I have to admit that I had given up on learning Japanese on Ling, because I couldn’t see how I was expected to look words up and learn them in a language I couldn’t read yet. Now we have the improved lingqing functions (love that rollover!) I’m back on the case. Now I have a new secret weapon: an e-book reader.
I have been taking some beginner Japanese lessons and turning them into ebook-friendly files. I take the hiragana, romaji, Kanji, English translations and grammar notes (provided in the lesson notes by the lesson author) and put them all together in a .doc file which, together with the mp3 audio file, I can play on my reader. Now I can study Japanese off-line, in bed, on the bus or wherever else I get a peaceful five minutes.
I could just as easily produce them as PDF files, or mobi, epub or any other of the popular ebook formats. If I keep them as word files however I can tinker with them and add my own notes to them as I learn.
Would anyone else be interested in having ebook versions of lessons (especially the beginner ones?) Would be possible to expand the LingQ library to add an ebook section?
I often use ebooks on my pda. Nevertheless, I think the effort to integrate such ebook format in LingQ isn’t worthwhile at the moment. Everybody who have interest of that can convert content in a ebook format by himself because it is only text and maybe audio, and has no information for LingQ.
While reading an ebook on my pda, I highlight all unknown words or make notes. Only sometimes, if I don’t understand the context I use the intern translator. I read my ebooks with Mobipocket and I can synchronize my ebooks on the PC. There I also get a list with all highlighted words and I can navigate very fast to the places in the book. With copy and past I bring the sentences (or words) into an imported lesson in LingQ. It is like a first repetition. Maybe it sounds like a heavy way, but for me it works fine.
In additon, the last weeks I got used to read ebooks on the pda, before I have preferred to read a real books. I only have a HTC mobile, no iphone, and I have bought an audible.com subscription.
Could somebody please tell something if and how language dictionaries work with e-books.
Do the dictionaries exist at all and if yes, how convenient are they? Are the dictionaries already pre-installed or can the user choose a language and install the dictionary? Can the models having the Web connectivity use the Google Translate, for example?
As I wrote I use Mobipocket and the dictionaries of PONS (English-German, French-German). You can have a look and install the software on http://www.mobipocket.com.
If I don’t know a word I have to mark it and in a context menu I can select “definition”. Then the programm looks for the word in the dictionary. The books and the dictionaries are installed, not online.This works for me fine, but I know there also exists other solutions, maybe other members know more.
Annett:
Well, my ebook doesn’t have a dictionary or translate functions, which is why I really needed to make my own versions of the beginner Japanese lessons with all the material from the tutor in one place.
I agree with you, to make lessons of a language you are reasonably familiar with it’s a pretty simple matter to copy from the print version of the lesson and paste into a word processing package. It’s a lot trickier with Japanese and Chinese because as a beginner you aren’t used to producing documents with those character sets.
I bought the BeBook specifically for use with LingQ. I don’t know if Kindle or Sony owners are used to creating their own reading material as they presumably buy those to read commercially produced content?
David, which collections are you interested in and can you read .DOC documents? I will have to ask the tutors for permission to redistrubute their lessons.
I am using my iPod Touch as an ebook. I can almost read every format. I can even access my LingQ lessons there. I usually download the audio and synchronise it onto my iPod. Then when I’m in a wifi zone, for instance in my university, I can read the texts with audio.
Another possibility is copy the texts into another format which i can save onto my computer.
I’m really satisfied with my iPod. Now I don’t need to buy an ebook anymore.
It would be interesting to have some kind of ebook version of our lessons available for download. It is definitely something to add to our wishlist. Don’t hold your breath though… There are a few things ahead of it on the list.
There are a few things ahead of it on the list.