Most of you actually don't get it, so I will try to explain it without this marketing-ish language which I used on the landing page - obviously not very well.
Consider you already know English well enough to consume your favorite shows in the language. We all do this to maintain our knowledge, improve our understanding or pronunciation by listening, or just to hear the show in its original language.
Imagine you hear words and expressions, even full, shorter sentences which you don't understand. It doesn't really matter, because you understand the story as a whole, but you obviously miss an opportunity to learn new words. This is the moment when you can pick up your phone and press the bookmark icon next to the subtitle line, to get back to it later. That was scenario (use-case) A.
Or, you might not understand longer sentences, even complete dialogues for a few seconds. This is when you can use the app to see the translations for that actual part of the movie. That was scenario (use-case) B.
The app promises that it "helps you understand your show better and allows you to quickly save expressions you want to remember". It don't want you to learn a new language. Actually, it assumes that you know the language well enough to watch a movie in it.
It wants to help you to learn new words. Do you know why you don't learn new words easily after you reach a specific knowledge level? Because there are less and less of them, and you don't hear them again and again, and you don't recall them. This is how you learn new words in school when you start a foreign language.
So I started to build this app for myself to be able to grab new words out of kontext (do you see what I did here?), and re-read them later again until I finally learn them.
I've been doing this on a Note file on my iPhone. While watching movies, I took down notes about sentences, words or even expressions I didn't really fully understand (even though not grokking those didn't really compromise my understanding of the plot).
I've used it with an episode of "This is Us" (to Arabic, which I'm currently studying) and it works perfectly well.
Suggestions:
1. Please make it possible to review the original and the translation side by side (i.e. an "overview" button).
2. Also, don't block the UI when pausing. I.e. make it possible to scroll back & forth.
3. Allow controlling speed.
* I know it's suppose to be synchronized with what's playing at the same time, but it's needed when you can't read fast enough. Might need to provide a way to catch-up and jump to the current position automatically (keeping running time while in paused mode) .
4. Maybe consider allowing a users to submit (quality) translations (could be hosted elsewhere, if there's a legal problem). Lot's of really good stuff is not always available online (or not easily discoverable).
For example, was trying to watch "L'insult" (Lebanese) for which I know there are couple of (horrible) translations online, but Kontext was not able to find them.
5. Allow downloading a single merged file (original language + transaltion), if possible, for local viewing by users who download their own shows/movies.
Great job! Looking forward to see how it progresses.
Translation review is available in e-mail which we send out at the end of the movie. It's just temporary however, there will be an in-app solution for that.
I will consider your suggestions, thank you for them!
I learned spoken english by purely watching english movies & tv shows, initially with subtitles & re-watching again until I hear & understand all dialogues, & later other movies without subs.
Later, I started working with some British co-workers & socializing also, & developed a British accent. I am Indian/Punjabi by birth & hav spent most of my life in India only.
Thank you! I have to do serious improvements on the landing page, so I will also check its language to be beginner-friendly. Or I don't know, maybe I should even translate it...
It's a cool idea, but unfortunately subtitles are notoriously inaccurate. Even in normal translations, you lose context and meaning due to cultural and structural differences in the language whose intents are difficult or even impossible to preserve. Add in the space and time constraints of subtitles, and you're basically forced to provide a bad translation of what's actually happening. This is especially true for poetry, lyrics, and jokes. And that's of course assuming that the translator is any good at it, or hasn't inserted politically motivated inaccuracies (most commonly with sexuality for translations to English). I've seen some HORRIBLY inaccurate subtitles and dubs, even by professionals (cough Akira cough), even to the point where the "translation" is a complete fabrication in some places.
Movies with subtitles are a nice aide, but to properly learn a language, you must learn it IN the language, WITH the attached culture.
Thank you! I don't agree. I tested it heavily, and if the sync is correct, most of the time it actually seems to be one of the best way to understand complicated expressions.
Thoughts on subtitles also in the language you're learning? My sense is that this helps with my comprehension, but it may also be a crutch.
Unfortunately, they're no help on Netflix, because they apparently farmed dubbing and subtitles out to two different teams that came up with independent translations.
That's a popular beginner complaint on /r/learnspanish, where I try to help people, but it's a weird fixation.
Deviating every once in a while from 1:1 dub:sub matchup is not even close to an obstacle to language learning. In fact, if anything, you hear and read two different ways to express the same thing at once.
If you depend on 1:1 matchup, I'm not sure you were consuming either dubs nor subs in a way that's all that productive to language learning. Consider relaxing and getting used to fuzzier comprehension which is necessary for transcending to conversational speed+slang.
Also, I recommend graduating to reading books ASAP to avoid languishing in the limbo of Netflix for language learning.
The ones I've tried aren't deviating every once in a while; they're using completely different translations.
