. However, by showing for instance three pictures: the one of the example, another one of mushrooms being fried in a frying pan, and another one of an amanita phalloides (the one of red color with white spots), one would immediately think in the word mushroom and only in that word.

By encapsulating (framing) different photographic aspects of the same word in the same frame, one therefore conveys an unequivocal and conceptually different aspect of the same word compared with showing one unique picture (either showing the isolated object/action that represents the word of interest or together with other objects/actions pointing at the object/action with, for example an arrow, or any other means to point at something on a picture). As a way of analogy, one can think of an entry in a dictionary. Said entry can have a unique clear definition or several of them (sometimes very similar among themselves). For instance, according to the FREEDICTIONARY, the word bird defines "any of various warm-blooded, egg-laying, feathered vertebrates of the class Aves, having forelimbs modified to form wings". The same word however can also mean "A small rounded piece of cork or rubber with a conical crown of feathers or plastic, used in badminton, and called shuttlecock", or, in slang, "A rocket, guided missile, satellite, or airplane". Further exploring this example in the context of pictures referring to the word bird, the picture of a pigeon, for instance, represents the word bird but also the word pigeon itself (in a list of many possible words, including feather, beck, claw, etc.). However, according to the method of my invention the word bird can be unequivocally conveyed by showing within a single frame several pictures representing different types of birds (e.g. three pictures: a picture of an eagle, a picture of a sparrow, and a picture of a turkey). One could also graphically represent the word by showing several pictures, each of them representing the different meanings of the dictionary's entry. For instance, one can show a picture of a bird (any type of bird for that matter, like, for instance, a pigeon, etc.), together with a picture of a missile and a picture of a badminton shuttelcock. One can envision the use of these kinds of combinations, for example, as a method to learn a language (either a foreign language or the native language of the student). In the latter context of learning a foreign language, the first combination (pictures of several types of birds within a single frame), could be considered a basic language level combination representing a word, while the second one would be used as a higher language level composition, as it may occur to a person skilled in the art.

In a practical embodiment of the processes above, one can design a method for training a language, whereby the observer/student/player can provide the right word to a particular photo puzzle by any means that are obvious and familiar to the skilled in the art. One can, for instance, enter the word in a computer terminal or in an apparatus provided with a touch electronic surface by typing on a traditional complete alphabetical typing keyboard, or (in order to provide a handicap to the observer/student/player) on a incomplete typing keyboard that misses some of the letters of a given alphabet (a keyboard in this embodiment can be a physical or a digital keyboard like in touch tone interfaces). One can also introduce the written form of a word by manually writing or by pointing at a word that is provided by a machine or directly by a person. For instance, the processes herein could be provided as a list of words, one of said words being the right word for a given combination of pictures. In this modality, the person being trained in the knowledge of a language can provide the right word just by indicating it on, for example, a touch screen (by touching) or a traditional mouse pointer (by clicking on the word). The person being trained in the knowledge of a language can also provide a voice version of the right word by correctly pronounce it, either to other person/s that judge its correctness or to an apparatus that is able to recognize voices and therefore words, provided they are correctly pronounced. Combination of pictures as in the example above, particularly when used in a language training method, and more specifically in a foreign language training method, can be reinforced and completed with so-called helping tools as shown in Figure 2, whereby the number 3 (i.e. the word three) is codified by the combination of pictures, and two among many possibly different hints or leads are shown. For one skilled in the art, the use of these tools as a complement for any combination of pictures could be considered as an obvious further development of this invention. So-called helping tools can be of a variety of types. For instance, they can be hints or leads that direct the language training person to the correct word, said hints being possibly (but not exclusively), additional picture/s; a sentence; that could contain an empty space at the place where the right word would be inserted; a sound, that reminds the right word (for instance, if the word is "dog", the sound could be a barking sound), etc.

Sets of pictures combined in a logical manner as above can also be used to further explore a variety of aspects of vocabulary knowledge. For instance, one skilled in the art can directly ask for synonyms after confronting the knowledge training person with, in the example above, a set of pictures representing the word "bird" (see Figure 3). A different way of considering synonyms is by asking to find synonymic pictures by providing only a word and requiring to find pictures from a collection that correspond to that word. The latter embodiment would need a repository/collection of pictures that can be (although not only) in a digital format, as in data storage machines like smart phones, laptops, etc., or in a physical incarnation such as cards that could have a picture on one side and a list of corresponding words on the other side. This type of repository could be very useful and handy especially in the digital version since words can be searched for by entering the key word (as in the example of this paragraph) in a search engine that will display all the pictures associated with the word entry. In a further development of this repository, the list of words assigned to each picture can be listed according to their relevance, so the first word (i.e. the top word) of the list would be the more relevant to that particular picture (for instance, the picture of an eagle could have in a preferred non-exclusive embodiment, the following list: 1 )eagle;2)bird);3)prey or predatory; 4)wing or wings; 5)feather or feathers; 6)to fly; 7) beck; etc.), in such a way that if the word to enter in a search engine is "bird", the picture in this example would appear as a top choice in the display of hits.

In yet another embodiment of the invention one can design a process by which a knowledge training person will be shown with a picture and allowed to draw an additional picture from a repository of pictures. In a preferred version of the invention, the repository can be a general repository of pictures (i.e. they can have a lot, moderate, low or none degree of relationship with the shown picture), but one skilled in the art can think of special repositories (like for instance a repository of pictures of animals, or a more specific of pictures of insects, etc.). After drawing the picture the participant will be asked to guess one word common to the two pictures. To be able to develop such a challenge, one need to have a vocabulary linked to each picture and stored in the many possible ways known in the art. For instance, the picture of a pigeon walking on the sidewalk, can be linked to a vocabulary module containing word of objects/subjects (bird, pigeon, beck, feather, claw, sidewalk), adjectives (scavenger, dirty), verbs (to fly, eat, walk), etc. For the sake of simplicity, this type of representation can be worked out (not excluding other possible ways of executing it) without taking into account the different grammatical forms of a word (plural or singular, gender, verb conjugation, declinations, etc.).

