Language tools

[tommus]

The requirement to come up with yet one more password and login just to try something I might not want drove me away right quick. No offense.

I totally agree.
The WordBrewery website is all gloss and no apparent content. I had to look hard to find "WordBrewery immerses you in 17 languages". Wouldn't it be common sense to list those 17 languages "before" you have to register. It may be good. I may never know.

[Cainntear]

I took the bait and signed up. It let me into a page which was somewhat confusing and didn't seem to do what the instructions said, and then when I tried to click through to something else it hit me with a splash screen trying to sell a subscription. Well no... I'm not going to pay anything until I've actually seen it in action.

Here's what the splash screen says is available in the free version:
20 languages
30 sentences each month in Explore Mode
1 list per language
50 words per list
50 sentences per list
Computer synthesized voices (15 languages, one default voice per language)
Microsoft translations
Beginner level
No topics

And $49/year or $4.99/month will get you
20 languages
500 sentences each month in Explore Mode
5 lists per language
500 words per list
100 sentences per list
Computer synthesized voices (15 languages, from 1 to 7 different voices per per language; native audio (part of the sentences))
Google and Microsoft translations
Four levels from Beginner to Master
Five topics
Export to Anki

Anyway, I've now got myself back to the main screen, and I'm looking at a random Portuguese sentence, and despite their obvious dig at Duolingo over meaningless sentences, this sentence is pretty thin on substance. "A vida era dele." A pithy meaningless platitude on its own -- maybe it was a work of art in it's context.
I'm then allowed to click on words and it brings up a definition and another example of each. At the moment I've got "A dele e a dos outros." which isn't even a sentence, never mind a meaningful one. The Bing translation for it is "His and the other." which makes absolutely no sense, and Google (which according to the subscriptions page I shouldn't even have access to) comes back with "His and others'."

This is on beginner setting, incidentally. As someone with several Romance languages under my belt, I kind of get what they're hinting at, but if I was a true beginner I'd be totally lost.

...and on that note, I clicked on Arabic, and tried to imagine I didn't know that it's written right-to-left. Not that I needed to. With no explanation of the script and no way to get it to read out a single word without then reading out the whole of the next example sentence, I'm not going to get anything out of it.

[Xenops]

Here's what the splash screen says is available in the free version:
20 languages
30 sentences each month in Explore Mode
1 list per language
50 words per list
50 sentences per list
Computer synthesized voices (15 languages, one default voice per language)
Microsoft translations
Beginner level
No topics

Doesn't Duolingo and Google Translate do that for free already?

[aokoye]

I took the bait and signed up. It let me into a page which was somewhat confusing and didn't seem to do what the instructions said, and then when I tried to click through to something else it hit me with a splash screen trying to sell a subscription. Well no... I'm not going to pay anything until I've actually seen it in action.

Here's what the splash screen says is available in the free version:
20 languages
30 sentences each month in Explore Mode
1 list per language
50 words per list
50 sentences per list
Computer synthesized voices (15 languages, one default voice per language)
Microsoft translations
Beginner level
No topics

And $49/year or $4.99/month will get you
20 languages
500 sentences each month in Explore Mode
5 lists per language
500 words per list
100 sentences per list
Computer synthesized voices (15 languages, from 1 to 7 different voices per per language; native audio (part of the sentences))
Google and Microsoft translations
Four levels from Beginner to Master
Five topics
Export to Anki

Yeah once I saw no way around creating account I backed out rather quickly (or rather - by pressing the X in the tab).

[reineke]

Subs2SRS and a few other things

EMK's intro:

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=723#p1121

EMK's log (with examples)
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=723

Useful links

Technology:
Subs2srs tutorial
Subtitle edit tutorial
Spanish subtitles for use with subs2srs
Making the audio on each card longer (for more advanced learners)
Using LF Aligner and Aglona Reader to make parallel Android ebooks (because books have their own vocabulary)

Progress reports:
Watching TV after 5 or 6 hours of reviewing cards
Trying to read the graphic novel Blacksad after 29 days
30 days, 10 hours of Anki reviews!
Extensive watching after almost 60 days (watching 6 new episodes)

Learning with subtitled movies
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 26#p154964

[micksmi]

Could I suggest for the Parallel Texts section:

http://sublearning.com - Flash card language learning site using movie subtitles in 62 languages.

[tommus]

Could I suggest for the Parallel Texts section:
http://sublearning.com - Flash card language learning site using movie subtitles in 62 languages.

This site has a lot of potential, especially for colloquial speech. However, I think the user has to already possess a significant ability in the target language because the parallel translation is often not a very accurate translation, and often far from literal. I think this is to be expected in subtitles in general. I have only done a small bit of looking at the Dutch-English offerings on that site, and the translators seem to have used a lot of poetic licence. Here is one example:

Ik heb niks meer over, verdomme. (which means "I have nothing left, damn it"

However, the site provides this translation: "I got no brother, no roots, no life.". Rather different.

But again, that being said, there are very many colloquial expressions that would be very difficult to find elsewhere.

[reineke]

Speechling

Practice English, French Spanish and Chinese.

SRS, sentence-based approach. Pronunciation coaching.

"Real high quality voice actors for both genders
Daily feedback on your pronunciation from real people
Side by side playback of your voice and the native voice, straight from our web platform. "

https://speechling.com/

Lingvist is "an adaptive language-learning platform."

https://lingvist.com/

Reviews

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =19&t=2771

Bliu Bliu

https://bliubliu.com/en/

How it works:
http://blog.bliubliu.com/what-is-bliu-bliu/

[reineke]

Youtube charts by country

https://socialblade.com