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Bilingual books w/ Audiobooks Database | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| DavidW Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6535 days ago 318 posts - 458 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu | Message 1 of 15 16 March 2011 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I thinking of setting up a web page giving access to a user-editable database for
storing and sharing information about bilingual books and audiobooks. Choosing and obtaining a suitable bilingual book with a matching audiobook for language study isn't always straightforward. The database could be searched by the language you want to study, and could hold links to sources of both published and downloadable material. It could also store reviews, both of the content (i.e. review of the story, suitability for learners) as well as the technical aspects (quality of layout, recording etc.). Users and publishers could add to the database in a similar way that people can edit Wikipedia. It would be a similar idea to the UCLA language materials project ( http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/ ), but user-editable. In addition to making life a little easier for the learner, it would be beneficial for producers of such materials, to know what are the gaps in the market. If there's any techies out there that want to help with the project, I was planning to make the project with MySQL/Django (Python Web Developemnt Framework). What do you think? Any comments or suggestions are welcome. Edited by DavidW on 16 March 2011 at 5:21pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5427 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 2 of 15 16 March 2011 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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It would be fantastic to have a resource like this again, I was sad and annoyed when I
found out bilingual-texts.com was no longer being hosted. It would be great to have a larger depository of bilingual books, though obviously we will need to stick to ones in the public domain or the site could get taken down on copyright grounds. I hope this project can come to fruition. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DavidW Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6535 days ago 318 posts - 458 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu | Message 3 of 15 16 March 2011 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I will see about hosting the texts from bilingual-texts.com. I was thinking of making
records of published materials too. For instance, seaching for English/German bilingual editions of Siddhartha on Amazon, I found: Siddhartha: A Dual-Language Book (Dover Publications) 978-0486404370 Siddhartha - Bilingual Edition, German & English (El Paso Norte Press) 978-8187981831 These could be put into the database, together with a record of the which translation they use, where they are available, the layout quality etc. For more exotic languages, you might have to contact booksellers in other countries, and so this information becomes more useful. Edited by DavidW on 16 March 2011 at 5:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5427 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 4 of 15 16 March 2011 at 5:21pm | IP Logged | ||
A record of published materials could be very useful too, some people do prefer having a book in their hands compared to reading something on a screen. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DavidW Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6535 days ago 318 posts - 458 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu | Message 6 of 15 19 March 2011 at 12:58am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm looking for a developer to work with me at the moment. Hope to have it up and
running in a week or so. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| polyglossia Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5413 days ago 205 posts - 255 votes Speaks: French* | Message 7 of 15 21 March 2011 at 1:55am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, looks like a great idea!!! But are you really sure it doesnt exist already??
Btw, "librivox" is a website which hosted a lot of "original" recording!! The problem is, sometimes, recordings are quite un-understandable!!! Just tell us about the project? How would look like the index page?? Chose your book, select your languages??? God!! It's such an incredible project you want to achieve, sure you're aware of it? ::) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aru-aru Triglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 6466 days ago 244 posts - 331 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, Russian | Message 8 of 15 21 March 2011 at 8:56am | IP Logged | ||
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The problem with many books on bilingual-texts might be that even if the book itself is in public domain, the translation often isn't. Also, I myself was not too comfortable with the idea that, for example, the book "Master and Margarita" is available as a Spanish-English bilingual text. In this case, both Spanish and English are translations from Russian, none of the texts is the original text.
DavidW, I want to say I believe the idea you have is worth doing. Whatever is copyright free, is great, make it available on a site, everything else, like you said, make a list of commercially available books. It will still be very usable. You're the one with that publishing house, right? Make your own books! This method might gain wide popularity, I mean, in China these kinds of publications are very common and very popular, see no reason why it wouldn't catch on here. If you do it for profit, you'll have enough money to pay the copyright holders for the translations for everyones benefit. Here's a link to a discussion of bilingual book publishers, might be useful: here Edited by aru-aru on 21 March 2011 at 9:01am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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