eReaders for language learning

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eReaders for language learning

Postby Sunday » Thu Sep 03, 2020 12:26 pm

I am thinking about getting an eReader to make extensive/intensive reading a bit more effective, ie. looking up unknown words on the fly and eventually build Anki cards out of unknown words and saved sentences.

Is anyone already doing this? any comment on their experience? I am mostly interested in Modern Greek, so another issue might be to have a Greek-English dictionary available for use in the eReader.

Thanks!
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Re: eReaders for language learning

Postby jmar257 » Thu Sep 03, 2020 12:40 pm

I do this. Rather, I use an iPad work gave me to read on the Kindle app (at some point I'll get an actual Kindle). I think it's great and works as a bridge until I can read physical books without a dictionary (or books that cost significantly more for a hard copy), and I like it better than LingQ. I've been using the export feature combined with a Python script to scrape the resulting html file and create Anki flashcards, which I'm still tweaking. I think it's easier if you have an actual Kindle device, then you can use KindleMate.

I can answer any specific questions you have, or ramble more if you want. I didn't want to start this thread out with me rambling :) I also just checked and don't see a Greek dictionary on Kindle, but maybe there's a way to get extra dictionaries or maybe they add them frequently? They already have quite a few.

Edit: I keep thinking of things to add. Kindle authors set limits to what you can export, for example the book I'm reading now sets a limit of 10% (of words, I assume). The last book I read (same author/translator, in the same series, same length) I didn't come close to this highlighting unknown words. I'm highlighting sentences this time, and got to 8% about halfway through the book, so I'm being kind of stingy with highlights now. So something to keep in mind with Kindles, at least. And I'm sure some books have lower limits.

Another Edit: I just learned you can buy Kindle dictionaries and set them as your dictionary. On a whim I googled if you could get a Kindle Latin dictionary, and found out I could just buy a Kindle version of a Latin dictionary (for $2) and now it's in my options as a default dictionary.
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Re: eReaders for language learning

Postby Sunday » Thu Sep 03, 2020 9:13 pm

jmar257 wrote:I do this. Rather, I use an iPad work gave me to read on the Kindle app (at some point I'll get an actual Kindle). I think it's great and works as a bridge until I can read physical books without a dictionary (or books that cost significantly more for a hard copy), and I like it better than LingQ. I've been using the export feature combined with a Python script to scrape the resulting html file and create Anki flashcards, which I'm still tweaking. I think it's easier if you have an actual Kindle device, then you can use KindleMate.

I can answer any specific questions you have, or ramble more if you want. I didn't want to start this thread out with me rambling :) I also just checked and don't see a Greek dictionary on Kindle, but maybe there's a way to get extra dictionaries or maybe they add them frequently? They already have quite a few.

Edit: I keep thinking of things to add. Kindle authors set limits to what you can export, for example the book I'm reading now sets a limit of 10% (of words, I assume). The last book I read (same author/translator, in the same series, same length) I didn't come close to this highlighting unknown words. I'm highlighting sentences this time, and got to 8% about halfway through the book, so I'm being kind of stingy with highlights now. So something to keep in mind with Kindles, at least. And I'm sure some books have lower limits.

Another Edit: I just learned you can buy Kindle dictionaries and set them as your dictionary. On a whim I googled if you could get a Kindle Latin dictionary, and found out I could just buy a Kindle version of a Latin dictionary (for $2) and now it's in my options as a default dictionary.


Thanks for sharing! very interesting the possibility to add dictionaries.. that was probably one the biggest unknown I had on the process.. I don't have more specific questions for the moment but thanks for the offer!
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Re: eReaders for language learning

Postby Adrianslont » Thu Sep 03, 2020 9:57 pm

I use a kindle paperwhite and love it.

The lookup dictionary facility makes reading in French much easier for me. And I just generally love it for reading even though I am not a big reader. It’s easier on the eyes than a phone or iPad.

The dictionary stores the words you look up, their translations and the sentences they come from in a file called vocab.db if I remember correctly. I have read that this file has a limit of maybe two thousand words and then clears out older words - I think that’s right.

