Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Phrasing – learn every language, to any level

phrasing.app

11–20 of 126 posts

Re: Show HN: Phrasing – learn every language, to any level

#11
In the landing page I could see this for French :

"Toujours produire" découvrira le métier de ta vie de la même façon que l'eau, aidée par la gravité, trouve le trou dans ton toit.

If you replace the first two words by "tu", and correct a minor mistake in the third one (add a "s" at the end), it has a meaning but otherwise not. I guess we cannot trust it to learn a language then.

Re: Show HN: Phrasing – learn every language, to any level

#12
post #7

I don't understand what this is. This landing page actually made me annoyed :) . I doubt you will get many conversions based on current landing page. > Try clicking around on some of the words below - and make sure to give the audio a listen! OP I clicked on the text and bunch of tags popped up. I wasn't sure what those tags are or what I am supposed to do after that.

We're working on it constantly! We just released the home page last week and we've been collecting feedback on it.

If you have any lingering questions you're left with after seeing the home page, please let us know. That way we can add those to a list of questions we're trying to get sure get answered in any future updates!

Re: Show HN: Phrasing – learn every language, to any level

#13
Nice work, good application of GPT to language learning and FSRS is definitely the new standard too

I built something similar, Manabi Reader, currently only for Japanese on iOS/macOS but expanding to more languages shortly.

I built it as a native app so that it behaves like a web browser - no sharing your data with providers, offline friendly, no worry about what copyrighted material users might consume. It tracks the words and kanji you read and learn, showing your incremental progress against JLPT levels.

I’ve built an AI app for BYOK OpenAI plus local LLMs that I’m integrating into Manabi Reader as a free feature to add these kind of LLM features

It has a flashcard app or lets you mine expressions directly into Anki

https://reader.manabi.io

Re: Show HN: Phrasing – learn every language, to any level

#14
post #4

I don’t know where the translations are coming from, but the quality of the Turkish/English translation was lacking. Unfortunately, It does not inspire enough confidence for me to use this tool.

The same is the case for the "Spanish" example, which is only barely understandable and lacks basic grammatical gender concordance:

> Una carrera comparativamente segura y próspera con algún prestigio básico automático es peligrosamente tentador para alguien joven, que no ha pensado mucho sobre lo que le gusta realmente.

If that's what's being presented for the world's 2nd most spoken native language and 4th most spoken overall, I shudder to think what the ostensible "Polish" equivalent phrasing is like:

> Porównawczo bezpieczna i dostatnia kariera z pewnym automatycznym prestiżem jest niebezpiecznie kusząca dla młodej osoby, która nie zastanawiała się zbytnio nad tym, co naprawdę lubi.

Re: Show HN: Phrasing – learn every language, to any level

#15
post #11

In the landing page I could see this for French : "Toujours produire" découvrira le métier de ta vie de la même façon que l'eau, aidée par la gravité, trouve le trou dans ton toit. If you replace the first two words by "tu", and correct a minor mistake in the third one (add a "s" at the end), it has a meaning but otherwise not. I guess we cannot trust it to learn a language then.

I believe that came from the official translation for paul graham's essay, but their site is down now and I can't confirm: https://penelope.jdsfriends.com/DWYL_francais.htm

Not saying it's correct, but it's definitely only going to be as good as it's inputs. If we gave it a bad translation, that's on us! Sorry

Re: Show HN: Phrasing – learn every language, to any level

#16

Nice work, good application of GPT to language learning and FSRS is definitely the new standard too I built something similar, Manabi Reader, currently only for Japanese on iOS/macOS but expanding to more languages shortly. I built it as a native app so that it behaves like a web browser - no sharing your data with providers, offline friendly, no worry about what copyrighted material users might consume. It tracks th…

Hey thanks for the kind words! I have to also give you props back - Manabi reader is awesome, I've known the project for a while.

Re: Show HN: Phrasing – learn every language, to any level

#17
post #15
post #11

In the landing page I could see this for French : "Toujours produire" découvrira le métier de ta vie de la même façon que l'eau, aidée par la gravité, trouve le trou dans ton toit. If you replace the first two words by "tu", and correct a minor mistake in the third one (add a "s" at the end), it has a meaning but otherwise not. I guess we cannot trust it to learn a language then.

I believe that came from the official translation for paul graham's essay, but their site is down now and I can't confirm: https://penelope.jdsfriends.com/DWYL_francais.htm Not saying it's correct, but it's definitely only going to be as good as it's inputs. If we gave it a bad translation, that's on us! Sorry

If you do any sort of automatic attempts to discover parallel texts (and I can't understand how you can support "any show" otherwise), you're going to run into the problem of terrible translations, most of them made with machines.

Re: Show HN: Phrasing – learn every language, to any level

#18
post #11

In the landing page I could see this for French : "Toujours produire" découvrira le métier de ta vie de la même façon que l'eau, aidée par la gravité, trouve le trou dans ton toit. If you replace the first two words by "tu", and correct a minor mistake in the third one (add a "s" at the end), it has a meaning but otherwise not. I guess we cannot trust it to learn a language then.

I'm learning French too but I can't see the mistakes you're pointing out... What would be the correct sentence?

Re: Show HN: Phrasing – learn every language, to any level

#19
post #4

I don’t know where the translations are coming from, but the quality of the Turkish/English translation was lacking. Unfortunately, It does not inspire enough confidence for me to use this tool.

The same is the case for the "Spanish" example, which is only barely understandable and lacks basic grammatical gender concordance: > Una carrera comparativamente segura y próspera con algún prestigio básico automático es peligrosamente tentador para alguien joven, que no ha pensado mucho sobre lo que le gusta realmente. If that's what's being presented for the world's 2nd most spoken native language and 4th most spo…

Hmmm we assumed that the translations for the Paul Graham essays would have been properly translated. Someone else pointed out a French issue earlier, both the French and Spanish examples were taken from their 'official' translation. Now I'm questioning everything. Unless we seriously messed up a copy and paste, it's possible we just used a bad source.

It is a bring-your-own materials type of app, so if you bring an authentically translated work, you avoid this problem. We try not to do any translation ourselves (although we of course allow it for convenience if you choose it)

Post reply on HN