I find that challenging because I've focused on reading for so long that I'm severely under-developed on my understanding of vernacular, spoken language. The upshot of that being, if the subtitles and audio differ significantly, my brain handles it about the same way as if I'm watching with English subtitles: The ears get disconnected from the brain, and I default to reading without really listening.
I don’t think it’s just that they contracted subtitles and dubbing to different teams. The requirements are different.
This is particularly true in Japanese, the space constraints on speech and normal modes of expression are very different.
The original English, literal meaning of the Japanese audio, and Japanese subtitles all differ significantly.
Comparing the English subtitles and Japanese doesn’t work very well for language study. Mostly you just have to look each Japanese word you don’t know up in a dictionary...
To anyone who may be discouraged using subtitles, for most Romance languages, subtitles for native rate speech allow you a fighting chance of a general understanding of what was said, even if they are not word-for-word. Without subtitles, if you are like me, you are still frustrated in your ability to figure out what exactly was said. I've heard that focusing on pronunciation first helps a lot, and I may need to go back to learning the IPA for real.
I can't get it to load and the "about" isn't terribly informative, but (I think) I made a proof of concept of a similar thing. Mine is an offline video player that shows dual language subtitles. It has modes for skipping non-dialog sections, repeating the same dialog section, and slowing down playback.
What killed it, though, was a near impossibility of finding a movie that wasn't edited differently in each language (causing at least one of the audio track or language tracks to be out of sync or otherwise unmergeable). Maybe that was just an issue with Mandarin and other languages have better availability, but for me it ended up just being an endless swamp of comparing subtitle files to see if they were different, screwing around with time offsets, and eventually giving up. The player itself worked, albeit with a terrible UI, I just couldn't find more than a handful (OK, actually only one: Lost in Thailand) movies + dual sets of matching subtitle tracks to use it with.
If anybody has a solution to this I'd love to be able to use it again and even willing to post a cleaned up version if there is interest.
I also had vague thoughts of looking at the youtube API to see if there's a solution there for videos that already have multiple subtitle languages, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
Most of the information is on the landing page now. Congratulations for your app, but no, mine is not for that. Please read my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17627899
From the error message, it seems that it really didn't load, Inanek2 had different problem (I think).
That "captcha" part in the request to OpenSubtitles.org is strange, I will ask them about it. You should try it later, maybe it is some sort of rate-limiting as a lot of people started using the app after I posted on HN.
1) it used VLC, called from the command line. arrow keys, space bar and a few letter keys for mode and navigation.
2) I downloaded from various places. If you can post a link I'll check it out, but based on past experience the subtitles for one market only match that release of that market's movie, and go out of sync with any foreign release. For example, if you have a Chinese movie with English subtitles it was probably edited for release in an English speaking market and won't match any Chinese subtitles you might find since they would go with the Chinese release.
I guess it's broken? I picked Chinese, then Shutter Island, then at the "Start the movie now, then press start here." prompt the play button didn't do anything.
As someone who learned English purely from Hollywood movies, I can confirm its a solid way to learn a language. I even picked up the accent to the extent that I'm frequently asked if I'm American - even though I never lived in an English-speaking country.
It may not be for everyone though. The only reason why it worked for me is because I've seen so many US movies and TV shows. I started with subtitles and gradually moved to watching without them (though I had lots of difficulties understanding everything, especially in the beginning). I'd argue its a great way to learn the little language 'quirks', expressions, idioms, etc.
Hard to say really, as I didn't exactly start with the intention of learning the language, I just liked the movies. If I had to guess, I'd say probably a couple of years to get to a fluent, above-average level.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure how useful it would be for language learning. I've been using the Fluent Forever approach and whenever I've dipped back into "translation" style methods like Duolingo it feels counterproductive, like I'm tying English words to Spanish words rather than creating a direct connection between the Spanish word and the object or concept that it represents.
I like the idea of subtitles in your target language while watching a show or movie in your target language but that's usually available without third party help.
The app is helpful if you want to quickly save expressions you want to remember later while you are watching the movie and you don't want to distract yourself.
I would probably stick to Anki, I'm a little suss about the app. The website is https://fluent-forever.com and the book outlines a method for using Anki to learn languages. The approach is to start with pronunciation first, then work on phonics, then vocabulary, then grammar rather than learning a bunch of canned sentences.
The book mentions moving on to movies and tv shows when you have a decent grasp of grammar and know the ~800 most common words in your target language. I have a trip to Spain coming up and my plan is to spend the last two weeks before I go watching movies and reading/listening to audiobooks in Spanish. (Listening so I can follow along while reading.)
I'm very happy with my progress so far after having little luck with Rosetta Stone and Duolingo.
The UX doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. It’s totally separate from the movie itself, I have to click any one line to see a translation (which doesn’t mean I’d want to “save it), clicking a line doesn’t pause the actual movie which I had to start elsewhere... I’m failing to see how this is an effective language teaching tool.
