Show HN: Learning Languages with Netflix (Chrome Extension)

Back to stories Open in a window

Show HN: Learning Languages with Netflix (Chrome Extension)

Hi. Me and a friend, Ognjen, have been working on a chrome extension for learning languages that works with Netflix.

It aims to solve a few issues the user faces when studying with Netflix:

-- poor subtitles that don't match to the audio (solution: catalogue of titles with faithful subs, see http://languagelearningwithnetflix.com/catalogue.html )

-- monolingual subs (solution: provide a machine translation of the original subs that follow in meaning closely, albeit with occasional flaws).

-- dialogue is too quick (solution: give the user the ability to step through the dialogue with keyboard keys, A S D and SPACE).

There's a pop-up dictionary, and also a feature that greys-out infrequent words, based on word frequencies (compiled from OpenSubtitles corpus). It supports 15 languages, but we haven't tested it much yet.

We are both quite happy with how the project turned out.

You can get it on the Chrome Web Store, it's free for 30 days, then paid:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/language-learning-....

Here's the number of titles in the catalogue in some major languages, although they are not available in all regions, see the catalogue for more info:

English: 8012 titles

Spanish: 480 titles

German: 294 titles

French: 271 titles

Italian: 146 titles

Dutch: 127 titles

Portuguese: 83 titles

Swedish: 89 titles

We didn't just make the extension just because we could.. for an understanding of the pricipals that lead us to the current project, here's something I wrote a year ago or so: https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/66myn1/a_...

If we get more than a handful of users, we can also add support for titles with non-latin scripts (there are many titles in Chinese, Japanese, Korean), and add support for more titles. There's also some more features we could add, like merging shorter subs, generating Anki flashcards etc.

Hope you like it.

Discussion 0 comments · 3 points · davidzweig · 2018-10-21
Open on HN
Loading the discussion…

Domain filters

Stories from these domains are hidden from every list. Subdomains match too: blocking substack.com also hides danluu.substack.com.

    About YAVCHN

    YAVCHN is a reader for Hacker News and Lobsters, with articles and discussions in separate windows or Classic pages.

    Created by Paul Parks and built with PUDL.

    YAVCHN source code on GitHub

    Help

    Keyboard

    j / k
    Move down and up the story list. The arrow keys scroll whatever has focus.
    Enter
    Read the marked story in the article reader.
    ]
    Read the next story in the same article-reader applet. Back returns to the previous story.
    p
    Pin or unpin the marked story, which keeps it in Pinned.
    n / N
    Move to the next or previous top-level comment in the window in front.
    c
    Collapse or expand that comment.
    f
    Hide or show the story list.
    Esc
    Close a menu or this help.
    Access key m
    Go to the menu bar. Most browsers take it with Alt on Windows and Linux, and Safari with Control and Option.
    ?
    Show this help.

    Windows

    Each story opens in a window holding its article above its discussion; drag the bar between them to share the room differently. A window can be moved by its title bar, resized from any edge, snapped to a half or a corner by dragging it there, maximised, or minimised to the bar at the foot of the page. Use Window > New reader window to open an empty reader, or a story row's Open in new reader window button to compare articles. Docked readers keep their articles when you select another story from the sidebar. Minimized readers can be restored and reused for their site. A window's Next story link reads on down the list in the same window.

    A link in a comment or an article to another Hacker News or Lobsters thread opens that thread in a window too. A link to a single HN comment opens the comment above its replies.

    While a story's window is in front, the Story and Discussion menus in the menu bar hold its commands: pinning, Next story, sorting, collapsing every thread, jumping to the first new comment. Each window also remembers where you were in its article and discussion, so a reload, or Back to a story that Next took you past, finds your place again. Closing a window forgets it.

    The whole arrangement lives in the address, so a bookmark or a shared link brings it back, and Back undoes the last change. Moving between Hacker News, Lobsters, their lists, Pinned and Find changes only the list, and leaves the windows open.

    The list

    The pin at the start of a row keeps the story in Pinned, and the cross at its end hides it. Pinned can be narrowed by words in the title, site or author, by source, and to the stories you haven't opened yet, and ordered by when you pinned them, by points or by comments; the filters are part of the address, so a filtered view can be bookmarked. Scroll past the end of the list to load more. Domain filters, in the View menu, hide every story from a site.

    Browsing view

    View > Windowed and View > Classic select the browsing view and save your default in this browser. Window view reuses a reader for each feed. Classic view opens stories and applets as pages. Open as a page and Open in a window are one-off actions that do not change your saved default. Direct page links always open as pages.

    Applets

    The Applets menu in the menu bar holds three tools, each a window of its own. Replies to me takes your Hacker News user name and lists the replies to your last thirty comments and stories, checking again every three minutes while it is open, and marking what is new since you last marked them read. Look up a user opens a profile on Hacker News or Lobsters, with their submissions and recent comments, as a commenter's name in any discussion does; the bar at the top of a profile looks up someone else in the same window, and Back returns to the one before. Who is hiring? filters the posts of HN's monthly hiring threads by the words you type.

    They read only what the sites publish to everyone, so none of them asks for a login, and your user name stays in this browser.

    Find

    Find takes any link and lists every time it was submitted to Hacker News and Lobsters, so you can read each discussion of it.

    About

    YAVCHN never sees your Hacker News or Lobsters login. The discussion is fetched from each site's public API; to vote or reply, follow the link above the discussion, or the arrow beside a comment, to the source's own site. Pins, hidden stories, filters and layout are kept in this browser only.

    Open source: github.com/paulmooreparks/yavchn. Built with PUDL.