3 ms·

Show HN: Better Bilingual Texts for Language Learning

25 points by davidzweig 9y ago

davidzweig 9y ago
Here's a project I spent quite a lot of time on last summer. I filled quite a few notebooks with doodles and half-ideas and spent a lot of time staring at nothing with (likely) a confused look on my face.
nkkollaw 9y ago
This is really awesome, I absolutely love it. I've been trying to read dual text books in Polish and I did have the problem of Polish sentences being about 500 times longer than English. Personally, I solved it parsing the text for paragraphs and realining everything with shorter sentences. Your solution definitely works better. In case you're looking for feedback, I wouldn't use color as it both looks highlighted, and wouldn't allow highlighting. How about a 1px black outline to differenciate?
- davidzweig 9y ago
  Thanks! Previously, when making materials for my own use, I used to put the paste the texts into spreadsheets, with one sentence per line/cell. It works well. This layout is only used for printed books (at the moment). Without the color it looks more elegant, it's true. I'll try the outline.
  - nkkollaw 9y ago
    > Previously, when making materials for my own use, I used to put the paste the texts into spreadsheets, with one sentence per line/cell. It works well. Yup. I created a script that would parse paragraphs, and create an HTML table automatically, with one row/sentence. This way at least you know where you are in the sentence :-) Are you interested in language learning, or was this a one-time project? I have a crazy project in mind, if you'd be interested in joining forces perhaps it would be more feasible to do it.
    - davidzweig 9y ago
      I've got a lot of language projects. The latest one is a very low-cost, programmable audio player (no screen even, but lots of buttons and colored LEDs). You create non-linear, interactive materials. I was going to make another 'Show HN' when I have the firmware ready. Send me an email (on my profile), I'm interested to hear your idea.
lozzo 9y ago
Very interesting work. Good luck with it. As a father of a bilingual child I was happy to stumble on this while browsing hacker news.
j_s 9y ago
Nice; added to my wishlist. Thanks! "The El Principito / The Little Prince Spanish/English Bilingual Edition with Audio Download (English and Spanish Edition)" https://amzn.com/dp/1999706110/ https://amzn.com/dp/1999706110/ $18.69 paperback

25 points by davidzweig 9y ago

Here's a project I spent quite a lot of time on last summer. I filled quite a few notebooks with doodles and half-ideas and spent a lot of time staring at nothing with (likely) a confused look on my face.

nkkollaw 9y ago

This is really awesome, I absolutely love it. I've been trying to read dual text books in Polish and I did have the problem of Polish sentences being about 500 times longer than English. Personally, I solved it parsing the text for paragraphs and realining everything with shorter sentences. Your solution definitely works better. In case you're looking for feedback, I wouldn't use color as it both looks highlighted, and wouldn't allow highlighting. How about a 1px black outline to differenciate?

davidzweig 9y ago
Thanks! Previously, when making materials for my own use, I used to put the paste the texts into spreadsheets, with one sentence per line/cell. It works well. This layout is only used for printed books (at the moment). Without the color it looks more elegant, it's true. I'll try the outline.
- nkkollaw 9y ago
  > Previously, when making materials for my own use, I used to put the paste the texts into spreadsheets, with one sentence per line/cell. It works well. Yup. I created a script that would parse paragraphs, and create an HTML table automatically, with one row/sentence. This way at least you know where you are in the sentence :-) Are you interested in language learning, or was this a one-time project? I have a crazy project in mind, if you'd be interested in joining forces perhaps it would be more feasible to do it.
  - davidzweig 9y ago
    I've got a lot of language projects. The latest one is a very low-cost, programmable audio player (no screen even, but lots of buttons and colored LEDs). You create non-linear, interactive materials. I was going to make another 'Show HN' when I have the firmware ready. Send me an email (on my profile), I'm interested to hear your idea.

lozzo 9y ago

Very interesting work. Good luck with it. As a father of a bilingual child I was happy to stumble on this while browsing hacker news.

j_s 9y ago

Nice; added to my wishlist. Thanks! "The El Principito / The Little Prince Spanish/English Bilingual Edition with Audio Download (English and Spanish Edition)" https://amzn.com/dp/1999706110/ https://amzn.com/dp/1999706110/ $18.69 paperback