This version of the invention is particularly well suited (although not exclusively) for a digital version of a game based on the methods and processes herein, and more particularly on a mobile version. For instance, one can show on a screen only one picture together with an additional empty space. One skilled in the art can program an apparatus to display one picture upon pressing (for instance in a touch phone) or clicking (for instance with a classic mouse pointer) on one of the empty space, then, depending on the picture that appears, the participant will be asked to enter the right word (by typing or writing with a digital pen or by any other possible means known in the art to enter letters and words), the one that the first and the second picture have in common. The person answering this challenge can answer a word that is either in the stored repository or not. If the word entered is considered a right answer, it would immediately imply a score for the player (when playing a game), for the student (when learning and training a language), or for any participant confronting such a challenge. The score can be stored as a personal level and later compared with scores from other people, thus conforming a so-called ranking. In a game version of this embodiment one can also envision the use of tokens or jokers, as they are known in the art, that allow the player to continue playing after a wrong answer. Also, a wrong answer would be declared as such only when there is at least a common word in the previously stored repository. Otherwise (when there is no common word in the repository), the player could draw a new picture and continue to play. The final score of a round of this kind would therefore be the number of consecutive right answers (see Figure 4).

As a distinct practical embodiment of the invention, one can use the same picture (with or without modifying its features in the different ways disclosed below) to convey different meanings. In Figure 5, the picture of a fly can, at least, be included in a combination of photos that convey the word "fly", in a combination of distinct photos to convey the word "wing/s" (see ahead in the text for the different ways of handling plurals), "to fly", etc. or in a picture mixture that is associated with the word "insect". As would be evident for the skilled in the art the same picture of a fly could be used in additional combinations of pictures to express additional words (like, for instance, the 3 000918

14 word "arthropod" that could be simply made by substituting the picture of an ant in Figure 5 with the picture of a crab, a shrimp, etc.).

As in any of the processes in the invention henceforth, combinations of pictures can be of any number thereof (ideally three or four per word). Also, as in any of the other examples and embodiments of this invention, pictures are preferably photographs (preferably in colour) but can be any combination of any type of depiction that one skilled in the art can be aware of (including pictograms, drawings, sketches, symbols, etc.).

Also, pictures, particularly photographs (preferably in colour) throughout this document can be modified in many different ways as it is well known in the art. Images of any kind (as listed above and throughout this patent document) can be altered in specific manners through a variety of processes. Such processes, in a non-exhaustive list, include: 1) manually, with the help of a pencil, or of a brush, or of a crayon, etc., with the help of scissors or any other paper cutting tool, with the help of glue that allows sticking pictures or fragments thereof to another picture in order to create different physical layers on a now handmade composite picture or image, with the help of wood or any non-paper material used as support for an image, with the help of an apparatus like a typing machine or any machine that is able to create over-layers on a picture, or, otherwise, digitally). Digital modifications are well known in the art. Digital alterations of a picture can be implemented with the help of a computer terminal, a smart phone, or any apparatus permitting to run software programs or applications designed to change picture components or features like (non-exhaustively mentioned) brightness, contrast, definition, colour, lines, or background, or to add layers (layers can also be other images, like photographs, pictures, drawings, pictograms, etc.), to combine pictures, to modify forms and shapes in a way to alter the meaning or impression conveyed by the image, etc. In order to change images into a desired aspect, we can also add (either manually or digitally or both) different signs or indicators such as arrows, circles, squares, lines (as for underlining), etc. In order to convey a new message (for instance, in a combination of pictures designed to convey a word), one skilled in the art can provide a link between two pictures that can be directional (e.g. an arrow that goes from the picture of an obese person to the picture of the same person having a slim aspect, can automatically convey the meaning of fasting, dieting, or weight loss. In another example of this kind, the same combination of pictures and signs can be used to convey the word before, by enclosing the picture of the obese person using an enclosure line colour that encodes, in this example, prepositions), inclusive (for instance, a woman, a man, and a child, the three of them inside a circle can automatically convey the word family, etc.), exclusive (for instance a picture of lots of money included in a circle, a square, etc. and a man outside de enclosure, could provide de meaning of poverty, social exclusion, etc.). Some example of word representation by adding indicators is shown in Figure 6.

A very simple and preferred way of modifying a picture is by chopping off its word parts such as in Figure 7, thus automatically creating a new set of units fitted to be used in the variety of combinations of pictures of this invention.

EXAMPLE 2: COMBINING A SET OF PHOTOS AND A WRITTEN WORD

For one skilled in the art, it is conceivable to display a number of photographs together with a word being related to one (and, in general only to one) of the photographs thereof. A variation of this embodiment relates to showing a word and more than one picture matching that word. In this example, one of the places reserved for a picture in the question interface will be occupied by a text, that would indicate the possibility that the right answer is x and y (in the example figure 8b, where the right answer is A and C) instead of only one photograph. This example, although a preferred 00918

16 embodiment of the process, does not exhaust by any means all the possibilities of including more than one "right" picture. Another variation of the invention consists in displaying a set of pictures (typically three but one can add any number of pictures in this particular embodiment) and a case containing a text like in the previous embodiment. The text in this case would read "None of the pictures" implying that this written case could correspond to the right solution (or not, depending on the whether there are picture match/es to the word or not in the combination of photos). Yet another embodiment of this invention is the combination of a variety of pictures with a language unit other than a single word (i.e. without exhausting by any mean all the possible units of a human language, said language unit other than a single word can be a phrase, an idiom, a sentence, a paragraph, etc.).

This embodiment of the invention (i.e. the combination of a set of photos and a single word) is particularly fitted for computer games (and more specifically mobile games) with touch screens because in those types of apparatus it is possible to click the right answer by simply pressing/touching on the right picture without having to do any taping.

In yet another embodiment of multipicture combinations of the invention, one with the necessary knowledge can enclose in a frame (much like in example #1 ) several pictures (two or more), all of them but one relating to a simultaneously shown word. One can call this kind of combination guess the wrong picture (as opposed to the previous one that could be called "guess the right picture"). In order to illustrate it, figure 9 shows that one can enclose three pictures each of a different kind of bird and a fourth picture of, for instance a horse, while having the word bird written on top, on the side, or in the lower part of the frame. In this example, the wrong picture (the correct solution to the riddle) would be the one showing a horse. One skilled in the art could easily think of different versions of said combination of pictures. For instance, one can set a higher degree of difficulty by substituting, in the above example, the picture of a horse with the picture of a butterfly, being the latter picture the wrong one that the observer, the student, or the player should pick as the correct answer to. In yet another variation, the same pictures can be shown without any written word. The latter layout could help training other abilities than word recognition, vocabulary, etc. For instance, it could help training conceptual knowledge instead of classical verbal associations.

