How to play the games on Testera

Some days you want a conversation. Other days you want to play. Testera's games are for the second kind of day: short, relaxed ways to use the words you are learning, where getting something a little wrong costs nothing.

Here is how each one works.

Saylands: trade your way round the islands

Saylands is a board game on a map of small islands. You sail a boat, trade goods with market stalls and other boats, and build your way to the stars. Maps include Dublin, Zurich, Paris, Bangkok and Jakarta, and any language works on any map.

How a turn works. Each turn has three beats:

1. Roll. The market die shows a good, such as fish or apples. Every stall selling it pays its owner, and you take one too.
2. Trade or build. Trade with the stall where your boat is moored (2 of what it takes for 1 of what it sells), with the harbour bank (3 of one good for 1 of another), or with another boat. Then build: a stall, a market, or the light on Tera's lighthouse.
3. End your turn.

The first to the target rings the last round: 10 stars in a standard game, 7 in a quick one, 5 in a sprint.

Every trade is a sentence. You never trade in silence. Whatever you offer is said in the language you are learning, with its English underneath, and you can tap to hear the words.

Three levels: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced

If you already know some of a language, the same trade sentence every time gets repetitive. So Saylands now has three levels. Choose one before you set sail, or switch in the middle of a trade. If you have had a level estimate from a Language Lab conversation in that language, Saylands starts you at the matching level.

Beginner. Pick the goods and the sentence writes itself, with its English. No typing.

Je vous donne deux poissons contre une pomme, s'il vous plaît.
I give you two fish for an apple, please.

Intermediate. Longer trades with numbers and a condition. Type the sentence yourself for Word star points.

Je vous donne quatre poissons si vous me donnez deux pommes.
I'll give you four fish if you give me two apples.

Advanced. No goods to tap at a stall. Type your own offer, or say it out loud where your browser supports it, in any words you like. What you mean counts, not the exact wording, and the trader haggles back. The trader is an AI, and its replies are labelled AI. The game's rules still decide every deal: the AI only puts the answer in its own words.

You: Bonjour ! Je voudrais une pomme, je vous donne un poisson.
Trader (AI): C'est un peu juste. Un poisson et un œuf contre une pomme ?
That's a bit tight. A fish and an egg for an apple?

Say d'accord, or tap Deal, and the trade goes through. Stuck for words? Need an idea? shows a sentence to start from. After ten AI replies in a game, the stall carries on in the game's own words.

Play with friends

Saylands also works with friends on their own screens. Open a room, send the link, and everyone plays at the same table. Each player can choose a different language: when someone offers you a trade, you read it in yours, and they read your answer in theirs.

Play Saylands, or open a room for friends.

Lettercove: build words, see what they mean

Lettercove is a word game on a board, played against friendly bots. It comes in French, Spanish, German, Irish, Indonesian and English.

Build words. You have seven letter tiles. The first word covers the star in the middle; after that, every word joins a tile already on the board, and every line of touching tiles has to be a word. Before you play, each word gets a tick or a cross, and a short line says what is wrong.

See meanings. Every word played, yours and the bots', shows what it means. Keep the ones you like, or save them to the Word Lab to learn later. Stuck? Hint suggests a move and its meaning.

Scoring. Each letter has a value. Coloured squares double or triple a letter or the whole word, and using all seven tiles in one go adds 35 points. Choose easy, medium or hard bots.

Play Lettercove.

Letters: a new script, one letter at a time

Learning Korean, Japanese, Thai, Russian, Bulgarian, Arabic, Hindi or Tamil? Letters, in the Word Lab, teaches you to read and write the script before the words.

Meet the letters and hear each one. Then play: hear a letter and pick it, see one and name it, and build real words once you know enough. In Write it you watch the strokes, then trace and write the letter yourself. The scratchpad is for free writing, with no score.

Try Letters in Korean, or pick another language in the Word Lab.

Share your score

When you finish a game of Saylands or Lettercove, Share your score turns it into a picture card: the game, the language, your score, and for Lettercove your best word. It never shows your name or anything else about you.

On a phone, one tap opens your share sheet; on a computer, the card is saved as a picture. Prefer words? Copy as text copies a short version.

Your turn

All three games are free, and you can play as a guest. Pick one and play a round: Saylands, Lettercove or Letters.