Yes, IE has add-ons. In fact I installed a popup translator for Chinese the other day. Nciku is the name of it,and was said to work like Pera-kun (the major tool for FF). However, it made the browser crash randomly, so at least I don’t have it activated by default. Text Aloud is another add-on for IE.
I would only IE if it had an add on that made it firefox…
When I started learning Russian I had a look round to see what was available on the internet that was a) free and b) didn’t chew up too much memory or CPU time on my computer. The only one I found at all interesing I can’t now remember the name of, which speaks volumes 
It was a flashcard system that allowed you to import your own flashcards from a spreadsheet (strictly speaking, using a comma separated file that you can create using Excel). Users create their own collections of, e.g. German separable verbs and then upload them onto the server for all students to share. That is cool and I think it might be worth considering for Lingq. But then in all fairness I didn’t actually use it, I just thought “Hey, that’s cool!” Ling is the only system that I actually use and have actually spent any money to use.
Now that I have got into electronic books I am importing them into LingQ for my lessions. It occurs to me that, one day, LingQ may have a “Import ebook” button that you press and it imports your text, chapter by chapter, with pictures and bookmarks and annotations and all, giving you the option to then add the audio if you have it. It’s not exactly hard to do a copy and paste job to import a book yourself, it’s just that it’s not immediately obvious to a newbie that it can be done.
I agree with Helen that it is not immediately obvious to a newbie that texts can be imported into LingQ. However, the main advantage of a “LingQ -like add-on”, as I understand it, would be to free the user from the importing as such. OK, the LingQ has yet said nothing about it.
It takes time to copy and paste texts into LingQ. It becomes troublesome with big texts. It is troublesome with PDF. Commercial e-books, with the so called Digital Right Management schemes, will hardly allow us to import them into anything else.
The “add-on” ideally works with ANY text shown on the screen (that is, not necessary inside of the LingQ). The examples are computer dictionaries like Babylone, WordWeb and Lingoes. One mouse click - and the word is translated. Imagine that on the same (or on a different) click the word has gone into ourr LingQ database , either in isolation or with the surounding “phrase”.
I’ve just found the IM translator add-on for Firefox and it’s great! Highlight a phrase and right-click for an instant translation to your own language.
BTW I think the flashcard software was called Interlex.
Speaking of firefox add-on’s, I just found one called “language bob”, it will randomly pick words on any website your reading and automatically change some of the words into the language your studying (spanish for me). It highlights the words in blue and if you hover over it it will show you what the original word was. So now when I spend two hours surfing the web, I can feel at least like I will be learning a little more spanish vocabulary! I just wish it had some sort of thing were you could click the word and mark it as known so everytime that word showed up again it would stay in spanish. Slowly, but surely your vocabulary would grow every minute wasted on the web.
I prefer to have the whole text in the foreign language. So you can pick up the structure of the language. I really like the LingQ system with the highlighting in blue and yellow of the new and not learned words. I can immediately create a LingQ, and use it for reviewing.
I completely agree, but this is just for when you are on other web pages. It kind of keeps my mind on my spanish.
@Rjtrudel
That’s awesome, thanks for the cool tool!
I tried livemoch.com. I deleted my account from their since it’s exactly as the RosettaStone, which I already have. They literally have the same lessons as the RosettaStone in the same exact order. It’s like basically a phony copy of the RosettaStone. That made me just not want to continue any further on that site.
I began doing some research into Livemocha.
- I tried some drills on the site, and I felt that they are not my cup of tea.
- The strange thing about the site is “Relationship Status” on the settings page. Some people might want to participate in such a community.
- Technologies and contents can be easily imitated; the thing which cannot be imitated is the people who constitute the community, I suppose. I think that the people who constitute the LingQ learning community are great.
Errata:
“they are not my cup of tea.” should read “they were not my cup of tea.”
I think it’s OK to say “they are not my cup of tea.”
I vaguely remember that the grammar books say that in such a case you should use “were” because its tense should agree with that of the verb “felt”. However, in actual usage, because the drills on the site are still not your cup of tea, it’s not wrong to use “are” instead of “were”.
Thank you, Cantotango!
When I investigated LiveMocha last year after learning about it on LingQ, I must have been negligent in filling out my profile and must have triggered their ‘pervert’ button: I never got as far as even a taster lesson, I was immediately swamped by adverts for, and messages from, nubile young women of all shapes, colours and sizes). Had I been a bloke, I might have been in seventh heaven. As it was, I quickly declared any message coming from LiveMocha as Junk.
If I had a pound for every Russian mail-order bride I’ve been offered…I decline them all though. Rasana is enough for me
I am in seventh heaven here at LingQ.