For one skilled in the art it would appear logic, that the word "bird" could be substituted by the sound of the pronounced word in the language of interest. Also, in yet another version, the written word in the multipicture question could be displayed in such a way that the observer/student/player could hear the right pronunciation of the written word by choosing (e.g. clicking on, touching, etc.) the written word.

EXAMPLE 3: PHOTOGRAPHS AS LANGUAGE UNITS

The method under this header is based on the use of images as a surrogate text (word/phrase/sentence) that needs to be completed with actual words/text. It is what I call Wording Substituting Image (WSI). WSIs can be as small as a word (i.e. a part of the speech), or as big/long as a phrase or a whole sentence, or even bigger language units, such as, just as an example, paragraphs.

In a preferred embodiment (as shown in figure 10), this process can be used to learn a foreign language. By substituting a word, a phrase, or a whole sentence with an image, a WSI automatically spares the observer/student the work of having to "translate" from the foreign language in order to understand the whole sentence. Automatic translation is actually a normal mechanism in foreign language learning and it usually makes the learning process heavier and slower than it would be, should the student "think" the sentence directly in the foreign language. By using the WSI method one can focus on a part of the speech and thus learn/teach otherwise advanced lessons to students with very limited knowledge of the foreign language. Those students do not need to understand complex sentences, but only the word or words that lay in between images or photographs.

For a person skilled in the art, the use of different language complements together with a combination of pictures could be easily implemented. Since mixtures of photographs, as described above and below, can be considered as language units, one with skills can achieve a variety of combinations of different types of language units. In the processes herein, language units can be therefore drawn from the spoken language, from the written language, from the language of sings, from images of any kind (static images such as photographs or moving images such as in videos) or from any conceivable type of language (language being considered as a means to communicate contents). In one embodiment of the kind, one can use single words, phrases, incomplete sentences (e.g. in order to provide a hint as to what is the word corresponding to the combination of pictures). Hints or cues are interesting additions to the invention herein in that they contribute to fix the language by exercising together both the abstract/conceptual and the perceptual language components/functions in the brain of the observer/student/player.

Pictures can be dynamically used in combination with a written language. For instance one can build language constructs more complex (i.e. longer) than a word, a phrase or a sentence, with pictures alone or with combination of pictures and graphemes (e.g. like in a written word). In this particular embodiment, one skilled in the art must be able to make a language construct that (i.e. a succession of pictures and graphemes that convey a meaning) provided with one or more empty space/s, so that the observer/student/player can guess the right word to fill the space/s. Here, the empty space can alternatively be filled with a picture from a set of pictures (a collection). Methods and processes of the example #4 are very well suited to represent ^' linking parts of the speech such as adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, etc. An example of this is shown in figure 1 1 , whereby the observer/student/player is asked to complete the empty space with the right word (in this case, a preposition, "on"). The same figure exemplifies several of the different ways that, in this invention, a sentence, a phrase of any other language construct can be built. In the example, "a lot of snow on the roof" can be expressed with a unique picture, with two pictures together with words and an empty space, only with words, etc. Finally, in a further version of the above example one could also use combinations of pictures, single pictures and graphemes in the

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EXAMPLE 4: A HEADING SUBSTITUTING PHOTO (HSP) multi-choice test.

The invention henceforth is based on a central piece, an image (typically a photograph but it can be any type of image that conveys a key object, an action, a position, etc.) which purpose in a multi-choice test is to be self-explanatory, rendering the heading of a test unnecessary or, in some cases, very short and simple (see Figure 13b wherein the verbal heading of the test is just "For"). In order to elaborate these tests one would therefore only need an image and a series of written answer options (typically A, B, C, and D) that, for the easiness of the game, consist usually of a single word or a very short phrase. Images in multi-choice tests can be photographs from everyday life, drawings, symbols, signs (such as traffic signs, information signs, etc.), icons, etc., the only requirement in order to be used herein being that they could have at least one consensual meaning for the general public (independently of the language they speak). In a preferred function of the process, the one aimed at practicing a foreign language, this type of method should be very well suited for people who understand very little of a foreign language but that have an understanding of everyday's life so they can recognize objects, actions, etc. just by correctly interpreting the picture.

Images in HSI multi-choice tests, as well as in the other image-image or image- text combinations throughout this patent can be of any type among those well known in the art, including but not exhausting the following: pictograms, pictures, drawings, paintings, photographs, photograms, 2D pictures, 3D pictures, unmodified images, hand modified images, digitally modified images, etc. As has been shown previously, images in HSI multi-choice tests can also be compound images like the here provided combination of pictures, such as for example, a combination of photos or images of different kinds, all conveying a unique word. They can also be combinations of images, pictures, photos, etc., conveying more complex language units like phrases or sentences (what would be in action terms, situations, meanings, thoughts, etc.). Figure 14 illustrates one such example in which three pictures together can convey meaning of the risk of a car running over a person because of drinking and driving.

EXAMPLE 5: IMAGE COMPLEMENTS:

Complements to the central piece of the invention can also be pictures themselves. For instance, one can develop a method to combine two or more pictures, all of them having in common the same word, while leaving an empty space for an additional picture. The latter picture needs to be chosen by the observer/student/player from a set of pictures that contain at least one that is related to the word. In this particular embodiment, said word can be displayed (i.e. visibly written) or not. The goal of this particular variation will be again to test the ability to recognize images among a variety of unrelated pictures. One can also add a further degree of difficulty by including among the unrelated pictures, some pictures that have some direct relationship with the missing picture (for instance if the word is "bird" one can include in the set of unrelated pictures, the picture of a bird -the true answer- and also the picture of a butterfly which, although it has wings and can fly as the other birds, it is not a bird. In a particular embodiment of this example (the one that does not show the written word), as it could easily be appreciated by any skilled in the art, one can simultaneously test the language (vocabulary) knowledge of the observer, but also the general knowledge (i.e. general culture) or a particular field of knowledge (like for instance, zoology, biology, geography, etc.), or, more than one fields of knowledge in the same combination (Figure 15 can be used either as a science question, a language question if the foreign language is English, or as both science and language question). For instance, if the word bird is not shown and there is not any other clue or hint as to what is the word in common, one can conclude that butterfly is the missing picture by thinking that both birds in the frame as well as the butterfly are able to fly; however the sparrow in the set of unrelated pictures would be a superior choice since it has a superior order of commonness: it belongs to the same species. In conclusion, in the word combination of this invention, subjects/objects, actions, or any word that plays a part in the speech can be represented by pictures, provided that all of them have the same word in common and that said word is the higher category represented by all the pictures. As a way of example of this particular embodiment, the butterfly could be considered (as well as the horse or the dogs) to have in common, with the two birds in the frame on the left of the figure, the feature of being all of them animals. However, the sparrow in the picture collection represents a higher category of commonness (it is also a bird) with the two pictures in the frame.

