8 ms·

Ereader Easy Swedish

114 points by cubbic 2y ago

cubbic 2y ago
It's a simple llm wrapper that converts any epub to easy swedish but one I use now to read all my books. I find it cool and something that I actually use and find useful.
- EstanislaoStan 2y ago
  I've used Claude to help explain Korean texts, but in Korean.
kzrdude 2y ago
"easy swedish" is almost an official genre of the language because some government information is available in such easy to read versions (that's what they are called), but the total text amount of it all must be rather small.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  There is something similar in German, "einfache Sprache" (simple language) and the even easier "leichte Sprache". E.g.: https://www.nachrichtenleicht.de/siege-fuer-schach-spieler-100.html https://www.nachrichtenleicht.de/siege-fuer-schach-spieler-1...
  - EstanislaoStan 2y ago
    Yeah, there's the simple English Wikipedia. https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_English_Wikipedia https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_English_Wikipedia
- johnnypangs 2y ago
  There’s even radio and Swedish ebooks in “lätt” or easy Swedish. Helped me when I learned: Easy Swedish radio news: https://www.sverigesradio.se/grupp/22720 https://www.sverigesradio.se/grupp/22720 Easy Swedish books: https://www.bokus.com/cgi-bin/product_search.cgi?series=L%E4ttl%E4st&subject=5 https://www.bokus.com/cgi-bin/product_search.cgi?series=L%E4...
- INTPenis 2y ago
  They also have simplified swedish news broadcasts. It's just easier to understand for immigrants who are still learning the language.
- vodou 2y ago
  It's worth noting that "easy swedish" isn't just for immigrants, it as also (mostly?) for people with an intellectual disability.
  - occz 2y ago
    As is often the case with accessibility affordances, they tend to improve things for groups outside of their intended audience, known as Universal Design. More reading on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design
3836293648 2y ago
That example is removing a lot of text. Is this the issue in the changelog or is it still removing details?
- pigscantfly 2y ago
  It converts to lätt svenska (simplified Swedish), which is usually intended for beginners / students and I believe is the point here. The translated text is missing a lot of details, though, yes.
  - cetu86 2y ago
    I'm currently starting to learn swedish myself. I was looking for the translation of "facing the west" but I think that was omitted in the translation. (Btw. Why is it facing THE west and not facing west anyways?) if the translation omits such a lot of detail it's not interesting to me.
    - pigscantfly 2y ago
      Honestly probably just literary license -- this author seems to employ pretty florid prose. I'd say it actually sounds more natural to say "towards the west / mot väster" in Swedish since it's more common to use as a noun vs. as an adverb than in English. If you're in the US, I recommend bokon.se for ebooks -- they're one of very few sites that accepts American credit cards. Otherwise, you're kind of stuck with libraries (if you have one nearby with a good foreign language section) or packing your suitcase. I'd also recommend Historiepodden on Spotify and Sommarprat on sverigesradio.se -- don't really watch TV myself but others here have mentioned svtplay.se if you're into that.
  - 3836293648 2y ago
    I know, I speak Swedish, but it's missing way more than details
- sgt 2y ago
  > Thirty years ago this had been given over entirely to studios, but now it was broken up into a more profitable mêlée of semi-commercial establishments and light-housekeeping apartments. From what I can tell, I'd hardly want to read the original. Way too verbose and I highly suspect the rest of the book is similar.
chaosprint 2y ago
I found this very useful for learning second language: https://immersivetranslate.com/ https://immersivetranslate.com/ Daily news is better resource than books IMHO. I have no vested interest here. The thing is, since it's not open source, I'm a bit worried about data privacy, especially because the plugin can see everything I browse.
- yyx 2y ago
  Is it better than DeepL own extension? Edit: it is.
- danielscrubs 2y ago
  I don't think news will give you a well rounded vocabulary. Im studying with an Anki deck which got its word order scraped from news. I know three different words for price (price in general, specific item, and formal) but I have yet to see, say, oven.
  - pm215 2y ago
    Mmm. I think once you get out of the super common words that appear in any style of text, the ideal is to learn words from something guided by what appears specifically in what you want to read. For Japanese I'm currently using jpdb.io, which (if there is a deck for the book you're reading) lets you work on the words that match what you're reading. It has its flaws but overall it's been working out for me.
- seer 2y ago
  I think the idea is to use a book that you have already read in your language, maybe even multiple time (favourite book). This way your mind already has all the associations stored in your brain for easy access, and you just need to link it to the foreign concepts. Supposed to be a great way to learn new languages after you know the basic grammar and such.
  - vidarh 2y ago
    Parallel texts work quite well without having read it before too if you keep the original next to you. I lifted by German up a whole grade my last year, largely by reading Goethe's Faust in parallel with a translation. Having an easy version is a big boon, though, and I think LLMs now provide an amazing opportunity to create custom proper parallel texts (showing both) where you could adjust the difficulty level of the translation to suit your current skill level.
Phenomenit 2y ago
