4 ms·

Show HN: Chrome extension that replaces words into a different language

67 points by drshrey 10y ago

dvcrn 10y ago
Very cool idea but slightly disappointed by the language options and constraint on websites. I barely use any of the sites it supports and don't learn any of the languages. I'm wondering how difficult it would be to pipe random words into google translate and replace them.
- perilunar 10y ago
  Pretty easy. You wouldn't even need Google - just store a list of the thousand or so most used words in the script. I wrote bookmarklet once that replaced every word in a webpage with 'blah'. Rather amusing when used on news websites.
- drshrey 10y ago
  Yeah, definitely not hard at all. Although, I think the harder problem is figuring out a specific word's complexity so it corresponds to the relevant immersion factor. For instance, having a lower immersion level shouldn't just mean lesser words (which is what is right now) but also more common and memorable words. Maybe a type of sentiment analysis problem?
- drshrey 10y ago
  OH! And it works on other sites too, but that's "experimental" since it's not tested on all sites (which is why we put the on/off slider). Might be interesting to build a DOM parser- in the future -that figures out where relevant, "could be translated" content is in the webpage.
  - Insanity 10y ago
    It was not very clear to me what the slider meant. Good thing that I read this comment section I guess. The slider 'on' means that the translation happens on all websites, whereas off it only happens on the selected sites?
    - drshrey 10y ago
      Yeah, I'm going to make that clearer in the next update. It's much simpler, 'ON' means make the page translatable and 'OFF' means to leave the page alone. Because sometimes you just want to read the damn thing
pkd 10y ago
Sigh. I was working on EXACTLY the same idea. Well, looks like these guys have the momentum now and the product looks good. Good luck!
- lotyrin 10y ago
  Keep it up. These guys haven't nailed it yet.
- drshrey 10y ago
  Thanks for the support! But yeah, what lotyrin said. You should keep working on it because making a genuinely helpful language learning service isn't an easy problem by any means. EDIT: And it needs all the help it can get.
- zeluve 10y ago
  You should not give up on this. More products are needed.
anewhnaccount 10y ago
Same thing: * https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kypsis-language-immersion/ddkbjollcgaccneogdbnjadkcbocgcof https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kypsis-language-im... * https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mindtheword/fabjlaokbhaoehejcoblhahcekmogbom https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mindtheword/fabjla... * http://lifehacker.com/5907432/language-immersion-for-chrome-teaches-you-a-new-language-while-you-browse-the-web http://lifehacker.com/5907432/language-immersion-for-chrome-...
- drshrey 10y ago
  Oh neat. Yeah, definitely going to check this out, and do an analysis on what these guys get right and features that might need to be improved on. Appreciate the links!
- elhalyn 10y ago
  same here http://www.langulearn.com http://www.langulearn.com
phmagic 10y ago
Brilliant, keep up the good work
- drshrey 10y ago
  Thanks, there's a LOT of room for growth and definitely not an easy problem to solve. More updates in the future, though!
ivancamilov 10y ago
Cool, but the example has a few errors. "students" in spanish is "estudiantes", the example is missing an S. Also, "more" is "más" in spanish. Accents are important for meaning in a lot of languages.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
drshrey 10y ago
If anyone's interested, the repo's right here: https://github.com/drshrey/alpharabius https://github.com/drshrey/alpharabius
misnamed 10y ago
Let's not forget this one! https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/millennials-to-snake-peop/jhkibealmjkbkafogihpeidfcgnigmlf https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/millennials-to-sna...
elhalyn 10y ago
Hey Guys, love the idea... since I have the "not invented here" syndrome I am building my own version for quite some time now :) (http://www.langulearn.com http://www.langulearn.com) Next step to implement would be nlp, if you need help or just want to talk -> hello@langulearn.com
clydethefrog 10y ago
Similar browser extensions are made before. HN discussions: Language Immersion for Chrome https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3921773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3921773 Polyglot https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1669162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1669162
- drshrey 10y ago
  Haven't seen this before but reading through discussions right now. This is really helpful, thanks.
- kraftman 10y ago
  Polyglot: "UPDATE: Due to the shutdown of the Google Translate API, Polyglot is no longer being maintained. It's been ported to use Bing Translate but due to rate limits the service is relatively unreliable and cannot be guaranteed to work consistently."
steveridout 10y ago
Nice work so far. I'm not convinced by this approach since I prefer to learn Spanish words in the context of Spanish sentences, but I haven't given it a fair shot. Of people who have tried this or similar extensions, did you a) find that you learned much? and b) keep using it for a prolonged period?
Davidiusdadi 10y ago
The same idea has implemented a while ago by http://readlang.com/ http://readlang.com/ Being able to repeat the words i "looked up" is essential for me.
- steveridout 10y ago
  Creator of Readlang here. This extension is a little different to mine since it works in the other direction. Readlang allows you to read articles in your target language more easily by offering tap-to-translate. This one gives you occassional exposure to target language words while reading articles in your first language.
Insanity 10y ago
I am using the extension now as I am currently learning Spanish. The previous languages that I have learned I have learned through a formal education (English, French and German) but this is the first one that I am just learning on my own, as my SO's family mainly communicates in Spanish. The idea of this plugin is a neat way to increase my vocabulary a bit and thus I have installed it. But one annoying thing is that I need to open the extensions popup page to click on "translate". I think that it would be nicer if the translation would just happen on pageload. I will look into doing that myself maybe since the project is on github anyway, but I am at work now. :-) EDIT: Created an issue for it now ;-)
afro88 10y ago
Very nice. Would love support for German!
- drshrey 10y ago
  Thanks, working on it!
sladix 10y ago
My extension did not gather as many upvotes :'( https://bigbangalaconspiracy.com/turdifier/ https://bigbangalaconspiracy.com/turdifier/ but I find it as useful as this =D