Further ways of showing photographs as language vehicles include, for instance a successive display of pictures. Although the preferred embodiment is the framed simultaneous display of a combination of pictures as above, one skilled in the art can design other kinds of display like for instance, in the example above, to show the same pictures of birds one after another instead of in a single shot.

BRIEF DESCRITION OF DRAWINGS

FIGURE 1 shows three different results (with different degrees of difficulty) of combining pictures related to the same word (in 1 a, the word is mushroom; in 1 b, belfry; and in 1 c, cereals)

FIGURE 2 shows how helping tools like hints and leads can provide additional key information in order to raise the right word (three)

FIGURE 3 displays the use a collection of pictures to complete a combination of pictures with the right picture

FIGURE 4 reproduces a use of the process to find words that have some degree of commonness between two, in principle, unrelated pictures: a fixed picture and another picture that is allowed to be drawn from a collection of pictures. Words that be in a database and therefore allowed as correct answers would be two, pair in Fig4B, the verb "turn" in fig4C and handle or handlebar in fig4D.

FIGURE 5 shows compositions that correspond to the primary meaning of the word fly (Fig 5A) as well as the use of the same single picture of a fly to construct with different other pictures two more groups of pictures related to two different words (Fig5C wing/s, and Fig5B insect)

FIGURE 6 shows a process that uses arrows and circles to underline a nonverbal meaning of a picture or a combination thereof to covey the words property or ownership (Fig 6A) and edge (fig6B)

FIGURE 7 represents a process of extracting words from an original picture (a deer in the center place) surrounded by fragments of the picture that isolate the head (A), a flexed leg (B), a hoof (C), the horns (D) the rear, the rump (E), the neck (F), the butt, a white spot (G).

FIGURE 8 shows two of the many possible ways of displaying a set of photos and a word that is related to at least one of the pictures (only one picture (A) in 2a; and two pictures in 2b).

FIGURE 9 illustrates a way to identify the wrong picture, in a set of other pictures all of them but the wrong one being inter-related. The more to less degree of difficulty: A, B and C.

FIGURE 10 displays photographs and numbers representing single words (spider, feet, eight). The figure shows different combinations of actual words together with images and numbers.

FIGURE 11 describes different manners of combining words and pictures in a way to convey the same message. In addition the figure introduces a hook in the form of an empty space to force the unraveling of a hidden word ("on"). FIGURE 12 shows a variation of the process in figure 1 1 , in which a single picture representing snow (but also other things like river, bridge, house, etc,) is substituted that a picture in a combination of pictures conveying said word.

FIGURE 13 contains two different WORDING SUBSTITUTING IMAGE multi- choice questions (2a represents a symbol for video vigilance; and 2b contains a picture of hangers, the right answer being D).

FIGURE 14 is a composition of pictures that combined conveys an complex meaning like a statement. The process as in the figure can take the form of a multi- choice test, being D the right answer.

FIGURE 15 shows a challenge in the form of a multi-choice test that can serve both to train a language and for science teaching (the correct answer is D.)

FIGURE 16. A verb (the verb "blow" in fig 16A), and an adverb (the adverb "inside") are represented used a type of combination of this invention.

FIGURE 17 is a picture composition of the adjective suspended and a list of different synonyms that would be acceptable as a correct answer.

FIGURE 18 is a depiction of the game board (a pyramid viewed from above the zenith) with four equilateral triangles each containing an exact copy of the game track.

FIGURE 19 offers a detailed vision of the different types of cases that players can encounter while going through the board game track.

FIGURE 20 shows both sides of the typical game cards

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

As described in the chapter "Detailed description of the Invention" (pages 7 to 22 of this document) INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

APPLICATION 1 : LEARNING and TRAINING A LANGUAGE

One skilled in the art of methods to train a language can easily conclude that the processes and methods disclosed in this patent application can be used to design a method to learn a language that is entirely based on said processes and methods or that can be used together with other more traditional methods (like for instance, the traditional grammar, the traditional memory based wording repeating vocabulary, etc.) Therefore, and although it should be taken only as an example among all the many possibilities of using the processes and methods above, a preferred embodiment and a concrete method to practice (i.e. learn) a language, and more specifically a foreign language, is outlined herein.

A preferred application of the processes provided in this patent document is therefore training a language, like in a native (first) language, or in a second (i.e. foreign) language. Although learning a foreign language is a practical embodiment that can first occur to one skilled in the art of teaching a language, the method herein can also be applied to learning a native language (particularly for children learning a first language, or for people of different ages that already know their native language but want to improve their vocabulary, grammar, etc.).

In order to apply the processes of the present invention to a method of learning a language one needs to establish a logic of use of the different ways to combine pictures together, pictures and text, etc. in a way that one can establish distinct levels of knowledge (like in the classical basic, intermediate and high levels) and therefore assign different versions of the challenges/questions accordingly. A reduced, non- exhausting, list of criteria used to assign teaching material to the different levels of knowledge is displayed in the following: Frequency of use of words in the spoken language, or in the written language (if one wants to accentuate more the learning of the written language). There are many public repositories according to the frequency of use that can serve as a basis for this method. As a general rule, the more frequent words will be the predominant words for beginners, while less frequently used words will be of more common in the advanced courses. The use of "secondary" meanings of a word. Although the expression "secondary meaning" usually refers to the use of trademarks, in this application, it applies to the meanings of a word that are not primary. For instance, the primary meaning of the word "dog" is a domesticated carnivorous mammal of the family Canidae. In this invention, secondary meanings of the word "dog" would include "a person regarded as unattractive", "in plural, the feet", "a type of food (a wiener)", "a U-shaped metallic device", "an adverb (totally)", etc. In theory and as a general rule, the use of combinations of pictures conveying secondary meanings of words is a preferred choice to train a language when the student possesses a higher the level of knowledge of the language of interest).