Is there something similar in French? Preferably from French/English to simplified French?
- vidarh 2y ago
  But English is simplified French ;) With apologies to Dumas ("L’anglais n’est que du français mal prononcé" - "English is little more than badly pronounced French" - spoken by D'Artagnan in Twenty Years After) The "quick and dirty" solution would be to cut and paste into Claude or ChatGPT, probably in sections to prevent it from going too far off piste/forget what it's meant to be doing, with a suitable prompt.
  - jamesblonde 2y ago
    n’est que du -> is only
    - vidarh 2y ago
      "little more" can, and often is, be used as a synonym of "only". In this case, take it up with the translators of Dumas' works - it's a common choice for the translation.
- mukilan_k 2y ago
  This looks so cool, I am thinking of building something like this for French. I am currently planning to take my B1 and it has been super hard.
triyambakam 2y ago
I also learned Swedish, which I think is very interesting, because Sweden has 1/4 the population of California, but has a relatively large influence on Western culture. At least in my mind. Regarding learning a language, I recommend looking into Dr Krashen's theory of language acquisition, specifically comprehensible input. His favorite resource is comic books. For Swedish, I really like SVT with a VPN.
- memsom 2y ago
  A lot of SVT is available with no VPN. It also has apps, so I tend to watch it on an Apple TV. I second comic books, though the Swedish tends to be super colloquial and you will get stuff like "dig" rendered as "dej" (which is how it is generally pronounced, but not how it is formally written.) Kalle Anka is always the classic go to for Swedish learners. NRK on the other hand actively tries to block everyone, which makes Norwegian a lot less accessible.
  - cess11 2y ago
    For those with VPN, here's SVT: https://www.svtplay.se/ https://www.svtplay.se/ Swedish public service television also has an educational branch, which is here: https://urplay.se/ https://urplay.se/ I use comic books to teach my kids to read, I agree it ought to be a good option for foreign adults too. On SVT I'd recommend Landet runt (Around the country), it shows a lot of feelgood stories from local news and is aimed at a broad audience, including kids and the elderly: https://www.svtplay.se/landet-runt https://www.svtplay.se/landet-runt There's also a news program for kids I think could be a good option to learn from: https://www.svtplay.se/lilla-aktuellt-och-lilla-aktuellt-skola https://www.svtplay.se/lilla-aktuellt-och-lilla-aktuellt-sko... While I don't watch any of them myself, perhaps competition programs might work too: https://www.svtplay.se/lista/svtId_jQ7LrRQ/tavlingsprogram https://www.svtplay.se/lista/svtId_jQ7LrRQ/tavlingsprogram
    - memsom 2y ago
      SVT Play (app or web) is a very good resource, and it is mostly subtitled in Swedish, which helps a lot. From the UK (at any rate) it is pretty rare to find many of the shows with georestructions, I do not find many. It is worth trying it without a VPN first, as you might be able to save money. As I mentioned above, NRK is not so great. Most of the content is geoblocked, and you need a norwegian digital ID to watch it outside of Norway (or at least, Skandinavia) without a VPN. They also regularly block VPN's, so as an example, Tunnelbear used to be fine (and gives a fairly generous free tier if you play the "invite friends and do some tasks" game), but last time I tried, it was no longer working with the NRK TV app.
alberto_ol 2y ago
The example is the incipit of "The dangerous inheritance" by Izola Forrester https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/75383/pg75383-images.html https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/75383/pg75383-images.ht... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izola_Forrester https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izola_Forrester
Daegalus 2y ago
This is super cool, I might fork this and change the prompt to Danish, and maybe use MIstral or DeepSeek as it has better Danish capabilities. I moved to Denmark and just passed my A1 exam, so looking for more easy stuff to do. DR.dk has `ligetil` which is simplified/easy danish news. So if I can find similar, I use it. I can probably have LLM do easy for me. Also Noospeak for daily newsletter in Danish. LLM has been great for language learning and translation.
- zavec 2y ago
  Ooh, those simplified news sites/newsletters sound great, I'll have to see if I can find something similar for Norwegian!
  - astrolx 2y ago
    Sweden has 'lätt svenska' (easy Swedish) radio and TV news - https://www.svtplay.se/nyheter-pa-latt-svenska https://www.svtplay.se/nyheter-pa-latt-svenska - https://www.sverigesradio.se/radioswedenpalattsvenska https://www.sverigesradio.se/radioswedenpalattsvenska pretty useful for learning indeed!
  - Daegalus 2y ago
    Noospeak.com has Norwegian. It is the one I use.
    - Broken_Hippo 2y ago
      Klar Tale (https://www.klartale.no/ https://www.klartale.no/) has easy to read Norwegian News. It was recommended to us in the government-run language classes.
- barrenko 2y ago
  Chuck https://lite.cnn.com/ https://lite.cnn.com/ into whatever language you need it in.
  - CrazyStat 2y ago
deskr 2y ago
Wow, this is nice. I've had a thing like this (well, for German) in my mind for years but knew I'd never create it. Thanks!
unwind 2y ago
I tried to figure out if the translation is correct (the concept of a "studio apartment" in English is not easy to express in Swedish, and "ateljé" is certainly not it). I even found this [1] comment on Reddit, detailing the exact same concern. Perhaps worth looking into? [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/1j4teje/comment/mgbr5lf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button https://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/1j4teje/comment/mg...
