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A extensive reading/TV tool I’d love | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5352 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 5 26 July 2013 at 9:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I do a lot of extensive reading, and I watch a lot of TV. And I manage to learn quite a bit of vocabulary from context. But I've also used Anki quite intensively in the past, and I know that it can really speed up vocabulary learning. But it's quite annoying to make any kind of link between my extensive activities and Anki.
I can imagine a really spiffy tool, but nobody's built it yet. It would have two major pieces: 1. An extensive reading application for ebooks (and possibly a way to easily import web pages or text snippets). 2. An extensive viewing application which could be used with DVDs and video files. Both of these applications would offer two key features: (a) the ability to easily get explanations for difficult material, and (b) the ability to automatically make high-quality Anki cards. Here are some examples of what I'm proposing: - I'm reading a book on my tablet, and I notice an interesting word. I press the word and a definition pops up. With just one more touch, I can import the surrounding sentences into Anki with the unknown word boldfaced, and a definition on the back of the card. - I'm watching a TV episode, and I have trouble understanding a few seconds of dialog. I hit a button to rewind a few seconds, which automatically activates subtitles. Again, I can touch a word to get a definition, and touch one more time to make an Anki card with a picture and sound clip on the front, and the subtitles and any definitions on the back. Bonus points if the system can automatically include subtitles in two languages, or extract a translation from a parallel ebook. Even more bonus points if the system can find multiple examples of the unknown word in things I've read recently, or tell me which are the most common words that still give me trouble. All of this is well within the start of the art. Most of the pieces actually exist—LingQ and Learning With Texts come very close to the ebook reader I'm imagining, and a good DVD ripper plus subrip/SubExtractor and subs2srs would contain most of the technology needed for building the video player. But today, all these tools require a fairly large amount of technical knowledge, and it takes a while to process an entire TV episode into Anki cards. This is fine for power users doing intensive activities. But if you're non-technical, or if you're relatively advanced and just want to watch TV, it's way too much trouble to set up the entire toolchain and process your materials into a usable format. Ideally, I just want an ebook reader and video player on a tablet, with the ability to save any interesting material in a couple of seconds. I'd obviously need a source of legal French ebooks (good luck) and a DVD ripper which preserved subtitles (Handbrake in MKV mode should work). This would also require a different sort of attitude towards Anki—lots of card deletion, and a willingness to be sloppy about card review intervals. 9 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3964 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 2 of 5 27 July 2013 at 3:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Oooh...I want one of those too. Let me know when you find one. ;)
2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ross Newbie China anylano.com Joined 5307 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English | Message 3 of 5 10 August 2013 at 6:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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You can have a try on anylango. It can rip DVD into anylango format, no other tools are needed anymore, only anylango. And, if you are lucky, you may found some interesting learning materials from the back website. Just download them.
unfortunately, anylango do not support Anki. But why anki? If you feel some lines are difficult, just set those lines a higher difficult level. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Michel1020 Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4837 days ago 365 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch | Message 4 of 5 10 August 2013 at 11:06am | IP Logged | |||||
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emk, I think you should worrying less about both making Anki cards and understanding each and every words.
I am about sure there are some one click dictionary look up systems available. If I am wrong what the problem in copying and pasting a word in an online dictionary ? It takes time for 1000 words ? Well copying and pasting shouldn't take as much time as waiting for the result, reading the definition and the example sentences. Beside if you want to make an Anki card with the definition - it is a lot better to do it yourself than have the computer choosing what it puts in the card. Doing it yourself allows you to adapt the card - some word need a definition, some need a translation, some need an explanation, ... how would the computer know what is the best option for each word ? The problem to have subtitle for passage you don't understand is not a software one but more a problem of data. For many media there are no exact transcription (subtile or other). Reading media softwares have very easy looping options. Rewatching an episode will be more easy, pleasant and probably give as much returns than reviewing Anki cards with the difficult parts. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5352 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 5 10 August 2013 at 1:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
There's a specific format of Anki cards that I've experimented with quite a bit:
I've made these cards in a number of different ways: Using subs2srs, or TranscriberAG plus custom scripts. And the results have almost uncanny: The cards are fast to learn, fast to review, and 6 months later, I can still understand almost every word of the source material with crystal clarity. I've tried quite a few other techniques: Repeated looping, blind transcription without access to the text, and so on. These are all great, but they require more effort than subs2srs-style cards. And if I revisit the source material a month or two later, I've already lost the ability to understand the trickiest bits. These subs2srs-format cards can be generated in bulk (especially if parallel L1 subs are available and you're willing to delete cards aggressively while reviewing), and they certainly seem quite effective in practice. But the problem is that as my listening comprehension becomes better, I understand most of what I hear, and the payoff for running subs2srs becomes abysmal. I just want the ability to pick out 20 lines of an otherwise ordinary TV episode and review them as described above. I've been digging through the sample code for Google's Chromecast, and I think I could put a prototype media player with Anki capture in about two weeks. The remaining problem is what to do with episodes where I have VOBSUB image data but not SRT text files (which is pretty much the best-case scenario for French TV). Subextractor looks promising, but it's still too manual. I've been trying to adapt substitution cipher cryptanalysis algorithms to help improve subtitle OCR, and my very preliminary results are promising. Unfortunately, I don't see any way to make actual money off such a program, and it therefore needs to take a backseat behind paying work. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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