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Parallel texts project | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Links & Internet Resources |  | |
| MarcoDiAngelo Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 6229 days ago 208 posts - 345 votes  Speaks: Serbian*, English, Spanish, Russian Studies: Thai, Polish | Message 1 of 103 27 March 2010 at 10:54am | IP Logged |
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Hello, all!
I have made a dozen parallel texts in several languages and a website where anyone can download them for free. Is anyobody here doing L-R? If you do, you know how extremely helpful these resources are. I just wonder if there are any forum members interested in team-making of copyright-free parallel texts in many languages? I think it would be great if we could have a large and free database of bilingual books. Anyone interested? Any suggestions? 22 persons have voted this message useful | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5620 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 2 of 103 27 March 2010 at 12:28pm | IP Logged |
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Great project!
If I make any I'd be more than happy to share them. Have been meaning to make some since Christmas but never took the time. But what languages are your texts in, you are not mentioning it? I am more likely to do Swedish > Russian or Swedish > German. I would use English if it was more convenient or faster for some reason, otherwise not. But among the users here, I can only think of a few people who might have an interest in the combination I mentioned. Ideally there ought to be a website for it where people can enter any combination of languages to see what's available. For example in your case maybe Serbian > Polish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| MarcoDiAngelo Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 6229 days ago 208 posts - 345 votes Speaks: Serbian*, English, Spanish, Russian Studies: Thai, Polish | Message 3 of 103 27 March 2010 at 12:31pm | IP Logged |
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My texts are French/German/Italian/Spanish/Russian - English.
This is the website http://www.bilingual-texts.com/, and you can find the texts here http://www.bilingual-texts.com/library/. I can make any combination of European languages, but currently I am making X-English ones. The combination you mention could be of use to many people, for instance, Russians and Germans learning Swedish. Yes, ideally, there ought to be a website with many combinations of languages. But listen to this: the texts can be made X-English in Word in the way that you can just copy/paste the columns and make X1-X2 texts! For instance, I have 1984 by Orwell Italian-English and French-English, therefore I can make the Italian-French, or French-Italian one in a matter of seconds! 13 persons have voted this message useful | |
| OlafP Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5217 days ago 261 posts - 667 votes Speaks: German*, French, English | Message 4 of 103 27 March 2010 at 1:19pm | IP Logged |
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I think this is a great project you started there but nevertheless I must rain on your parade. Using a proprietary file format is contrary to the idea of the site. There are plenty of alternatives: PDF, HTMl, plain text, epub, ... which are free (as in speech), so there is no need to force people to use either unlicensed copies of proprietary programs or pay a lot of money to be able to use these files. I don't use MS software for my private needs, so the files are worthless to me.
That said, I'm currently working on a script that can automate the process to some extent. There will always be manual work involved, because in some translations sentences are split (maybe I'll try a heuristic method to detect this but it might not the worth the effort). Sometimes even sentences or whole paragraphs are left out. I'll focus on Russian classics for which free or commercial audiobooks are available, and depending on what free translations I find I may create ru/de ru/en, or ru/fr texts. The output will be a clean HTML for reading on the screen plus a stylesheet for printing. Additional PDF versions should be easy to do via LaTeX. I'm still looking for an epub library. Google offers one for Java that I want to check out, even though I would prefer something native with a Python API. This is a long-term project, though. I'll create the texts when I want to use them myself but not beforehand, so I won't make any promises or commitments. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6634 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 5 of 103 27 March 2010 at 1:30pm | IP Logged |
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I used MakeBiLingua to speed up the process.
LeoBilingua is useful, too. MarcoDiAngelo, good job! Your texts have pretty large cells, but making them smaller with the above-mentioned software will be a matter of 10 minutes. I appreciate it! (on a side note, the few parallel texts I made (+a couple borrowed from internet) are available on the website under my nickname. It is just a side note, as they may not be classics.) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5620 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 6 of 103 27 March 2010 at 1:36pm | IP Logged |
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I support Olaf's philosophy in principle but let's just say I DO occassionally make some exceptions from the principle of sticking with open source and I have never completely bought into the idea of copyrighted electronic material. If I had stuck 100% with those principles, my language studies would have been a lot slower. It's for a worthy cause (pursuit of knowledge..) and I am not making any money from it. No sale is lost because I would not have bought these products regardless. (although a fair number i DO buy). I have a strong feeling that many here take the same view.
7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| MarcoDiAngelo Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 6229 days ago 208 posts - 345 votes Speaks: Serbian*, English, Spanish, Russian Studies: Thai, Polish | Message 7 of 103 27 March 2010 at 1:43pm | IP Logged |
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I think this is a great project you started there but nevertheless I must rain on your parade. Using a proprietary file format is contrary to the idea of the site. There are plenty of alternatives: PDF, HTMl, plain text, epub, ... which are free (as in speech), so there is no need to force people to use either unlicensed copies of proprietary programs or pay a lot of money to be able to use these files. I don't use MS software for my private needs, so the files are worthless to me.
OK, this is why I asked for suggestions. :) How about pdf? Will it be better? The texts, however, I must make in Word and only then convert them into pdf. This is a long-term project, though. I'll create the texts when I want to use them myself but not beforehand, so I won't make any promises or commitments. Absolutely. That's the whole idea. Everyone should make the texts for their own benefit. Edited by MarcoDiAngelo on 27 March 2010 at 1:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| MarcoDiAngelo Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 6229 days ago 208 posts - 345 votes Speaks: Serbian*, English, Spanish, Russian Studies: Thai, Polish | Message 8 of 103 27 March 2010 at 2:07pm | IP Logged |
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I must only say that I didn't make the Russian texts - it was siomotteikiru, whose permission I asked and got.
2 persons have voted this message useful |
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