- Broken_Hippo 2y ago
  I'm guessing it is pretty easy to express in Swedish once you learn how to speak about housing, though. Don't know Swedish, but I'm fully lower-to-mid intermediate with Norwegian (I hit limits, but my workplace is Norwegian). Swedish and Norwegian are really similar. In Norwegian, they don't talk about bedrooms as much as total major rooms. So a studio apartment, the sort that contains a private bath and kitchen area, is a one-room apartment. A one bedroom is a two-room apartment. And it looks like Swedish (unsurprisingly) is similar: https://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/16aigvx/question_on_en_l%C3%A4genhet/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/16aigvx/question_o...
- yeyeyeyeyeyeyee 2y ago
  A studio apartment in Swedish is "en etta", literally meaning a "one room". An apartment with one bedroom would then be "en tvåa", two bedrooms "en trea".
  - unwind 2y ago
    True, it's actually quite simple. :) The main point stands though, that this is not about art studios but just small apartments, and the automatic translation messes that up.
- Kiro 2y ago
  It's not a studio apartment though. The book takes place in some kind of arts center: "And at exactly the same instant Signor Jacobelli was bursting without warning or ceremony into a studio on the second floor where a model posed."
yoavm 2y ago
I'm also learning Swedish, will definitely give this a try. I've built https://github.com/bjesus/swe https://github.com/bjesus/swe as a quick CLI dictionary that also helps with pronunciation and tenses.
memsom 2y ago
A great Swedish reading resource is 8Sidor (https://8sidor.se/ https://8sidor.se/) which is the news in "lätt svenska" (easy swedish.) You can subscribe to a physical copy, but honestly the site is great and has built in tools to aid translation (selecting a word or phrase it can easily be translated with a few clicks.)
zersiax 2y ago
Would love this for Finnish, not gonna lie :)
andrelaszlo 2y ago
I started learning Swedish almost 40 years ago and I wish sometimes like this was available back then. As it was, I had to study quite hard for about 1-2 years by just listening to a lot of Swedish. Reading Swedish comfortably took almost six years to learn - I imagine it would have been faster with an app like this.
pivic 2y ago
I believe this type of 'translation' can't help with learning a language unless the person who's reading already knows a lot of idiomatic expressions, grammar, and knows both English and Swedish on an everyday-conversation level. Let me show you what I mean. Here's the first paragraph in English: > The town studio of Signor Jacobelli faced the west. It was situated on the top floor of an old eight-storied building in the West Fifties. Thirty years ago this had been given over entirely to studios, but now it was broken up into a more profitable mêlée of semi-commercial establishments and light-housekeeping apartments. Here's the first paragraph in the Swedish translation: > Signor Jacobelli hade en ateljé högst upp i ett gammalt hus med åtta våningar. För trettio år sedan var huset fullt av konstnärer, men nu fanns där både butiker och lägenheter. I get that the translation is to a 'simplified' version of Swedish; translations of fiction are often restructures of the original language, but this is to a point where one not only needs to know what the words in Swedish mean, but be able to interpret them based on a vast restructure compared with the original. Compare with a Kagi (DeepL) translation of the text: > Signor Jacobellis ateljé i staden vette mot väster. Den låg högst upp i ett gammalt åttavåningshus på West Fifties. För trettio år sedan hade detta uteslutande varit ateljéer, men nu var det uppdelat i en mer lönsam blandning av halvkommersiella etablissemang och lägenheter med enklare hushållning. Kagi maintains the original structure, which makes it far easier to compare words and the original structure. I could be wrong but to me it seems far easier to learn a language when a translation doesn't come with a vast restructure of the original content.
- ftrobro 2y ago
  Is "ateljé" (meaning art studio) really the correct Swedish translation here? I suspect "etta" (meaning one-room apartment) would be more suitable.
  - BurningFrog 2y ago
    Yeah, 99% sure it's an apartment in this context. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_apartment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_apartment
    - 2y ago
barbazoo 2y ago
Love that it's open source. Here's the magic sauce, i.e. system prompt: > I want to translate this part of a book text to swedish. Translate to EASY swedish. Make the sentence structure easy. Make the words easy. Simplify it to A1 level while maintaining the story meaning. output ONLY the translation. Use the previous text and after text to understand the context. previous text: "{previous_text}" after text: "{after_text}" text to translate: $BEGIN_TEXT${original_chunk}$END_TEXT$ " DO NOT SKIP ANY TEXT INSIDE $BEGIN_TEXT$ and $END_TEXT$
karl42 2y ago
In a similar vein, I made https://www.wikdict.com/reader/sv-en/ https://www.wikdict.com/reader/sv-en/ , which adds translation pop-ups to each word in the input text. The cool thing compared to manually looking up words is that it will translate idioms/phrases (if they are in the dictionary) and split compound words (if they are not in the dictionary) into their translatable parts. I also have some code to add the translations as pop-up footnotes to epub files (I like to use that on my e-reader). That is not mature enough yet for public usage, but if anyone wants to help testing it, I can run some e-books through it. Just let me know!

