“Bulls and cows”, a game with words

Every language contains an enormous number of words. From this huge variety we choose those words and concepts that are necessary for us in our daily life, our work, our leisure. Our store of words increases as our personality develops and the circle of our interests becomes wider.

They say that a person can remember a word only when he precisely understands its meaning. But for a word to become firmly established in someone’s everyday vocabulary, he has to be able to pronounce it correctly, to be capable of hearing it when it is spoken by someone else, and to know exactly how the word is spelt.
We present here a game which will broaden the user’s vocabulary and help him to remember correct spellings.
This game can be of interest to small children, to adolescents, and to adults. The rules are very simple. The programme “thinks of” a word which the user must guess. To do this he must think of words himself which consist of the required number of letters. The reaction of the programme to each word suggested by the user tells him how many letters are the same in both his word and the word thought of by the programme, and which of these letters are in the right places. On the basis of these results, and coming up with one word after another, it is possible to work out what word the programme was thinking of.
The programme contains exercises in guessing words of four, five, six and seven letters. Each of these sections in turn contains exercises on two levels of difficulty. The aesthetic design of the programme, which can also be altered to suit the user’s taste, makes the playing of this game not only useful but also good fun.
We wish you success!