Written versus spoken language. As a general rule beginners in a method to train a language based on this invention, would be shown written words and asked to identify the pictures or combinations of pictures that correspond to that word (the type of combinations depicted in figure X, etc), while more advanced students would be asked to correctly write (handwritten or by typing on the various types of keyboards that are well known in the art) words that are part of a "guess the word" question from a combination of pictures that convey a word. Use of helping tools. Helping tools for beginners will predominantly be based on the use of additional images, or sounds to help identify the right word while, the more advanced the student the more important the role of the type of hints like "complete the sentence with the right word in the empty space" Heading Substituting Image (HIS) multi-choice tests. Multi-choice tests as in this invention are combinations of pictures and text that are more tilted toward text. A particular case is raised by the information and traffic pictograms. These signs fulfill several objectives: they help training the language of interest, but also, an importantly, they can have a general culture education purpose, so that they are very well suited to teach a first or a foreign language (or both) in the context of primary and secondary school educational plans. Criteria to adapt multi-choice tests to different levels of language knowledge can be set in the following manner. As a general rule, HIS multi-choice tests for beginners will have both a lower total number of distinct words in the text and the included words will be preferentially of the high frequency words (particularly high frequency words in the spoken language). Linear combinations of text and images. Linear combinations like in Figure 9, are very well suited to test the learning progress of the student. As we have previously described, combinations of text and images forming a traditional linear language construct (like a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph, etc.) are very well suited to test progress in language learning. In the method herein written words are tokens that equate the degree of knowledge of a language. Therefore the more words the student knows in the language of interest, the less number of pictures are needed to be included in a language construct (e.g. a sentence). 00918

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6. Use of repositories to select the type of challenges needed by the student. A repository of combinations of pictures: In a preferred version, this repository will be classified by the part of the speech that plays the word being represented by the combination of pictures. For instance, there would be a section with verbs, another with adjectives, another one with nouns, etc. Sections in this embodiment can also be subdivided. Criteria for subdivisions of sections of picture combinations, can be of different kinds depending on the use and objectives that one can assign to a particular collection of pictures. For instance, the section verbs can contain subsections of irregular verbs, verbs for beginners, auxiliary verbs, etc. As it will appear easily clear to the skilled in the art, the same composition-word can be "repeated" in different sub-sections. In a preferred version, this collection will be separated in different levels of difficulty (or in degrees (from less to more advance students of the language). Repositories of different parts of the speech allow the expert in the field to design combinations of pictures such as in figure 16, that do not need any additional information (i.e. a code) to identify them as such parts of the speech (16a, conveys the verb "blow", 16b, the adverb "inside") provided that the person/s involved in the method are aware that the combinations of pictures have been drawn from a specific repository (i.e. from the verb repository or from the adverb repository respectively) The skilled in the art can also carry out collections, thematic versions, etc. It will be thus easy to create a bank of combinations of pictures connected to a data base of, for example, synonyms. So that, as shown in figure 17, one can either automatically have access to a list of synonyms of the word conveyed by the combination of pictures, or simply "pass" the test by entering one of the synonyms that are stored as such and therefore authorized as a right answer to a given combination of pictures. The use of secondary versus primary (or more common/frequent) meanings of a word will also be part of the method to practice a language. Therefore the meanings of a given word will be taught to the student according to the following criteria:

- Frequency of use of the word-meaning x in the general population speaking the language of interest as the native language

- How local of general the meaning x is.

- Part of a slang or not

For instance, if the language of interest is English, one needs to take into account the different countries where the language is used as a first language (England, the USA, etc), in order to select the preferred meaning/s of a given word according to the student needs. Otherwise, and in any language for this matter, one will need to take into account other needs like for instance if the student has particular specific language needs (for instance, an engineer would be interested in the meaning of the English word dog as a device for gripping or holding, an astronomer in a sun dog, or a tourist in the meaning of said word as a fast food specialty that one can buy from a street restaurant).

Exams and grades will follow the same principles (i.e. the different levels of difficulty will be used in the design of exams that will be necessary to attain one of the various possible degrees of knowledge in a selected language). Ideally both the teaching material and the exams will contain an equilibrated representation of all the processes in this invention, including (without excluding any possible application that would appear obvious to those skilled in the art):

- Combinations of pictures in order to guess the right word

- Combinations of pictures and a word or any other language unit, where the challenge consists in guessing the wrong picture - Combinations of pictures to guess the right picture among a series of unrelated pictures after being exposed to a written word

- combinations of related pictures combined with a list of words to guess the right word/s

- Combinations of related pictures together with a list of (most of them related) words, where the challenge consists in guessing the wrong word/s

- Heading substituting Image multi-choice tests of different levels of difficulty according to the criteria disclosed above.

- Combination of two or more apparently unrelated pictures to find word/s with a reasonable degree of commonness.

- Any of the different Word Substituting Image constructs according to the specification as well as to the criteria disclosed above to establish grade levels.

- Playing games based on the multiple processes and possible variations thereof disclosed in this document (including the board game provided in the invention) or not disclosed but that could appear to the skilled in the art as obvious uses of my invention.

- Complementary tools (such as helping tools as disclosed before, dictionaries, search engines, databanks) that will be allowed under specific conditions for each level of knowledge.

Several other aspects will be taken into account in this method and adapted to the particular skills of this method. Among those aspects:

- The use of dictionaries, databanks, search engines, etc. In general, and as a matter of principle, they will be used freely, particularly with beginners and children, being their use restricted in certain circumstances (especially when testing the vocabulary skills of the student).

- Grammar. Genders, plurals, verb conjugation, declinations, etc. Traditional grammatical aspects of teaching and learning a language will be introduced accordingly with age and knowledge of the student in a similar way as is currently practice in general education (both of a native language or a foreign language).

APPLICATION 2: A BOARD GAME

For a person skilled in the art, it is immediately understandable that the game henceforth uses one of the many possible ways of employing the processes in this invention in order to play a solitary digital game or (as provided henceforth) a social board game. It would also appear evident that depending on the target population there could be different versions of a game. A preferred version not described in detail in this disclosure, is one for beginners (either beginners in a language or in other fields of knowledge like geography, biology, etc.). The version for beginners in a language, could be either for children (particularly when learning a first language), for beginners in a foreign language, etc.

The methods herein can also be used just for vocabulary acquisition with people that already possess some skill in the language (either their own native language or a foreign language). Said methods can equally be used as the basis for a game application. Games can be played in different interfaces and in different social contexts. For instance, combinations of pictures as in this invention can be the basis of a mobile game that can be played either individually (like a solitary game), or socially through a communication network like the worldwide web. The methods in this invention can be also applied to a board game such as the one provided in the document.

