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Learning a New Language Using Open Source?
cmstar asks: "It's been several years since my High School Spanish courses and I'm finding myself quite a bit rusty. Add to that a new found desire to learn Japanese, and I find myself on a quest to find a good cheap set of language learning/teaching software. There are plenty of commercial packages available, but I'm poor. A quick check of Google and Sourceforge didn't produce any immediate results. I know speaking with a native is usually the best way to go about this, but with little time or money, and something portable that I could use at home and work, in my spare time, would be handy to freshen up on my skills and learn something new. Any suggestions?"
Anybody have an open source language translation engine? Wouldn't be too hard to recompile for a flashcard program for Pocket PC (or somebody other than me, for Palm) if it can readily be translated into C (or VB for PocketPC).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
After you've learned basic grammar and such, buy a few simple (children to young-adult level) books and get translating. For me, that was a nice way to improve my German vocabulary.
Also, browse around Wikipedia. They usually have good language resources.
But if you're starting fresh and trying to learn on your own...I dunno, that's probably not going to work so well. I'd recommend taking a couple semesters (or the equivalent) of the language before going on your own. Bad habits can be hard to break.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Do you want to learn Japanese, or do you want to understand anime without the subtitles? There's a pretty big difference here.
Wikipedia's Wikibooks is free, but it is a work in progress.
"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
It meaning that technology of your acquisition helps unlimited, Japanese is the simple language which it should learn, but perhaps at Babelfish should be looked. Actually if you speak Japanese, or everyone's oven it is private teacher, are possible, the person should be obtained.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
IANASD (I am not a software developer, but maybe a curmudgeon), but I understood open source to be a way for people to contribute their work from personal projects (and their business too i guess). In other words, by having created something useful, they seek to share and save someone else from the hassle of re-invention.
:-)
I guess that's why there are all kinds of free compilers, development, and admin tools. But when it comes to Language Learning Software (and other less-than-typical techie tools like Accounting Packages, and CRMs).
I like free stuff as much as the next guy. But what will be the next request? Open Source Ceramic Pattern Generators, Automatic Fish Feeders, or Housekeeper/Valet? (ok send the links
Why refer to the term open source if you meant free of charge? Not sure whether the source would do you any good here.
As for free language courses, Google search for free language courses produces just that.
First of all, Kiten is an app bundled in with KDE (in the edu section), a teaching/reference tool for learning Japanese.
....
http://www.katzbrown.com/kiten/About/
Then, don't worry too much dedicated apps - it's easy enough to adopt flash card programs to build and solidify your vocab.
And then, use your browser / audio streamer to make the most of what the web has to offer. Simply looking at the front page of a newspaper every day will help.
Of course, setting your box up to handle foreign characters is an education in itself
john [at] technolalia dot org
Go to the library and get the Pimsleur CDs, or whatever. Most libraries seem to have a number of audio/software learning programs these days. You may have to reserve them though. Most popular languages have plenty of content on the web as well for you to practice with.
How about hitting up your local library and getting a book from there? Not all learning needs to be done on a computer, and libraries are the ideal place to get books. :)
Books are portable, have high storage density, require no power source, and boot up instantly.
There are very few good Japanese textbooks, it is known to educators as an "infrequently taught language." The people who have written good Japanese textbooks have spent years developing their work, usually in conjunction with other instructors at a university, do you really think they're likely to give it away for free? Japanese textbooks are notoriously expensive since they're usually printed in Japan and imported at unfavorable exchange rates. But still, the best money I ever spent was the $90 introductory textbook set for my first Japanese class. I used it for four semesters, and still use it occasionally for reference.
Japanese instructors are notoriously technophobic, and advancements in computer aided instruction have been very slow. Good instructors are too busy updating the existing learning systems to modern standards to bother with computerizing them too.
There are a few gadgets that will help certain areas, like kanji flashcard gadgets. I've used many of them, but none of them are much better than conventional methods (i.e. flashcards). And flashcards aren't going to teach you the whole language, it is just a reinforcement for a small subset of your primary studies. Electronic dictionaries are freely available online, but this is only going to speed up your word lookups, again, it's merely a support activity, not a primary learning tool.
The best tool to learn Japanese is a structured study plan, either with a teacher, or with a textbook with a graduated series of exercises that build up your knowledge according to planned curriculum. You can't just go at this by stumbling through native language materials like comic books and trying to figure it out as you go along.
Except, my sister gave me a "deluxe" language training software package. Windows-only, of course, which defeated the idea of learning with my Powerbook. But after I installed it, I tried it for about twenty minutes before I got sick of the pathetic interface, dog-slow loading times (they do their best to prevent you from loading it on the hard drive, too) and the overall horrible audio tracks and pixelated graphics. If anyone's seen the sort of drivel produced out of Toolbook 2.0 -- along with the associated media from the time when that program was popular -- that's the sort of product my sister paid $50 for. I gave up, went online, and started doing my own searching.
