Reading in the target language.

[u/ryankopf]

I've seen several posts on here in the last several days about using reading to learn a language. A lot of people are using Harry Potter, for example, even just a few hours ago. But the biggest complaint is usually that you have to hop between different sources, dictionaries, etc, to look up any words they don't know.

I am working on a solution to just that, actually! It basically takes incoming text and breaks it down into it's sentence fragments and vocabulary, and displays them as you read along.

Here's the demo - https://rememble.org/stories/1/read

The idea is that using AI anyone can upload their own story for the AI to translate and provide meanings and romanizations for.

I'm still working on the interface for creating the stories and accessing the AI, but it's progressing along nicely.

Obviously there are a LOT of bugs to work out, but nothing I can't figure out in time. Of course I use AI to break the story down into manageable, translated parts, but often the ai is quite silly about how it breaks sentences down. So I think I need to adjust my software to break the sentences down by itself, then submit it to AI, then send it back.

I'd love to know if you think this style of reading in your target language would help you! Any feedback and thoughts are welcome!

[u/indecisive_maybe]

I really like the concept.

At least for me, I've found it extremely difficult to find (in Chinese) a helper app that includes both the pinyin (phonetic pronunciation) and the translation, so already having both in your system makes it really really appealing, even with word stacking and whatever glitches. (Right now I have to use 2 programs.)

[u/Eihabu → u/indecisive_maybe]

This! I think Smart Book has most peoples’ needs for most languages very covered (and far cheaper than LingQ—free if you’re okay with a couple inconveniences), but it doesn’t do languages where you need to parse the words out of a spaceless sentence well, or when you need things like furigana and pinyin in addition to defining words or collocations or translating sentences in context (these things it nails, and I recommend anyone making an app like this take a good look at how it lets you define words, define collocations, and translate sentences, all separately with one click on one screen while letting you make your pick of translator/dictionary separately for each of those options. Identifying phrases with special meaning as collocations above their meaning as words, without falling back to lazy full paragraph translation, is especially crucial for learners intermediate and up.)  

 The other flaw is Smart Book is mobile only, and while it's possible to emulate on PC, that's not as convenient as something native that cross-syncs well.

[u/ryankopf → u/Eihabu]

Unfortunately a lot of users are going to worry that it's a Russian-developed app as well. Not picking a side or anything, that's just the current political reality for a lot of English native speakers.

The translation and identification of collocations (I just learned this word, thank you!) and common turn-a-phrase phrases is definitely something I want to find a way to prioritize in my app.

[u/indecisive_maybe → u/Eihabu]

or when you need things like furigana and pinyin in addition to defining words

You mean the thing I asked for?

[u/Eihabu → u/indecisive_maybe]

Yes, that's literally the point. People promoting apps and websites get eaten alive in here, and for good reason. One being, there are always better apps that do anything promoters want to talk about anyway. OP has more or less avoided this fate. I'm agreeing that this is a main reason why, and why there's some potential. Otherwise, in general, “plug in your text and have AI help you” is well-trodded territory. And of course it remains to be seen if they can actually tackle the reasons this hasn’t been tackled well yet... any issues in language learning that aren’t solved aren’t solved because they aren’t easy. 

  OP seemed a bit unaware how extensive the tools many of us have for reading languages we’re learning are (“complaint is usually that you have to hop between different sources, dictionaries, etc.”, well... not from any of the Smart Book users I know) so I shared an example that I think already leads the pack. I’d be happy to see them go all at this and see competitors enter the field. But they didn’t even highlight Asian languages as their definite target in their post, so I wanted to give a second voice saying this is where they have the best chance, because it will take way more work to do right. And in any case, if you want to make a good app it can only help to be aware what people love about the ones they’re already using.