I provide in this disclosure one of the many possible formats in which a game based on the invention herein can be encapsulated, namely a board game. The board takes the shape of a pyramid viewed from above with four identical sides. This, better than a single triangle of the pyramid, allows four teams of players to play the same match, each team having its own side of the pyramid as playing ground. Other aspects of the board are the Egyptian motifs that identify the four main types of challenges as well as a number of "traps/pits" spaces/places that make for a dynamic entertaining contest. There is also a "story" that serves as an argument background for the game. The story is based on the quest for the Orus eye as a means to rescue the head of the goddess Hathor from the grips of the bad guy (Seth, the creature of the desert).

The game however can be played on any possible physical surface or digital interface provided that, in order to advance in the game and eventually win it, the player/s need to answer questions that demand the association of pictures/photographs with language units (typically words) such as in the questions GUESS THE WORD, HSP multi-choice test.

In order to move through the board, each team will have a playing token or piece that imitates the shape of a Hathor column that essentially consists in a column colored base (the color of the column base identifies each team) and an empty transparent cylinder (figure 1 a).

As described later, when a team reaches an Orus Eye square, it gets a corresponding pillar (bronze, silver or gold) which is inserted into the cylinder, so the players can recognize the achievement/level reached by the team. The cylinder has enough room to accommodate the three pillars (on top of each other) as well as the final cap (Hathor's head column capital) on top of them all.

The board is a square of 60x60 cm and represents a pyramid viewed from above. The board is therefore divided into four identical triangles, each of them being the playing ground for one team. In total, there is place for four teams, each of them playing on independent playgrounds (Figure 18).

Each playing ground (i.e. triangle) contains 96 playing squares represented by pyramid stone blocks. The playing squares or cases are numbered from 1 to 96 indicating the direction of game progress. Each playing square is drawing-coded and can be either a question, that the player needs to correctly answer in order to advance; a trap, that forces the player to drop the turn and in some cases to answer further questions in order to get out of it; advance cases; or graduation cases, that signal that the player has reached a specific knowledge level (bronze, silver and gold) (all the different types of challenges can be visualized in figure 19).

After the dice toss, players can land in any of the following squares or cases (the different types of cases as depicted in Figure 19):

GUESS THE WORD (Figure 19A): Landing on this square means that the team at play has to answer a question in order to continue to play (throw the dice). The question consists in combinations of two or more images (usually three pictures), all of them symbolizing the right word). Said word can be any part of the speech such as a name, and adjective, a verb, etc. As a lead for the player, the part of the speech that a word plays is indicated with a shape and color code in the upper right corner of the card. The right answer to this challenge is written in the back side of the card together with acceptable synonyms.

SAY THE WORD (Figure 19B): This challenge is represented by a standing ancient Egyptian in the act of speaking (symbolized by a speaking cloud). When landing in this square, a member of the playing team (the explainer) will be shown a word in the own explainer language, after what, the explainer has to convey in the foreign language of the game the meaning of the word to the rest of the team, in such a way that, without mentioning said word, the team could be able to guess the right word. The right definitive answer is written in the back of the card. In order to successfully complete the challenge, the "explainer" needs to comply to some restrictions: no mimics, no mentioning of the word, no scrabbling, no drawing).

CHOICE (Figure 19C): The players falling in this case have the choice of being asked either a "GUESS THE WORD" or a "SAY THE WORD" question. WRITE THE WORD (Figure 19D): This challenge is essentially the same as in SAY THE WORD, the difference being that the explainer has to convey the word by writing in the foreign language of this version of the game, having the same restrictions as in say the word (no mimics, no mentioning of the word, no scrabbling, no drawing).

CHECK (Figure 19E): The check case indicates that the player/s have to respond to a HSP multi-choice test.

THE BARGE (Figure 19F): When landing in the barge, the team automatically advances three squares and continue to play (roll the dice again).

COLLAPSE (Figure 19G): Teams landing in this square have to skip one turn, thus allowing the next team in queue to play.

GO TO THE LIBRARY (Figure 19H): When landing in this square, the team at play has to skip to the next team in turn. In addition, in the next turn, and in order to get out of the square, the team has to answer one challenge from the four different challenges of a typical game card

THE CRYPT (Figure 191): The crypt is a skipping case and also a penalty one. The team landing in this square ought to skip to the next team in turn and, in addition, in order to get out of the box, has to answer to two questions out of the three available in a card (i.e. "GUESS THE WORD", a HSP multi-choice test and "Say the Word/Write the Word").

THE SETH SQUARE (Figure 19J): It is a skipping case and the biggest punishment in the game: at the next turn and to be able to get out of the trap, the team has to answer all three questions in a card (GUESS THE WORD, HSP multi-choice test, and either SAY THE WORD or WRITE THE WORD)

THE ORUS EYE (Figure 19K): Each eye (bronze, silver and gold) are a step further in the race to get the capital of the Hathor column. Once reaching this square, teams have to answer the four questions in a corresponding (bronze, silver, or gold) P T/IB2013/000918

35 card (H, CH, SAY THE WORD & WRITE THE WORD). The team can either a) give the correct answer to all the questions, in which case it continues to play in the next level (silver or gold), b) fail to answer one of the challenges, in which case it has to skip to the next team and, at the next turn, only answer to the remaining challenges (the previously correctly answered questions are kept as valid). After completing the test, the team is rewarded with a pillar in the same color as the level reached (bronze, silver, or gold), so that after reaching the golden Orus eye the column will be completed with three pillars. The first team that completes the required tests at the golden eye is rewarded with the goddess head (the column capital), and proclaimed winner of the game.

CARDS (Figure 20)

On the front side and from top to bottom, there is a GUESS THE WORD question. Below the hieroglyph there is a WORDING SUBSTITUTING IMAGE check/test with all the text (enunciate and usually four options) in the same language. Finally, on the bottom part of the card there is a word in the native language of the player that is to be shown to the "explainer" of "say the word" or "write the word".

