jonathanb88

I'm planning to test German, which also has big differences in language structure.

I expect the app still works well for reinforcing vocabulary, but less well for demonstrating grammar.

You can upload an ePub file within the app.

I'll actually expand on this, because I think it gets at an interesting point, and at a fundamental 'bet' I'm making.

The approach I use should work if there are sufficient 'scaleable' ways to improve accuracy and choose the right phrases. Language analysis, NLP, LLMs etc all help here, and there are many methods I can still use and will add over time. I'm very much at a proof of concept stage right now!

This approach won't work if accuracy improvements quickly reach diminishing returns and an explosion of rules and/or human proofing to handle edge cases are required.

I'm hoping for the former!

It's not primarily rules based as that would be impossible to scale. Where rules are helpful is to provide principles for when a longer or shorter phrase is chosen.

Optimising the tradeoff between more frequent repetition of vocabulary versus better quality grammar examples is where a lot of the work is.

Not currently, but it's definitely something I want to add soon.

I'll look to make it available in more regions soon. I just need to check the copyright limitations for the eBooks made available in the app.

Thanks for the feedback.

This is something that will improve over time - as it gets better at identifying longer phrases I can implement rules so it won't omit a neighbouring noun if the phrase contains a verb.

Something I'd love to look at longer-term. I think an overlay onto the real world that slowly immersed you in a new language would be a really powerful way to learn.

Many thanks for all of the positive feedback today, lots of good ideas for me to get working on; what a great community!

Side-note: A few eBooks are causing errors on the backend that don't appear to be DRM-related. I will prioritise getting this fixed.

I'll take a look. I think there were a couple of features that required 17.0+, but I may be able to solve with an earlier version.

Thanks, I'll take a look!

Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback!

Whilst there are some, often amusing, quirks with the LLM based explanations, I agree that the utility of the app is much higher with them.

Because I'm making public domain books available within the app (from Project Gutenburg), I have to limit the territories it is launched in, as some countries may have copyright limitations.

I will expand the app into more countries once I'm happy none of the books have copyright restrictions there. Feel free to message me with the country you reside in and I'll take a look soon.

Thanks for the feedback, very helpful!

I'll look to fix the first tomorrow, and add the rest to my list.