My personal approach to learning Japanese isn't driven out of any specific need -- just a deep-seated curiosity (and one I've had before I'd ever played video games or watched anime, mind you.) I decided I'd learn the alphabets first, adding kanji slowly, until I could safely go purchase a few kids' books written almost entirely in hiragana and katakana. It's worked, so far. My friend is taking courses the traditional way, through a community college, and though his speaking abilities are obviously better at this stage, he's got some serious dependence on romaji.
My single greatest resource for learning the characters has been, oddly enough, the Microsoft and Apple IMEs. I used a word processor to make myself worksheets and practice writing the characters. Five minutes and 100 sheets of "appropriated" office paper later, I had a stack of worksheets to practice with that beat any of the ones I found online or as samples in books. Best of all, if I needed more practice with a specific group, I could just print more of the same worksheet whenever I wanted it.
As for online references, someone compiled a great list of them already. In particular, my favorite from that list has been Takasugi Shinji's site, written from the perspective of a linguist. It's also got a great java applet that helps you memorize the kana alphabets -- allowing you to switch fonts to get a greater familiarity with writing styles.
In short -- I've not found any particular free-as-in-beer resource for language learning, and I don't think there's likely to be any because such courses are usually subjective. Perhaps it's something MIT and OpenCourseware can tackle in the future. In the meantime, IMEs are your best friend, and try to avoid getting dependent on romaji. :)
got standards? --- http://www.w3.org/
You might want to shell out a few bucks for a quality language course.
Nuku is a good free (beer) program for learning kana for OS X
I don't want to fit in, I just don't want to stand out
Great advice. Hardcore study is the only way to become decent and Pimsleur is a fantastic oral learning tool.
Try lingoteach.org.
GPL language teaching, with audio and all. And it does 900 words of spanish. And some German and others.
get 7 free Japanese lessons.
Learn Japanese for nerds part 1:7
4
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/2/26/175722/72
Part 2:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/3/25/32218/182
--Robert
You need someone who speaks it. If you don't have someone who can hear when you pronounce things incorrectly, expectally when you start, you will be wasting your time.
Just getting the ra ri ru re ro sounds correct is difficult with a teacher for most. It's something in between a L and a R sound on the 'r', but there isn't a real analog in english to it. To try and learn it without someone who's ear is accustommed to it... That's just not going to happen.
Seriously, if you check your local community college even, they will likely have a course. It's worth it if nothing else then to have someone else give you pointers in real time.
It has some 900 words and sentences in Spanish, English and German with audio, and you can go any way you would like to go (Spanish->German, English->Spanish, or whatever).
It has many more Languages that have only written content and no audio.
It's XML based, so you can add your own content, and it uses OGG Vorbis for sound encoding (so it does not use patented stuff). It has various modes to learn, to test yourself and to practice as well as plugin capabilies.
It comes in
(sorry for the redundant post, but this one is better.)
get 7 free Japanese lessons.
JWPce is an open source Japanese word processor for Microsoft Windows. I first started using it back in 1996, when I was living in Japan but only had English Windows.
One of its most useful features is the ability to highlight a Japanese word and get not only the pronunciation but an English translation as well.
All about JWPce
Avoid * like the plague * sites that tell you that you can learn Japanese from Anime and Manga. This is not possible if you want to speak with any amount of seriousness or authority.
There are two ways you will probably speak like if you do this: like an old Japanese man, or like a young Japanese girl. For the confused, neither of these are desirable unless, of course, you are one.
For the serious Japanese student, unfortunately you will have to fork out some money for a decent book with some sort of audio suppliment. Besides the grammar, vocabulary, written systems, and cultural differences that affect speech, the pronounciation is very difficult to master, and actually hearing it is required for proper imitation. For a language this complex, it is quite nearly required to have a proper teacher for the more advanced grammar and situations. For instance, there are about 10 different ways to say "you" in Japanese, none of which are used most of the time, and each with a very different connotation that a book can't effectively explain.
Continuing without a teacher is inadvisable, however, there are some interesting places online to check out. http://wikipedia.org should always be your first stop. http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/afaq/afaq.html has a faq from a newsgroup that is decently helpful.
http://www.narnarnar.com
Nobody has mentioned Pythoñol yet. It's not Japanese, but I figure the people trying to learn Spanish probably ask the same questions. Pythoñol is open source, runs happy on Linux (and runs not quite so happy on other platforms), and talks to you if you can figure out how to install festival.
Hope this helps someone.
For those studying German, I have a German-English Dictionary, German-English Hyperdictionary, and an overview of German Phonetics in SAMPA online.
Additionally, for students of the English language, I also have an English phonetic transcription program that will output phrases in IPA, SAMPA, CMU, HTML, and LaTeX format.
Michael.
Linux : Mac
This is a good place to start. japanese-online
er, if you mean by open source in this context, something available on the net freely, here are a few links for french.
wiki french
french villas
ielanguages
french phrases
tiscali french phrases
yet another french phrases page
ask oxford
naciente
----
but then, there is this wacky page - use at your own risk:
courteous french
Slime Forest is a fun, simple NES-style RPG that teaches kana (the alphabet) and 200 of the most important kanji.