114 points by cubbic 2y ago

It's a simple llm wrapper that converts any epub to easy swedish but one I use now to read all my books. I find it cool and something that I actually use and find useful.

EstanislaoStan 2y ago
I've used Claude to help explain Korean texts, but in Korean.

kzrdude 2y ago

"easy swedish" is almost an official genre of the language because some government information is available in such easy to read versions (that's what they are called), but the total text amount of it all must be rather small.

School-Cotton 2y ago
There is something similar in German, "einfache Sprache" (simple language) and the even easier "leichte Sprache". E.g.: https://www.nachrichtenleicht.de/siege-fuer-schach-spieler-100.html https://www.nachrichtenleicht.de/siege-fuer-schach-spieler-1...
- EstanislaoStan 2y ago
  Yeah, there's the simple English Wikipedia. https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_English_Wikipedia https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_English_Wikipedia
johnnypangs 2y ago
There’s even radio and Swedish ebooks in “lätt” or easy Swedish. Helped me when I learned: Easy Swedish radio news: https://www.sverigesradio.se/grupp/22720 https://www.sverigesradio.se/grupp/22720 Easy Swedish books: https://www.bokus.com/cgi-bin/product_search.cgi?series=L%E4ttl%E4st&subject=5 https://www.bokus.com/cgi-bin/product_search.cgi?series=L%E4...
INTPenis 2y ago
They also have simplified swedish news broadcasts. It's just easier to understand for immigrants who are still learning the language.
vodou 2y ago
It's worth noting that "easy swedish" isn't just for immigrants, it as also (mostly?) for people with an intellectual disability.
- occz 2y ago
  As is often the case with accessibility affordances, they tend to improve things for groups outside of their intended audience, known as Universal Design. More reading on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design

3836293648 2y ago

That example is removing a lot of text. Is this the issue in the changelog or is it still removing details?