I have used a free website called fluentcards.com to turn these word lists into anki decks and have decks for five different books - you can make a deck per book - they don’t get mixed together, though you could do that in anki if you wish.

The last couple of times I have used fluentcards.com it has been a bit glitchy but worked in the end. I don’t know if it’s the time of day or browser or what.

You don’t need to rely on fluentcards, though because you have the vocab.db file and could import that into a spreadsheet. I have never done that ... because fluentcards - but pretty sure it could be done.

I am lucky that kindles come with an installed French dictionary (and a couple of others) so I was good to go - you would need to buy a Greek dictionary from amazon that worked for lookups.
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Re: eReaders for language learning

Postby Gordafarin2 » Fri Sep 04, 2020 9:11 am

So far I haven't found a good eReader setup for my main language (Persian). Hopefully Greek is better supported.

I love e-ink, it's so much nicer on the eyes. 80% of my day I'm either looking at the computer screen for work or the phone/computer/tv screen for leisure, my eyes need a break... I already have a Paperwhite that I use a lot, and just a few weeks ago I bought an e-ink tablet, an Onyx Book Poke 2. It runs Android 9, so you can give it access to the Google Play store or sideload just about any app (providing it works OK with the low refresh rate of the screen). So I've installed AnkiDroid on it, and it even has Bluetooth so I can listen to audio cards.

And I'm using ReadLang in a web browser for reading. It's not as seamless as a native reader/dictionary, since it takes some extra seconds for each thing to load, but other than that it's working pretty well. And it is less painful than making sure every file I use has the right encoding, trying to use a dictionary that can't handle verb conjugations, etc.
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Re: eReaders for language learning

Postby devilyoudont » Sat Sep 05, 2020 12:09 am

Is it possible to have multiple google accounts go to a paperwhite? I think I would need to have an account for amazon.com and amazon.jp in order to hit Japanese, Spanish, Esperanto...(and anything I might want to read in English)
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Re: eReaders for language learning

Postby Nogon » Sat Sep 05, 2020 2:41 pm

devilyoudont wrote:Is it possible to have multiple google accounts go to a paperwhite? I think I would need to have an account for amazon.com and amazon.jp in order to hit Japanese, Spanish, Esperanto...(and anything I might want to read in English)


Before buying a Paperwhite, do check first, whether you are allowed to buy e-books from other areas than that you live in!
I live in Sweden, and I can't order e-books from German Amazon. (I don't know about British or US-Amazon, as I don't have an account there.)
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Re: eReaders for language learning

Postby Maiwenn » Sat Sep 05, 2020 3:21 pm

Nogon wrote:
devilyoudont wrote:Is it possible to have multiple google accounts go to a paperwhite? I think I would need to have an account for amazon.com and amazon.jp in order to hit Japanese, Spanish, Esperanto...(and anything I might want to read in English)


Before buying a Paperwhite, do check first, whether you are allowed to buy e-books from other areas than that you live in!
I live in Sweden, and I can't order e-books from German Amazon. (I don't know about British or US-Amazon, as I don't have an account there.)


I have a US and a French amazon account. I use the same email address for both. Because the US one was established first, I can't buy any digital content through the French account (even with French cards). I could create a brand new French account with a different email address if I wanted to buy titles from the French site, but from what I can tell the kindle only accepts one amazon account at a time.
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Re: eReaders for language learning

Postby Sayonaroo » Sat Sep 05, 2020 11:45 pm

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Re: eReaders for language learning

Postby Xenops » Sun Sep 13, 2020 9:58 pm

Sayonaroo wrote:yes i do, i have 2 kindles. one for japanese and one for english. i use an android e-reader called likebook for korean because the korean dictionary does not work on the kindle.


Man, that is...Disheartening. :(

Do people have experience with non-Latin writing systems on other ereaders? Ogrim mentioned reMarkables on his blog, and Serpent mentioned the Onyx brand. Anyone tried Kobo or Nook? Are those as picky about accounts/files as Kindles?
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