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Ereader Easy Swedish

ereader-swedish.fly.dev

41–50 of 68 posts

Re: Ereader Easy Swedish

#41
I believe this type of 'translation' can't help with learning a language unless the person who's reading already knows a lot of idiomatic expressions, grammar, and knows both English and Swedish on an everyday-conversation level. Let me show you what I mean.

Here's the first paragraph in English:

> The town studio of Signor Jacobelli faced the west. It was situated on the top floor of an old eight-storied building in the West Fifties. Thirty years ago this had been given over entirely to studios, but now it was broken up into a more profitable mêlée of semi-commercial establishments and light-housekeeping apartments.

Here's the first paragraph in the Swedish translation:

> Signor Jacobelli hade en ateljé högst upp i ett gammalt hus med åtta våningar. För trettio år sedan var huset fullt av konstnärer, men nu fanns där både butiker och lägenheter.

I get that the translation is to a 'simplified' version of Swedish; translations of fiction are often restructures of the original language, but this is to a point where one not only needs to know what the words in Swedish mean, but be able to interpret them based on a vast restructure compared with the original.

Compare with a Kagi (DeepL) translation of the text:

> Signor Jacobellis ateljé i staden vette mot väster. Den låg högst upp i ett gammalt åttavåningshus på West Fifties. För trettio år sedan hade detta uteslutande varit ateljéer, men nu var det uppdelat i en mer lönsam blandning av halvkommersiella etablissemang och lägenheter med enklare hushållning.

Kagi maintains the original structure, which makes it far easier to compare words and the original structure.

I could be wrong but to me it seems far easier to learn a language when a translation doesn't come with a vast restructure of the original content.

Re: Ereader Easy Swedish

#42
post #41

I believe this type of 'translation' can't help with learning a language unless the person who's reading already knows a lot of idiomatic expressions, grammar, and knows both English and Swedish on an everyday-conversation level. Let me show you what I mean. Here's the first paragraph in English: > The town studio of Signor Jacobelli faced the west. It was situated on the top floor of an old eight-storied building in…

I think these issues stems form translating to the language you are learning being a bit backwards. It serves a purpose though you learn how to say complicated stuff in an easier way.

I am at a basic level in many languages. Often it is enough to know that I have the gist right: is it "please step out" or "Please do not step out".

Re: Ereader Easy Swedish

#43
post #35

I also learned Swedish, which I think is very interesting, because Sweden has 1/4 the population of California, but has a relatively large influence on Western culture. At least in my mind. Regarding learning a language, I recommend looking into Dr Krashen's theory of language acquisition, specifically comprehensible input. His favorite resource is comic books. For Swedish, I really like SVT with a VPN.

A lot of SVT is available with no VPN. It also has apps, so I tend to watch it on an Apple TV. I second comic books, though the Swedish tends to be super colloquial and you will get stuff like "dig" rendered as "dej" (which is how it is generally pronounced, but not how it is formally written.) Kalle Anka is always the classic go to for Swedish learners. NRK on the other hand actively tries to block everyone, which m…

For those with VPN, here's SVT:

https://www.svtplay.se/

Swedish public service television also has an educational branch, which is here:

https://urplay.se/

I use comic books to teach my kids to read, I agree it ought to be a good option for foreign adults too.

On SVT I'd recommend Landet runt (Around the country), it shows a lot of feelgood stories from local news and is aimed at a broad audience, including kids and the elderly:

https://www.svtplay.se/landet-runt

There's also a news program for kids I think could be a good option to learn from:

https://www.svtplay.se/lilla-aktuellt-och-lilla-aktuellt-sko...

While I don't watch any of them myself, perhaps competition programs might work too:

https://www.svtplay.se/lista/svtId_jQ7LrRQ/tavlingsprogram

Re: Ereader Easy Swedish

#44

That example is removing a lot of text. Is this the issue in the changelog or is it still removing details?

It converts to lätt svenska (simplified Swedish), which is usually intended for beginners / students and I believe is the point here. The translated text is missing a lot of details, though, yes.