pigscantfly 2y ago
It converts to lätt svenska (simplified Swedish), which is usually intended for beginners / students and I believe is the point here. The translated text is missing a lot of details, though, yes.
- cetu86 2y ago
  I'm currently starting to learn swedish myself. I was looking for the translation of "facing the west" but I think that was omitted in the translation. (Btw. Why is it facing THE west and not facing west anyways?) if the translation omits such a lot of detail it's not interesting to me.
  - pigscantfly 2y ago
    Honestly probably just literary license -- this author seems to employ pretty florid prose. I'd say it actually sounds more natural to say "towards the west / mot väster" in Swedish since it's more common to use as a noun vs. as an adverb than in English. If you're in the US, I recommend bokon.se for ebooks -- they're one of very few sites that accepts American credit cards. Otherwise, you're kind of stuck with libraries (if you have one nearby with a good foreign language section) or packing your suitcase. I'd also recommend Historiepodden on Spotify and Sommarprat on sverigesradio.se -- don't really watch TV myself but others here have mentioned svtplay.se if you're into that.
- 3836293648 2y ago
  I know, I speak Swedish, but it's missing way more than details
sgt 2y ago
> Thirty years ago this had been given over entirely to studios, but now it was broken up into a more profitable mêlée of semi-commercial establishments and light-housekeeping apartments. From what I can tell, I'd hardly want to read the original. Way too verbose and I highly suspect the rest of the book is similar.

chaosprint 2y ago

I found this very useful for learning second language: https://immersivetranslate.com/ https://immersivetranslate.com/ Daily news is better resource than books IMHO. I have no vested interest here. The thing is, since it's not open source, I'm a bit worried about data privacy, especially because the plugin can see everything I browse.

yyx 2y ago
Is it better than DeepL own extension? Edit: it is.
danielscrubs 2y ago
I don't think news will give you a well rounded vocabulary. Im studying with an Anki deck which got its word order scraped from news. I know three different words for price (price in general, specific item, and formal) but I have yet to see, say, oven.
- pm215 2y ago
  Mmm. I think once you get out of the super common words that appear in any style of text, the ideal is to learn words from something guided by what appears specifically in what you want to read. For Japanese I'm currently using jpdb.io, which (if there is a deck for the book you're reading) lets you work on the words that match what you're reading. It has its flaws but overall it's been working out for me.
seer 2y ago
I think the idea is to use a book that you have already read in your language, maybe even multiple time (favourite book). This way your mind already has all the associations stored in your brain for easy access, and you just need to link it to the foreign concepts. Supposed to be a great way to learn new languages after you know the basic grammar and such.
- vidarh 2y ago
  Parallel texts work quite well without having read it before too if you keep the original next to you. I lifted by German up a whole grade my last year, largely by reading Goethe's Faust in parallel with a translation. Having an easy version is a big boon, though, and I think LLMs now provide an amazing opportunity to create custom proper parallel texts (showing both) where you could adjust the difficulty level of the translation to suit your current skill level.

Phenomenit 2y ago

Is there something similar in French? Preferably from French/English to simplified French?

vidarh 2y ago
But English is simplified French ;) With apologies to Dumas ("L’anglais n’est que du français mal prononcé" - "English is little more than badly pronounced French" - spoken by D'Artagnan in Twenty Years After) The "quick and dirty" solution would be to cut and paste into Claude or ChatGPT, probably in sections to prevent it from going too far off piste/forget what it's meant to be doing, with a suitable prompt.
- jamesblonde 2y ago
  n’est que du -> is only
  - vidarh 2y ago
    "little more" can, and often is, be used as a synonym of "only". In this case, take it up with the translators of Dumas' works - it's a common choice for the translation.
mukilan_k 2y ago
This looks so cool, I am thinking of building something like this for French. I am currently planning to take my B1 and it has been super hard.

triyambakam 2y ago

I also learned Swedish, which I think is very interesting, because Sweden has 1/4 the population of California, but has a relatively large influence on Western culture. At least in my mind. Regarding learning a language, I recommend looking into Dr Krashen's theory of language acquisition, specifically comprehensible input. His favorite resource is comic books. For Swedish, I really like SVT with a VPN.