67 points by drshrey 10y ago

dvcrn 10y ago

Very cool idea but slightly disappointed by the language options and constraint on websites. I barely use any of the sites it supports and don't learn any of the languages. I'm wondering how difficult it would be to pipe random words into google translate and replace them.

perilunar 10y ago
Pretty easy. You wouldn't even need Google - just store a list of the thousand or so most used words in the script. I wrote bookmarklet once that replaced every word in a webpage with 'blah'. Rather amusing when used on news websites.
drshrey 10y ago
Yeah, definitely not hard at all. Although, I think the harder problem is figuring out a specific word's complexity so it corresponds to the relevant immersion factor. For instance, having a lower immersion level shouldn't just mean lesser words (which is what is right now) but also more common and memorable words. Maybe a type of sentiment analysis problem?
drshrey 10y ago
OH! And it works on other sites too, but that's "experimental" since it's not tested on all sites (which is why we put the on/off slider). Might be interesting to build a DOM parser- in the future -that figures out where relevant, "could be translated" content is in the webpage.
- Insanity 10y ago
  It was not very clear to me what the slider meant. Good thing that I read this comment section I guess. The slider 'on' means that the translation happens on all websites, whereas off it only happens on the selected sites?
  - drshrey 10y ago
    Yeah, I'm going to make that clearer in the next update. It's much simpler, 'ON' means make the page translatable and 'OFF' means to leave the page alone. Because sometimes you just want to read the damn thing

pkd 10y ago

Sigh. I was working on EXACTLY the same idea. Well, looks like these guys have the momentum now and the product looks good. Good luck!

lotyrin 10y ago
Keep it up. These guys haven't nailed it yet.
drshrey 10y ago
Thanks for the support! But yeah, what lotyrin said. You should keep working on it because making a genuinely helpful language learning service isn't an easy problem by any means. EDIT: And it needs all the help it can get.
zeluve 10y ago
You should not give up on this. More products are needed.

anewhnaccount 10y ago

Same thing: * https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kypsis-language-immersion/ddkbjollcgaccneogdbnjadkcbocgcof https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kypsis-language-im... * https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mindtheword/fabjlaokbhaoehejcoblhahcekmogbom https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mindtheword/fabjla... * http://lifehacker.com/5907432/language-immersion-for-chrome-teaches-you-a-new-language-while-you-browse-the-web http://lifehacker.com/5907432/language-immersion-for-chrome-...

drshrey 10y ago
Oh neat. Yeah, definitely going to check this out, and do an analysis on what these guys get right and features that might need to be improved on. Appreciate the links!
elhalyn 10y ago
same here http://www.langulearn.com http://www.langulearn.com

phmagic 10y ago

Brilliant, keep up the good work

drshrey 10y ago
Thanks, there's a LOT of room for growth and definitely not an easy problem to solve. More updates in the future, though!

ivancamilov 10y ago

Cool, but the example has a few errors. "students" in spanish is "estudiantes", the example is missing an S. Also, "more" is "más" in spanish. Accents are important for meaning in a lot of languages.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

drshrey 10y ago

If anyone's interested, the repo's right here: https://github.com/drshrey/alpharabius https://github.com/drshrey/alpharabius

misnamed 10y ago

Let's not forget this one! https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/millennials-to-snake-peop/jhkibealmjkbkafogihpeidfcgnigmlf https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/millennials-to-sna...

elhalyn 10y ago

Hey Guys, love the idea... since I have the "not invented here" syndrome I am building my own version for quite some time now :) (http://www.langulearn.com http://www.langulearn.com) Next step to implement would be nlp, if you need help or just want to talk -> hello@langulearn.com

clydethefrog 10y ago

Similar browser extensions are made before. HN discussions: Language Immersion for Chrome https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3921773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3921773 Polyglot https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1669162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1669162

drshrey 10y ago
Haven't seen this before but reading through discussions right now. This is really helpful, thanks.
kraftman 10y ago
Polyglot: "UPDATE: Due to the shutdown of the Google Translate API, Polyglot is no longer being maintained. It's been ported to use Bing Translate but due to rate limits the service is relatively unreliable and cannot be guaranteed to work consistently."

steveridout 10y ago

Nice work so far. I'm not convinced by this approach since I prefer to learn Spanish words in the context of Spanish sentences, but I haven't given it a fair shot. Of people who have tried this or similar extensions, did you a) find that you learned much? and b) keep using it for a prolonged period?

Davidiusdadi 10y ago

The same idea has implemented a while ago by http://readlang.com/ http://readlang.com/ Being able to repeat the words i "looked up" is essential for me.

steveridout 10y ago
Creator of Readlang here. This extension is a little different to mine since it works in the other direction. Readlang allows you to read articles in your target language more easily by offering tap-to-translate. This one gives you occassional exposure to target language words while reading articles in your first language.

Insanity 10y ago

I am using the extension now as I am currently learning Spanish. The previous languages that I have learned I have learned through a formal education (English, French and German) but this is the first one that I am just learning on my own, as my SO's family mainly communicates in Spanish. The idea of this plugin is a neat way to increase my vocabulary a bit and thus I have installed it. But one annoying thing is that I need to open the extensions popup page to click on "translate". I think that it would be nicer if the translation would just happen on pageload. I will look into doing that myself maybe since the project is on github anyway, but I am at work now. :-) EDIT: Created an issue for it now ;-)

afro88 10y ago

Very nice. Would love support for German!

drshrey 10y ago
Thanks, working on it!

sladix 10y ago

My extension did not gather as many upvotes :'( https://bigbangalaconspiracy.com/turdifier/ https://bigbangalaconspiracy.com/turdifier/ but I find it as useful as this =D