On the back side, there are the correct answers in red as well as the acceptable synonyms when applicable. For any question containing images (pictures, photographs or any other embodiment of the word image) the answer is always in the same language as the wording in the picture containing questions. For instance, in the English version of the game, although the instructions can be written in any language of choice, the wording in the WORDING SUBSTITUTING IMAGE multi-choice question or the word in the MULTIPICTURE question, as well as the right answer for the GUESS THE WORD question will all be written in English. The same concept will apply for the Spanish version of the game or any other version in any other human language. The cards will be color coded (bronze, silver and gold) to indicate the degree of difficulty of the questions (from low to high, respectively). There are three stacks of cards with their corresponding box. The teams at play will draw the different card types depending in the track zone of the board on which they are situated (bronze, before the bronze Orus Eye case, silver, thereafter and until the silver Orus Eye case, and gold till the end (case number 96).

INFORMATIVE TEXT: By "informative text", I mean all the texts that contribute to instruct the player on how to play the game, including the game instructions themselves (e.g. the rules of the game) that are part of a separate document contained in the Game box, all other text that helps the player to understand the game (in particular everything related to the rules of the game), all the explanatory headers in cards or anywhere else as for instance the headers in the back of the card ("AUTHORIZED SYNONYMS:", "ANSWER:" "CORRECT ANSWER:", "CORRECT WORD", etc.). The term game instructions does not refer to any of the following: the text in the WORDING SUBSTITUTING IMAGE question, the word in the MULTIPICTURE choice question, the particular right answers to each question in the back of the game cards.

PROPER GAME WORDING: As "proper game wording", I refer to any of the following: the text in the WORDING SUBSTITUTING IMAGE question, the word in the MULTIPICTURE choice question, the particular right answers to each question in the back of the game cards.

GAME LANGUAGE/S: Among the many possible ways of playing the image/photo word game, and assuming for those skilled in the art that the game can be played in a sole language (including the native language of the players), a preferred embodiment is a game to learn a foreign language, in which, and as a general rule, the game "informative texts" (instructions, guidelines, rules, explanatory card headings, etc.) will be written in the native language of the country (e.g. the players) in which the game 0918

37 will be sold/played. For instance, in Spain, the game informative texts will be in Spanish, in Germany, in German, in the USA in English, and so on. The "proper game wording" (e.g. the text in the HSP question, or the right answers to each question in the back of the game cards) however will be written in the language of interest (for instance, English if the language to be practiced/learned is English, etc.).

In order to dynamically play the game, it is recommendable that the language of interest be minimally known by all or most of the players. To have any knowledge of the foreign language at all, however, is not an absolutely necessary condition to play the game. In a preferred hypothetical circumstance, I can imagine a game in which there are at least two players per team with minimal knowledge of the foreign language and one player per team without any knowledge of the foreign language.

THE DICTIONARY: Games in two languages (language A and language B) will have its own dictionary to allow translation from language A to language B and vice versa. The GRADUATION DICTIONARY will have however certain peculiarities with respect to traditional language translation dictionaries. For instance, entrances (particularly in the "Language A- Language B" part) can be single words in singular, in plural, verb tenses, idioms, or, in some cases, even entire phases. These variations have been introduced in order to facilitate a quick search (especially in the check challenge).

THE BOX: The box contains all the necessary pieces to play the game. They are stored in several compartments (e.g. boxes): one for the bronze cards, one for silver cards, one for golden cards, (transparent box) for tokens and dice, one for the sand timer and, finally, one for the dictionary.

The box cover will contain representations of all the symbols found on the board (the different squares, the Orus eye, etc.). GAME DYNAMICS: One can envision many possible versions of this game just by making use of parts of it (as for instance, one type of question like GUESS THE WORD or WORDING SUBSTITUTING IMAGE) in such a way that the game could be played not only by teams but also by single players on a computer terminal, a mobile phone, a display console, a television or any other electronic devise that permits the visualization of photos. It is easy to envision a game that consists for instance in a set of GTW questions with three different degrees of difficulty. In this particular embodiment, the player will obtain a score (e.g. the number of correct answers in a row, the time to complete a set of questions, etc.) and being included in a score ranking that can be as local or worldwide as wished as is well known in the art.

A preferred application of the invention in this disclosure is a board game. This type of interface needs a minimum of four players divided into two teams (minimum two players per team). Although this is the minimum requirement there is an almost unlimited number of players that can be part of the different teams (a maximum of four teams can play simultaneously in the physical game board but there could be a theoretically unlimited number of players in an online version of the game or in other versions that could escape the limitation of the four sides of the pyramid).

The square zero contains a finger pointing in the direction of the game. That will be the start point where all the players (empty columns, distinguishable by the color of the base). To advance the team at play will throw two dice and will advance the same number of boxes as their sum. In another variation (the slower game), the game will be played with only one dice.

GAME RULES: To start the game, each team will choose a color and place the corresponding token (Hathor column) on the case number 0, that is identified by a pointing finger of the same color. Before the start, the order of play will be decided by throwing the two dice. The team with the highest score will be the first to play and thereafter, the play will run counter-clockwise (red after yellow; yellow after green; green after blue; blue after red).

The board game is a social game and as such, a preferred way to play it is by making up playing teams that, through each of the team members, draw the necessary skills to play with chances of winning it. After my own experience playing the English version of the game for non-English speaking people, I have reached the provisional conclusion that every team ideally should have at least two main abilities: an intermediate-high level of English that will allow the player to draw the right answer in English and a good integrative deductive intelligence, that will help identify the right concept encoded in the icon images of the image card. These two minimally required features can be present in the same individual but it is preferred (and perhaps more fun) that they be the result of team making. Exceptionally, a winning team can be made without a high knowledge of English, perhaps by managing exceptionally well all the helping tools (like leads, consultation tokens, etc.) available to players.

Each player (team or individual) will be identified by a colour code (all the tools and tokens of a player will have the same colour code). Each player will have a player's token that will be the indicator of the player's performance throughout the game. The player's token is a transparent cylinder with a broad base (like in classic roman or Greek columns) that will be opaque and coloured with the player's distinctive colour). The counting of player performance (advance upwards the race path (typically a pyramid: see below) will be done by piling up the tablet like tokens (the pillars) that are designed to fit into the player cylinder. Upon completion of the last part of the game, the player will obtain the last degree token. The last token will approximately fill the cylinder cavity, after what the cylinder will be capped with the graduation cap (only after completing the last challenge). P T/IB2013/000918