memsom 2y ago
A lot of SVT is available with no VPN. It also has apps, so I tend to watch it on an Apple TV. I second comic books, though the Swedish tends to be super colloquial and you will get stuff like "dig" rendered as "dej" (which is how it is generally pronounced, but not how it is formally written.) Kalle Anka is always the classic go to for Swedish learners. NRK on the other hand actively tries to block everyone, which makes Norwegian a lot less accessible.
- cess11 2y ago
  For those with VPN, here's SVT: https://www.svtplay.se/ https://www.svtplay.se/ Swedish public service television also has an educational branch, which is here: https://urplay.se/ https://urplay.se/ I use comic books to teach my kids to read, I agree it ought to be a good option for foreign adults too. On SVT I'd recommend Landet runt (Around the country), it shows a lot of feelgood stories from local news and is aimed at a broad audience, including kids and the elderly: https://www.svtplay.se/landet-runt https://www.svtplay.se/landet-runt There's also a news program for kids I think could be a good option to learn from: https://www.svtplay.se/lilla-aktuellt-och-lilla-aktuellt-skola https://www.svtplay.se/lilla-aktuellt-och-lilla-aktuellt-sko... While I don't watch any of them myself, perhaps competition programs might work too: https://www.svtplay.se/lista/svtId_jQ7LrRQ/tavlingsprogram https://www.svtplay.se/lista/svtId_jQ7LrRQ/tavlingsprogram
  - memsom 2y ago
    SVT Play (app or web) is a very good resource, and it is mostly subtitled in Swedish, which helps a lot. From the UK (at any rate) it is pretty rare to find many of the shows with georestructions, I do not find many. It is worth trying it without a VPN first, as you might be able to save money. As I mentioned above, NRK is not so great. Most of the content is geoblocked, and you need a norwegian digital ID to watch it outside of Norway (or at least, Skandinavia) without a VPN. They also regularly block VPN's, so as an example, Tunnelbear used to be fine (and gives a fairly generous free tier if you play the "invite friends and do some tasks" game), but last time I tried, it was no longer working with the NRK TV app.

alberto_ol 2y ago

The example is the incipit of "The dangerous inheritance" by Izola Forrester https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/75383/pg75383-images.html https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/75383/pg75383-images.ht... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izola_Forrester https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izola_Forrester

Daegalus 2y ago

This is super cool, I might fork this and change the prompt to Danish, and maybe use MIstral or DeepSeek as it has better Danish capabilities. I moved to Denmark and just passed my A1 exam, so looking for more easy stuff to do. DR.dk has `ligetil` which is simplified/easy danish news. So if I can find similar, I use it. I can probably have LLM do easy for me. Also Noospeak for daily newsletter in Danish. LLM has been great for language learning and translation.

zavec 2y ago
Ooh, those simplified news sites/newsletters sound great, I'll have to see if I can find something similar for Norwegian!
- astrolx 2y ago
  Sweden has 'lätt svenska' (easy Swedish) radio and TV news - https://www.svtplay.se/nyheter-pa-latt-svenska https://www.svtplay.se/nyheter-pa-latt-svenska - https://www.sverigesradio.se/radioswedenpalattsvenska https://www.sverigesradio.se/radioswedenpalattsvenska pretty useful for learning indeed!
- Daegalus 2y ago
  Noospeak.com has Norwegian. It is the one I use.
  - Broken_Hippo 2y ago
    Klar Tale (https://www.klartale.no/ https://www.klartale.no/) has easy to read Norwegian News. It was recommended to us in the government-run language classes.
barrenko 2y ago
Chuck https://lite.cnn.com/ https://lite.cnn.com/ into whatever language you need it in.
- CrazyStat 2y ago

deskr 2y ago

Wow, this is nice. I've had a thing like this (well, for German) in my mind for years but knew I'd never create it. Thanks!

unwind 2y ago

I tried to figure out if the translation is correct (the concept of a "studio apartment" in English is not easy to express in Swedish, and "ateljé" is certainly not it). I even found this [1] comment on Reddit, detailing the exact same concern. Perhaps worth looking into? [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/1j4teje/comment/mgbr5lf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button https://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/1j4teje/comment/mg...

