←back to thread

Show HN: Duolingo-style exercises but with real-world content like the news

(app.fluentsubs.com)
456 points ph4evers | 3 comments | 01 Apr 25 05:46 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

I've been working on a little side project that combines Duolingo-like listening comprehension exercises with real content .

Every video is transcribed to get much better transcripts than the closed captions. I filter on high quality transcripts, and afterwards a LLM selects only plausible segments for the exercises. This seems to work well for quality control and seems to be reliable enough for these short exercises.

Would love your thoughts!

1. nougati ◴[01 Apr 25 07:30 UTC] No.43543859[source]▶
As a resident Duolingo apologist this is certainly awesome! I appreciate how little landing-page fluff there was before I could give it a shot. I tried Japanese and felt it was only reasonable in tandem with my in-built translation extension, since Kanji-reading knowledge itself is a major hurdle of learning. Furigana would really help this, but personally, being able to translate the words I pick helps a lot during the challenge of hearing new vocabulary in native Japanese.

As well, I am learning multiple languages, and noticed that the settings panel seems to be the way to switch between them. I think it's a little unnatural to force a user to do this, but if there's an intention for bookmarking languages of interest for separate collections of videos & transcription exercises I can say I'd be happy to pay, honestly. The pricing itself seems reasonable and I appreciate that I can feel the app out for free.

Interesting project!

replies(1): >>43544217 #
2. ph4evers ◴[01 Apr 25 08:29 UTC] No.43544217[source]▶
Thank you! And great suggestions!

I focussed first on European languages as I'm learning French. But I'll put some more effort in improving the Japanese experience since it seems to be very popular.

> but if there's an intention for bookmarking languages of interest for separate collections of videos & transcription exercises I can say I'd be happy to pay, honestly.

Would a language selection box at the top be enough? Or do you mean a more elaborate way to switch between languages?

replies(1): >>43544543 #
3. nougati ◴[01 Apr 25 09:15 UTC] No.43544543[source]▶
For me, the main interest would be to switch the interface for one language to another in ideally 1-2 clicks; so if there was an interface element that captured the languages I was 'working on' that would be neat. Then I'd be happy to peruse the full list whenever curiosity spikes.

Otherwise, great work on a good use of existing technologies to provide meaningful educational benefit for yourself and others!