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The game will start by placing all the players at case 0. Also, as an option (and particularly depending on the player's priorities, including the amount of foreseeable time available to play or the language knowledge), the game can start at any consensual place. Particularly interesting for this purpose is the number one case of the intermediate (silver) level. In any case, the game will always follow the same direction (in the ordinal increasing number direction or the direction indicated by half arrows). The players determine who goes first by rolling a dice. The higher roll gets to go first. Play proceeds clockwise around the table, each person taking a turn. The first action on each person's turn is to roll the dice and advance a number of cases according to the toss number. When reached the corresponding case, the player can alternatively land on any of the variety of cases that are described above. Upon disclosure of the question corresponding to the landing square, the team will have 60" to give the definitive written answer. In the same toss, the player will have the option of consulting a dictionary or any information means that could help to find the right answer. In a preferred version of the game, dictionary consultation is free within the time frame of 60" but other possible versions of the game could use tokens of any shape and size that will be "paid" in exchange for the right to make the consultation. In other possible versions of the game, the player could also ask for a lead or a hint that could help finding the right answer. In exchange, the player ought to pay a lead token to the game bank. This kind of leads could preferably be represented in the back side of image cards. Leads could be I) grammatical leads consisting in phrases that miss only the key word encoded by the images of the image card, II) phonetic leads consisting in an image whose encoded word sounds like a part or a whole of the word encoded by the image card. In this version of the game (a game with tokens for consultation or for other helping tools), at the beginning of the game, the players will automatically have a stock of five consultation tokens and five lead tokens (although any other number of tokens could be chosen depending of the degree of difficulty that one can impinge on the game). Answers are considered correct when: a) They are the same as the correct answer that is written in the back part of the image card (players are allowed one misspelling per word -a change in only one letter) or b) they are included in the list of authorized synonyms (also listed in the back of the image card). Then, if the answer is approved as correct, the player is allowed to throw the dice again, repeating the same operation. A player that finally lands on the advanced certificate case (the golden Horus Eye) automatically gets a high level cylinder (pillar) that recognizes the achievement of reaching the high degree of knowledge in the game language. But, in order to get the graduation cap (the head of the Hathor goddess), players having reached need to answer a set of three gold questions (as in any other Horus Eye that they can choose among high level exam questions and high level image cards. The first team to complete this last test will be considered the winner of the game and will accordingly be bestowed with the graduation cap.

Claims

1. What is claimed is a series of processes and methods designed to improve knowledge training abilities, comprising:

- A combination of pictures, wherein all said pictures have in common their relationship to a unique word.

- A combination of a variety of pictures together with a single word wherein at least one of the pictures is related to said single word.

- A combination of a variety of pictures together with a single word, wherein at least one of the pictures is not related to said single word.

- A type of multi-choice test, wherein the header of said test is partially or totally substituted by a picture.

- The combination of pictures and words, wherein words and pictures are interchangeable language units and images are called WORD SUBSTITUTING IMAGEs.

2. The invention of claim 1 , wherein said processes are the basis for a method to train a language that at least include:

- Combinations of pictures in order to guess the right word

- Combinations of pictures and a word or any other language unit, wherein the challenge consists in guessing the wrong picture

- Combinations of pictures to guess the right picture among a series of unrelated pictures after the student is exposed to a written word

- Combinations of related pictures combined with a list of words, wherein the challenge consists in guessing the right word/s

- Combinations of related pictures together with a list of (most of them related) words, wherein the challenge consists in guessing the wrong word/s

- Heading substituting Image multi-choice tests of different levels of difficulty. - Combinations of two or more apparently unrelated pictures to find word/s with a reasonable degree of commonness.

- Any of the different Word Substituting Image constructs according to the specification as well as to criteria to establish grade levels.

- Playing games based on the multiple processes and possible variations thereof.

- Complementary tools (such as helping tools as disclosed before, dictionaries, search engines, databanks) that will be allowed under specific conditions for each level of knowledge.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said language is a second or foreign language.

4. The invention of claim 1 , wherein said processes are the basis for a questions and answers game to be played on a data storage device.

5. The game of claim 4, comprising a combination of pictures, wherein all said pictures have in common their relationship to a unique word.

6. The game of claim 4, comprising a combination of a variety of pictures together with a single word wherein at least one of the pictures is related to that word.

7. The game of claim 4, wherein said device is a computer terminal

8. The game of claim 4, wherein said device is a smart mobile phone

9. The invention of claim 1 , wherein said processes are used in a board game comprising:

Cards, further comprising several types of questions: a GUESS THE WORD question, further comprising several pictures representing the same single word; a Header Substituting Photo multi-choice test, further comprising a picture and a multi- choice option text; and finally a SAY THE WORD/WRITE THE WORD question enunciate, further comprising one single word written in the native language of the player. The back side of the cards further comprising the correct answers to the questions in said front side. A game board further comprising a pyramid of knowledge converted into four identical zigzag shaped game circuits. The cases of said circuit having the shape of pyramid pillars. The game track starting at case number 0. Further comprising throughout the game route a plurality of said cases (THE BARGE, THE CRYPT, COLLAPSE, THE THREE DIFFERENT ORUS EYES, THE SETH SQUARE, GO TO THE LIBRARY SQUARE, GUESS THE WORD QUESTION, IMAGE SUBSTITUTING QUESTION, MULTI IMAGE QUESTION, SAY THE WORD QUESTION, WRITE THE WORD QUESTION).

A game kit comprising a) cards of three levels of difficulty (bronze, silver and gold); b) c) boxes to fit the different types of said cards; e) consultation and lead tokens; f) player's advance token (a transparent cylinder on a coloured base); i) a graduation cap representing the head of the goddess Hathor that fits into the player's cylinder token; j) two six faced dice; k) a card magnifier; I) a dictionary for the game version designed to practice a foreign language; a game box containing a foamy poked frame to hold the individual pieces of the game.

10. The game of claim 9, wherein the text in said HEADING SUBSTITUTING IMAGE multi-choice question, said word in said MULTIPICTURE question, as well as the right answers in the back of said cards are written in one language (language A) and the game instructions (as defined in the specification) as well as the word of the SAY THE WORD/WRITE THE WORD question in a different language (language B).

1 1. The game of claim 9, wherein language A and language B are the same language

12. The game of claim 9, wherein language A is English and language B, Spanish

13. The game of claim 9, wherein language A is Spanish and language B, English

14. The game of claim 1 1 , wherein said same language is English.

15. The game of claim 1 1 , wherein said same language is Spanish.

16. The game of claim 9, as the basis for a card collection

17. The game of claim 16, wherein said cards contain only one type of question (GUESS THE WORD, or WORDING SUBSTITUTING IMAGE, or MULTIPICTURE questions).