Launched this week
LangRead
Read books, learn languages one word at a time
86 followers
Read books, learn languages one word at a time
86 followers
LangRead is a web app that gradually swaps words in your book with your target language, letting you learn as you read. Accept each word, see translations and definitions, and track your progress. Works with PDF, EPUB and Kindle formats.
LangRead
Hey everyone!
I built Langread because I just hated how Duolingo helps (no) people learn langauges.
In Langread you can upload a book that you like (in your native language) or just a new book you want to read, The app will gradually swap the words from native language with words from your target language you want to learn.
The idea is that, the further you go into the book, the more words in the new language you will meet, and eventually you will be able to read in the language you wanted to learn.
As well you can:
See translations and hear pronunciations of the words you learn;
Select manually words you are interested to learn
Repeat words using spaced repetition and active recall;
Repetition through typing one learned word time to time directly in the book;
Upload any PDF, EPUB, azw3 (kindle format) (Limit 4.5 MB now, working on it);
Track your progress;
Dark/light/sepia themes.
Features ideas:
Adaptive Grammar lessons based on the grammar used in the book, meaning if a new rule you dont know appeared on your current page, you will get a small grammar lesson with example from the page you are reading;
For example if he saw that you learned the word “book” and now getting “books” he can explain to you how plural words work in English
Optimize app;
Add pronunciations of words (as in typical school books)
Add a new type of pronunciation, where the pronunciation is not written with weird characters nobody understands, but using the language you already speak
French -> using English pronunciations
Bonjour → bon-zhoor (hello)
Merci → mehr-see (thank you)
Croissant → kwah-sahn (croissant)
Add possibility to import from Kindle (if possible);
Add payment system;
Optimize mobile version;
AI explaining/answering questions about paragraphs you select, for more details or explain meaning of a sentence;
Flashcards for words you learn;
Make app available offline;
In case you had time off from the book, talk to book to question what happened before page X;
Sentence translations when more words are already learned.
It’s still an MVP I’d love your feedback: Any features I’m missing? does this technique work for you? Any feedback is welcomed, this is my first launch on ProductHunt!
Vladimir, I am a huge fan of learning foreign languages. What languages are going to be supported next?
Any plans to support, e.g. native language to another language (my native language is Slovak, so I reckon that the level of understanding could be better when I started from Slovak –> German instead of English –> German).
LangRead
@busmark_w_nika Yep! In the long run I plan to add more and more languages, Slovak and German will be on my list ;)
@vladimir_stojoc Good to hear that! :)
Interesting approach! I can really relate to your motivation — Duolingo can be a bit annoying sometimes.
By the way, I have a question: considering the various grammatical structures across different languages, do you find that changing words is more effective than changing sentences? If you have any research or references on this, I’d love to see it!
LangRead
@seunggon_kim Hi! Thank you for your comment!
I as well stumbled upon this problem of having different grammatical structures across different languages. Honestly didn't look for a paper or research that would confirm my theory, but I do have my experience. I am from a country named Moldova, where majority of people know 2 languages Romanian and Russian, and a big majority of young and active adults know english as well, and seeing a sentence where there are words from 2 or even 3 languages it's considered something normal, all people I talk to all speak like that :D
My idea was, initially people will learn words, because in my country using nouns from other languages in a sentence from other language is considered normal, and then, when somebody knows a good % of words, the app will start translate sentences, where the grammar will be already correct, the one from target language, still idea in process.
But your point is very good and I think I indeed should look into papers or maybe do some research of mine, thank you!
@vladimir_stojoc Thanks for sharing your experience!
That’s really interesting to hear about how language mixing is so common in Moldova. It actually makes a lot of sense for your approach. I agree that starting with words could be a natural bridge to sentences, especially when grammar structures are quite different.
I’m looking forward to seeing how your idea develops, and I think research based on your concept could be fascinating 🙌
LangRead
@seunggon_kim Thank you for your support!