I think there’s something there in leveraging movies/tv to teach language, as well as leveraging the existing subtitles. But it probably would need a deeper understanding of the languages themselves... for example being able to even map a given word to the translation versus an entire sentence (and perhaps being able to expand further).
That said, one of my best friends growing up learned English at age 11 by watching American TV. She was from Poland, and had no formal teaching. Several years later not only did she know English fluently, she has a perfect American accent. It helps that she was young and motivated (and really smart).
I'd rather just watch content with proper subtitles in the language I'm trying to learn. Say I'm learning German, I could either watch some original movie in German with English subtitles, or watch an English movie with German subtitles. This problem seems already solved.
Cool stuff, I've had similar ideas but can never figure out the best approach to go about it. Just coming up with an approach that makes some kind of sense is an achievement in itself!
How do you go about syncing the subtitles? For huge films it's generally not a bother as the top subtitles will often be from the same source (and therefore follow similar formatting rules, if nothing else) but you can get pretty wide deviations when you get down to things with fewer subtitle options available.
Thank you! Yes, actually it is the 3rd iteration on the implementation of the idea.
Handpicked movies are subtitle pairs which were selected carefully to be in sync (both of them are webrip/webdl/nf). The sync itself is done by simple intersection, and the user can delay the subtitles to each other by an offset value (available clicking on the cog icon). It can help fixing the differences like the first subtitle file includes the intro/theme song, but the second doesn't. If the cut is totally different, it just won't work. It can be avoided by following the hints for choosing the subtitles which are available on the search page.
Also there is an interesting idea which I will consider in the future: it is possible to search on OpenSubtitles.org by fingerprint. Those who are watching something download from torrent, could search basically by the movie file itself, and they will get a list of subtitles which will match perfectly.
I like the approach - might try it out - even i need to look at two screens at the same time ;)
Maybe consider to have the app in a pop-out window, which I could overlay on my Netflix browser tab?
One thing I noticed, Query Strings contain the SRT filename, indicating the content could come from an unofficial, pirated source, such as "Se7en.1995.REMASTERED.1080p.BluRay.6CH.ShAaNiG.srt" ...
Yes, the subtitle files coming from OpenSubtitles.org, they have unofficial and official subtitles too. If you use the search in the app, you can select the subtitles you want.
I guess you start the movie on Netflix and mute it, and then read the subtitles taken from 'Open Subtitles DB' The UI using a list is a bit jarring, I would prefer a smooth scoll, like a very large page scolling down, not a listbox populating.
"Find more movies in German" button not working as expected, takes you to a screen where you have to choose your language.
Thank you for your honest opinion about the UI. I'm experimenting with it, I will try out what you advised.
Find more movies in... buttons just continue to the search page, and it has this one-time native language selector page before that. From the landing page you can only see the handpicked subtitles, but you can also search for any movie in the app itself (on the search page).
It's a pretty cool idea I think and is a great adjunct to traditional language learning. Maybe there could be an API so that open-source media players would be able to show the text on the screen together with the video. Hope you make it.
Wasn't able to figure out how it works. I guess you start the subtitles at the same time as the show/movie? --Not sure how I could possibly learn this way. I cant read Japanese, so what good is seeing Japanese subtitles?
I find it hilarious to put on a cheesy American comedy that I’ve seen before on the TV in a foreign language. I wouldn’t watch it actively but it’s something nice to have on while I clean up or do dishes.
I have a python script that will convert chinese character .srt files to pinyin. It's not perfect (sometimes doesn't recognize word boundaries correctly and puts spaces in the wrong spots). But it's good enough for me to tolerate watching a movie with the output. Send me an email (in my profile) if you want it.
Consider you already know English well enough to consume your favorite shows in the language. We all do this to maintain our knowledge, improve our understanding or pronunciation by listening, or just to hear the show in its original language.
Imagine you hear words and expressions, even full, shorter sentences which you don't understand. It doesn't really matter, because you understand the story as a whole, but you obviously miss an opportunity to learn new words. This is the moment when you can pick up your phone and press the bookmark icon next to the subtitle line, to get back to it later. That was scenario (use-case) A.
Or, you might not understand longer sentences, even complete dialogues for a few seconds. This is when you can use the app to see the translations for that actual part of the movie. That was scenario (use-case) B.
The app promises that it "helps you understand your show better and allows you to quickly save expressions you want to remember". It don't want you to learn a new language. Actually, it assumes that you know the language well enough to watch a movie in it.
It wants to help you to learn new words. Do you know why you don't learn new words easily after you reach a specific knowledge level? Because there are less and less of them, and you don't hear them again and again, and you don't recall them. This is how you learn new words in school when you start a foreign language.
So I started to build this app for myself to be able to grab new words out of kontext (do you see what I did here?), and re-read them later again until I finally learn them.