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Show HN: Learn Spanish quickly while reading

donquixote.fun

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Re: Show HN: Learn Spanish quickly while reading

#31

Post by vinay427 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #23
vinay427 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German would definitely be problematic but it's still likely to be one of the least affected, especially in the English -> German direction, and nearly every word would at least has a clear translation. Virtually any sentence in an SOV (or less common, OSV) language would be essentially unworkable while maintaining word order.

German SV2O is still very jarring to me as a language learner; I just can‘t get used to looking forward in the sentence to decipher the verb, as compared to English.

Definitely, as a fellow German learner. The "flexibility" or unpredictability of word order, largely due to the greater inflection based on grammatical case, makes it much more challenging unless one is a native speaker who can probably more intuitively decipher the roles of each word.

Re: Show HN: Learn Spanish quickly while reading

#32

Post by animal531 »

I always thought this a great way to learn a language (from reading fiction such as Shogun where you're introduced to a lot of words from another language).

I imagine another way to do it would be to go more slowly. Start in all English and then transition to the target language so that the reader never has to press anything or re-read parts, so that by the end of the book it is all in the target language.

Re: Show HN: Learn Spanish quickly while reading

#33

Post by ivanmaeder »

Phillip98798 wrote: post #15
feiss wrote: post #13

This is great, amazing idea! However, I don't understand why you chose don quixote. That's not modern, normal, everyday prose, it was written 400 years ago.. any spanish kid would have trouble understanding it. Any other modern (less than 100 years) and famous novel would be much adequate for learning spanish.

I agree it’s not very prosaic. I guess it has marketing value being a notorious story. Hopefully I can wrap it up and do a more modern novel. Any suggestions?

100 Years of Solitude?

Re: Show HN: Learn Spanish quickly while reading

#35

Post by Andrew_W »

This is awesome! Good job on it :) Wish you had a mailing list signup - I don't want to forget about this!

I took a one month Spanish class in Mexico a few years ago. It was amazing for giving me a solid base, and your tool would be perfect for getting regular practice in and learning new things.

Definitely agree with the other comments that a more modern book would be better. For me, probably a children's book haha. I can't imagine how much time it takes to translate though!

Idea:

- Create a list of a few books you could translate.

- Allow users to donate and select the book it would go towards.

- When donations reach the threshold, they're charged and you write it.

Like Kickstarter for book translations haha. Or maybe Patreon or something has that feature.

Re: Show HN: Learn Spanish quickly while reading

#36

Post by herbst »

vinay427 wrote: post #31
bobthepanda wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German SV2O is still very jarring to me as a language learner; I just can‘t get used to looking forward in the sentence to decipher the verb, as compared to English.

Definitely, as a fellow German learner. The "flexibility" or unpredictability of word order, largely due to the greater inflection based on grammatical case, makes it much more challenging unless one is a native speaker who can probably more intuitively decipher the roles of each word.

Also one sentence order might sound right in the one region and totally awkward in another. As a native speaker its mainly intuitive

Re: Show HN: Learn Spanish quickly while reading

#38

Post by Andrew_W »

Andrew_W wrote: post #35

This is awesome! Good job on it :) Wish you had a mailing list signup - I don't want to forget about this! I took a one month Spanish class in Mexico a few years ago. It was amazing for giving me a solid base, and your tool would be perfect for getting regular practice in and learning new things. Definitely agree with the other comments that a more modern book would be better. For me, probably a children's book haha.…

I also took a peak at your code and saw the manifest. This would be a pretty awesome PWA :)

I hope you keep at it!

Re: Show HN: Learn Spanish quickly while reading

#39

Post by sweetheart »

Hahha wow! This is so funny, I was going to be posting my Show HN today which is a platform for teaching Spanish through reading, and I saw this! You beat me to it for today, I think.

I'm so glad to see there are other folks interested in teaching Spanish through input. Would you have any interest in exchanging info to talk about what we are each doing? I bet we could both learn from each other! My email is in my profile, in case you're down :)

Anyway, congrats on the launch, and the best of luck to you!

Re: Show HN: Learn Spanish quickly while reading

#40

Post by anemoiac »

ivanmaeder wrote: post #33
Phillip98798 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it’s not very prosaic. I guess it has marketing value being a notorious story. Hopefully I can wrap it up and do a more modern novel. Any suggestions?

100 Years of Solitude?

This is what we used for reading & translating long passages in my American high school’s Spanish 5/AP Spanish course. I don’t have much to compare it to, but it seemed like a good choice at the time.
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