
Show HN: Bilinual books – books in two languages for language learners - SpongeAlice
Bilinual helps you improve your language skill by providing books that are annotated with translation hints. Bilinual doesn&#x27;t translate books, but annotates them with translation and language hints. While you should <i>not</i> rely on the translations as a full text, if you don&#x27;t know the meaning of a word, the hints hopefully provide you a clue to guess the right translation without checking a dictionary.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bilinual.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bilinual.com</a><p>+ I disabled the online annotation features so that the web site can serve more visitors. Please subscribe to the mailing list if you are interested.
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kseistrup
Perhaps I picked an unfortunate example, but the en-sv version of Moby Dick is
beyond hopeless. E.g., ‘translation’ of the word “fare” in the sentence “So
fare thee well” is “passageraravgift“. While I can see the connection between
“fare” and “passageraravgift“ (literally: passenger fee), it is not going to
help anybody get through Moby Dick in a meaningful way.

Other funnies:

    
    
        be → beryllium
        entertaining → ha som gäst
        sub → sandwich
        making → kissa
        coming → få orgasm
    

And that's just on page 4…

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

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SpongeAlice
Thanks for trying the website. I have to admit that the ML algorithm needs
much more improvement.

How would you like the idea? If the words are checked by a native speaker
first, is this something that you would seriously consider using and paying
for?

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kseistrup
I we for a moment imagine that the translations were perfect, I might consider
using it — or I mightn't. The competition is tough: I can get a load of
contemporary ebooks for the kindle on Amazon, and the sweet thing about the
kindle is that is has this “long-press for dictionary lookup” feature.
However, this would soon become tedious if I was a total beginner in a
language. In such a scenario your concept might be sweeter. But it rises and
falls with the quality on the translation.

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SpongeAlice
Thanks for your feedback.