Broken_Hippo 2y ago
I'm guessing it is pretty easy to express in Swedish once you learn how to speak about housing, though. Don't know Swedish, but I'm fully lower-to-mid intermediate with Norwegian (I hit limits, but my workplace is Norwegian). Swedish and Norwegian are really similar. In Norwegian, they don't talk about bedrooms as much as total major rooms. So a studio apartment, the sort that contains a private bath and kitchen area, is a one-room apartment. A one bedroom is a two-room apartment. And it looks like Swedish (unsurprisingly) is similar: https://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/16aigvx/question_on_en_l%C3%A4genhet/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/16aigvx/question_o...
yeyeyeyeyeyeyee 2y ago
A studio apartment in Swedish is "en etta", literally meaning a "one room". An apartment with one bedroom would then be "en tvåa", two bedrooms "en trea".
- unwind 2y ago
  True, it's actually quite simple. :) The main point stands though, that this is not about art studios but just small apartments, and the automatic translation messes that up.
Kiro 2y ago
It's not a studio apartment though. The book takes place in some kind of arts center: "And at exactly the same instant Signor Jacobelli was bursting without warning or ceremony into a studio on the second floor where a model posed."

yoavm 2y ago

I'm also learning Swedish, will definitely give this a try. I've built https://github.com/bjesus/swe https://github.com/bjesus/swe as a quick CLI dictionary that also helps with pronunciation and tenses.

memsom 2y ago

A great Swedish reading resource is 8Sidor (https://8sidor.se/ https://8sidor.se/) which is the news in "lätt svenska" (easy swedish.) You can subscribe to a physical copy, but honestly the site is great and has built in tools to aid translation (selecting a word or phrase it can easily be translated with a few clicks.)

zersiax 2y ago

Would love this for Finnish, not gonna lie :)

andrelaszlo 2y ago

I started learning Swedish almost 40 years ago and I wish sometimes like this was available back then. As it was, I had to study quite hard for about 1-2 years by just listening to a lot of Swedish. Reading Swedish comfortably took almost six years to learn - I imagine it would have been faster with an app like this.

pivic 2y ago

I believe this type of 'translation' can't help with learning a language unless the person who's reading already knows a lot of idiomatic expressions, grammar, and knows both English and Swedish on an everyday-conversation level. Let me show you what I mean. Here's the first paragraph in English: > The town studio of Signor Jacobelli faced the west. It was situated on the top floor of an old eight-storied building in the West Fifties. Thirty years ago this had been given over entirely to studios, but now it was broken up into a more profitable mêlée of semi-commercial establishments and light-housekeeping apartments. Here's the first paragraph in the Swedish translation: > Signor Jacobelli hade en ateljé högst upp i ett gammalt hus med åtta våningar. För trettio år sedan var huset fullt av konstnärer, men nu fanns där både butiker och lägenheter. I get that the translation is to a 'simplified' version of Swedish; translations of fiction are often restructures of the original language, but this is to a point where one not only needs to know what the words in Swedish mean, but be able to interpret them based on a vast restructure compared with the original. Compare with a Kagi (DeepL) translation of the text: > Signor Jacobellis ateljé i staden vette mot väster. Den låg högst upp i ett gammalt åttavåningshus på West Fifties. För trettio år sedan hade detta uteslutande varit ateljéer, men nu var det uppdelat i en mer lönsam blandning av halvkommersiella etablissemang och lägenheter med enklare hushållning. Kagi maintains the original structure, which makes it far easier to compare words and the original structure. I could be wrong but to me it seems far easier to learn a language when a translation doesn't come with a vast restructure of the original content.

ftrobro 2y ago
Is "ateljé" (meaning art studio) really the correct Swedish translation here? I suspect "etta" (meaning one-room apartment) would be more suitable.
- BurningFrog 2y ago
  Yeah, 99% sure it's an apartment in this context. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_apartment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_apartment
  - 2y ago

barbazoo 2y ago

Love that it's open source. Here's the magic sauce, i.e. system prompt: > I want to translate this part of a book text to swedish. Translate to EASY swedish. Make the sentence structure easy. Make the words easy. Simplify it to A1 level while maintaining the story meaning. output ONLY the translation. Use the previous text and after text to understand the context. previous text: "{previous_text}" after text: "{after_text}" text to translate: $BEGIN_TEXT${original_chunk}$END_TEXT$ " DO NOT SKIP ANY TEXT INSIDE $BEGIN_TEXT$ and $END_TEXT$

karl42 2y ago

In a similar vein, I made https://www.wikdict.com/reader/sv-en/ https://www.wikdict.com/reader/sv-en/ , which adds translation pop-ups to each word in the input text. The cool thing compared to manually looking up words is that it will translate idioms/phrases (if they are in the dictionary) and split compound words (if they are not in the dictionary) into their translatable parts. I also have some code to add the translations as pop-up footnotes to epub files (I like to use that on my e-reader). That is not mature enough yet for public usage, but if anyone wants to help testing it, I can run some e-books through it. Just let me know!