Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Language Learning with Netflix extension

soranews24.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 146 posts

Re: Language Learning with Netflix extension

#81

Post by learnstats2 »

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #80
skrebbel wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still can't get my head around how user hostile they made this. I mean, why? I understand showing the most likely languages on top, but why hide content that's available? I have bilingual kids (Dutch and Danish, living in NL) and the amount of setup we have to do each week to get and keep Danish audio for cartoons on Netflix is pretty nuts.

I don’t think it is malicious - many people are overwhelmed when presented with more then a few choices, they are catering to that crowd.

If (say) I specifically want Danish subtitles, Netflix already knows that I use them, and I know they exist, that option is available to me nowhere.

Re: Language Learning with Netflix extension

#83

Post by davidzweig »

Hi. Creator here. If someone from Netflix is reading this, we'd like to be in contact (email in profile).

Hell, here's my 15 minutes. I'd be interested in a job with electronics/software/mech engineering (ideally all three) in the US/EU/Australia (I can work in these countries). Some info about me on this post from earlier in the year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18809704

Re: Language Learning with Netflix extension

#84

Post by sbr464 »

skrebbel wrote: post #25
ouchjars wrote: post #18

Related tip if you won't/can't use this extension: Netflix shows normally have many more subtitles available than you get shown (and sometimes audio tracks). The selection you see depends on your interface language and locale. For example, I can't use Spanish subtitles for one show ( https://i.imgur.com/BBWuuPs.png ) until I change my interface language to Spanish ( https://i.imgur.com/bsyYJGR.png ).

I still can't get my head around how user hostile they made this. I mean, why? I understand showing the most likely languages on top, but why hide content that's available? I have bilingual kids (Dutch and Danish, living in NL) and the amount of setup we have to do each week to get and keep Danish audio for cartoons on Netflix is pretty nuts.

I’ve traveled around the world and have seen how insane the differences are with Netflix experiences. It’s interesting though, you can almost see how they struggle with licensing issues mainly, while from a consumer’s perspective it seems like issues with their competency or offering. You get lucky sometimes, like catching Better Call Saul 2 weeks earlier in Malaysia randomly, than the US release.

Re: Language Learning with Netflix extension

#85

Post by vaskebjorn »

personlurking wrote: post #79
vaskebjorn wrote: post #21

Also check out the lingq exporter [1] which works with Youtube as well. Does something similar but also allows you to keep an inventory of your current vocabulary on the lingq platform. I'm a huge fan. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lingq-importer/eaa...

I looked into Lingq, watched a few short videos on it, and saw an interview with the founder, but I'm still not sure I get it. The site is mainly a text-based vocabulary acquisition tool, right?

Yes it is very far from intuitive (as a developer I can tell when uis are designed solely by developers).

The way I think of it is this: you do all of your foreign language reading through the app. Lingq keeps track of which words you have seen: when a new one comes up it's highlighted in blue, when you define the word (mostly automatic) it turns yellow. Once you mark a word as known it is no longer highlighted.

There are SRS features built in, but I ignore them and just add words to anki when I feel like I need to.

If you love reading it's a really great way to get language exposure. Since looking up word definitions only requires a tap or click it enables you to read above your level (like reading with training wheels on). And just seeing a word over and over again in different contexts is a much better way to learn than hammering away at flash cards. The import from netflix/youtube stuff as I mentioned is great as well.

I also upload all of my own material (mostly ebooks) and ignore a lot of stuff they have there.

Re: Language Learning with Netflix extension

#86

Post by walterkrankheit »

I guess this is most useful if you don't live in the country you want to learn the language for. Native English speaker living in Germany here who speaks fluent German, but still lives most of his life in English. Movies are a good way to keep up language practice, but there's no way I'd want to dub "Marriage Story" or whatever in German. There are plenty of German films on Netflix which I can simply watch with CC German subs, if needed. At any rate, it's still a cool idea, particularly if you lived in, say, Spain, but wanted to see German subtitles.

Re: Language Learning with Netflix extension

#88

Post by gryson »

yorwba wrote: post #77
Grue3 wrote: post #71

I can see several problems with this. 1. Japanese subtitles are completely different from what is said in Japanese dub. Subtitles are optimized for readability and use completely different phrasing, or even terms (for example dub says クイーン ("queen"), sub says 女王 ("jo-oh")). 2. Japanese subtitles and English subtitles are also different, because many lines have to be completely rephrased in order to express them in a…

The way the "koma" is placed above 困っ makes me suspect they first tokenize the text, get furigana for each segment (most tokenizers have this built-in) and then derive the romaji without correctly handling the sokuon っ when it appears just before a segmentation boundary. Usually it's represented in the romanization by doubling the following consonant, but of course that doesn't work if there's no following consonant…

That makes sense.

Hopefully it can be fixed, since geminates are one of the most difficult features of Japanese pronunciation for native English speakers to master. Erasing it from the orthography intended to aid beginners certainly doesn't help.

Re: Language Learning with Netflix extension

#89

Post by shmat »

androng wrote: post #27

Watch in a foreign language with foreign audio to increase your listening comprehension in the foreign language. Only watch in your native language/subtitles if you want to comprehend the plot more. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4927148/

My experience as a language learner (French) supports the study. When I use English (native language) subtitles, my listening doesn't improve at all. However, my improvement with or without French subtitles depends on my level of comprehension. If I can understand most of the show without subtitles (~60% or more) I improve faster without subtitles. If I understand half or less, I improve with the subtitles. I guess this is evidence for Stephen Krashen's theory of comprehensible input.

Re: Language Learning with Netflix extension

#90

Post by arcticfox »

AnssiH wrote: post #68
nitrogen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure, but maybe the subtitle tracks have different licensing?

No, it is simply to avoid clutter in UI: https://www.quora.com/Why-arent-all-subtitles-available-in-a... > There are too many languages to list them all in the menu and have the one you want be easily selected - especially when you are viewing on a TV with only a left-right-up-down remote. Accordingly, we show the commonly used languages in any country.

Well that's the first time I've legitimately gotten upset at a UX decision in a long, long time. My wife is homesick, 5000 miles from her country and can't watch anything in her language... Because they couldn't be bothered with an advanced settings UI anywhere? Seriously, Netflix?

Maybe that's an entitled attitude, but to me it's in the same ballpark as accessibility. It might not make a difference to 99% of users, but to the 1% of users in the long tail, it's royally screwing them for lack of a relatively small amount of effort. (In this scenario, a tiny amount of effort).

Post reply on HN