I know, I speak Swedish, but it's missing way more than details

Re: Ereader Easy Swedish

#45

This is super cool, I might fork this and change the prompt to Danish, and maybe use MIstral or DeepSeek as it has better Danish capabilities. I moved to Denmark and just passed my A1 exam, so looking for more easy stuff to do. DR.dk has `ligetil` which is simplified/easy danish news. So if I can find similar, I use it. I can probably have LLM do easy for me. Also Noospeak for daily newsletter in Danish. LLM has been…

Chuck https://lite.cnn.com/ into whatever language you need it in.

Generally I would suggest starting with a source in the target language and translating it into a language you know.

Re: Ereader Easy Swedish

#46
post #43
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of SVT is available with no VPN. It also has apps, so I tend to watch it on an Apple TV. I second comic books, though the Swedish tends to be super colloquial and you will get stuff like "dig" rendered as "dej" (which is how it is generally pronounced, but not how it is formally written.) Kalle Anka is always the classic go to for Swedish learners. NRK on the other hand actively tries to block everyone, which m…

For those with VPN, here's SVT: https://www.svtplay.se/ Swedish public service television also has an educational branch, which is here: https://urplay.se/ I use comic books to teach my kids to read, I agree it ought to be a good option for foreign adults too. On SVT I'd recommend Landet runt (Around the country), it shows a lot of feelgood stories from local news and is aimed at a broad audience, including kids and…

SVT Play (app or web) is a very good resource, and it is mostly subtitled in Swedish, which helps a lot. From the UK (at any rate) it is pretty rare to find many of the shows with georestructions, I do not find many. It is worth trying it without a VPN first, as you might be able to save money.

As I mentioned above, NRK is not so great. Most of the content is geoblocked, and you need a norwegian digital ID to watch it outside of Norway (or at least, Skandinavia) without a VPN. They also regularly block VPN's, so as an example, Tunnelbear used to be fine (and gives a fairly generous free tier if you play the "invite friends and do some tasks" game), but last time I tried, it was no longer working with the NRK TV app.

Re: Ereader Easy Swedish

#47
post #25

I tried to figure out if the translation is correct (the concept of a "studio apartment" in English is not easy to express in Swedish, and "ateljé" is certainly not it). I even found this [1] comment on Reddit, detailing the exact same concern. Perhaps worth looking into? [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/1j4teje/comment/mg...

A studio apartment in Swedish is "en etta", literally meaning a "one room". An apartment with one bedroom would then be "en tvåa", two bedrooms "en trea".

Re: Ereader Easy Swedish

#48
post #41

I believe this type of 'translation' can't help with learning a language unless the person who's reading already knows a lot of idiomatic expressions, grammar, and knows both English and Swedish on an everyday-conversation level. Let me show you what I mean. Here's the first paragraph in English: > The town studio of Signor Jacobelli faced the west. It was situated on the top floor of an old eight-storied building in…

Is "ateljé" (meaning art studio) really the correct Swedish translation here? I suspect "etta" (meaning one-room apartment) would be more suitable.

Re: Ereader Easy Swedish

#49
post #43
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of SVT is available with no VPN. It also has apps, so I tend to watch it on an Apple TV. I second comic books, though the Swedish tends to be super colloquial and you will get stuff like "dig" rendered as "dej" (which is how it is generally pronounced, but not how it is formally written.) Kalle Anka is always the classic go to for Swedish learners. NRK on the other hand actively tries to block everyone, which m…

For those with VPN, here's SVT: https://www.svtplay.se/ Swedish public service television also has an educational branch, which is here: https://urplay.se/ I use comic books to teach my kids to read, I agree it ought to be a good option for foreign adults too. On SVT I'd recommend Landet runt (Around the country), it shows a lot of feelgood stories from local news and is aimed at a broad audience, including kids and…

There is also a short news episode for adults, but in easy Swedish.

Nyheter på lätt svenska: https://www.svtplay.se/nyheter-pa-latt-svenska

Re: Ereader Easy Swedish

#50
post #25

I tried to figure out if the translation is correct (the concept of a "studio apartment" in English is not easy to express in Swedish, and "ateljé" is certainly not it). I even found this [1] comment on Reddit, detailing the exact same concern. Perhaps worth looking into? [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Svenska/comments/1j4teje/comment/mg...

A studio apartment in Swedish is "en etta", literally meaning a "one room". An apartment with one bedroom would then be "en tvåa", two bedrooms "en trea".

True, it's actually quite simple. :)

The main point stands though, that this is not about art studios but just small apartments, and the automatic translation messes that up.

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