It's LGPL, too!
Have a look at this site - It is basically a teach yourself Japanese guide :)
Slime Forest Adventure will help. It wont teach you everything, but it's a good/fun/free way to learn some japanese.
I want my Cowboyneal
writing as an ESL teacher in japan, here's a general breakdown of how (INMHO, natürlich), to learn a language if you aren't going to pay a lot of money/take course/whatever....
the grammar/vocab/sylabaries/kanji can all be brute forced, that's not a problem (other than the obvious common learning problems, but we'll ignore these and assume you have the motivation and intelligence to brute force these)
the hard parts are pronounciation, listening comprehension, and cognitive/production skills. without a native speaker to practice with, its next to impossible. so, here are my techniques (with which i've been having some success with french and german recently (i decided not to bother learning japanese, i need only a very tiny little bit, even living in a fairly rural part of japan) )
also, note that my suggestions are based on the techniques we use at the english factory where i work
1. pronounciation-- use internet based streaming video or audio of news casts. news is good because even if you only understand 2% of the story, you can read about it your own language and that helps with knowing whats going on. do short 1-2 phrase listen and repeats with the clip, trying to get your speach to match that of the speaker, and if you can find bits that use the grammar or vocab you're brute forcing, all the better
2. listening comp-- same as above. pick a few vocab words or target structures, and just listen for those. as your vocab grows, it will help tremendously to get used to just identifying those words used in natural speach in a variety of contexts
3. cognitive/production skills-- after every lesson, the most important thing is to REACT to what you've just seen/heard/read about by saying whatever you possibly can, out loud, in whatever rudiments of the language you have. getting used to have to think in the language, and produce your own language will aid fluency and long-term learning
best of luck!
on another note, another poster menioned babelfish... its okay for one or two words at a go, but not for anything longer (and its japanese is really quite attrocious).... i use it to communicate with a friend in paris, but i always have to strugle through a lenghty reality check of what it gave me, and ive gotten in the habit of only giving it content one clause at a time (and thankfully french grammar is so close to english that i can get away with this, it won't work in japanese)
This is a nice little game that may help you learn your katakana and hiragana. :o)
Also, some people put sticky labels with the foreign words on their stuff. And it may sound "babyish" but flash cards are pretty useful for learning Kanji. J-List sells sets of flash cards, and loads of other Japanese goodies too
I've been trying to learn Japanese for a while now, but I haven't had much time to, what with final year of uni.
I've found chat rooms (in an appropriate country) useful for this purpose.
Being a former Spanish teacher, my experience in my own learning and in the teaching of others of Spanish is that the main key to learning another language well is motivation.
I learned Spanish well one because I could and two it really tickled my fancy to learn another language. Eventually I met hispanics while attending LSU, in Baton Rouge. That really whet my apitite for mastering the new tongue. Finally, throw a hot latina in the mix and that's all she wrote. Just ask my Honduran wife. :P
I can't resist promoting my own product here, even though it's not free.
LiveDictionary is a program for Mac OS X that lets you look up words in Safari by just pointing at them with your mouse. It supports lots of bilingual dictionaries, including Japanese. It can be a great way to learn vocabulary, or to help you understand a web page that's in a language you're not very good with (which is why I wrote it in the first place), or just to understand the occasional unknown word when you're browsing in your second language, or even your first.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I have used Pimsleur's courses to learn several foriegn languages, and they have an amazing "stick rate." The main reason is due to the scientific method Pimsleur uses to teach the language:
A new word is introduced. Then, mixed in with other words, the new word is repeated after 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, etc. The other words of course follow the same pattern, so it's something like (each letter being a word):
ABCABCDEADEBCDFEFABCDF etc.
My times may not be exact; the point is repetition drives home the learning. The Pimsleur method works great, and I highly recommend it. It's a bit light on the written word but as far becoming conversational in a foreign language: you can ask "Where's the hotel?" "How much does this cost?" after the first lesson IIRC, and it goes on from there.
It may not be the cheapest course, but for about $200 you get the entire course, and a sampler is available for about $20. I just checked Froogle and found many Pimsleur resources for as low as ten bucks.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
But there are a couple of open-source mozilla plugins that may be of some help:
Moji
rikaixul, my own project which was functional a year ago but noone's touched in some time.
Jim Breen runs a really great list of online resources for Japanese, most of which are at least free-beer if not free-speech.
While you're on-line, there's the free-beer Rikai, which, like those mozilla plugins, should help you get through Japanese pages (try asahi.com or 2chan.net for a laugh)
Anyway, presumably the mozilla plugins would let one have a working solution on higher-end palmtop devices.
I am a bit late on this thread. You need to check out padict . It's GPL, runs on a Palm and is fantastic! What more could ask?
It won't teach you to speak Japanese though. I don't think software are much help with conversation. Have you though of trading English conversation with a native speaker?
To learn how to write your chosen language, check out the University web sites for your language. For example USC has an excellent Mandarin links area USC Chinese Language program , mostly pointing to free stuff. Fortunately, many Chinese teachers in the US have started using the Integrated Chineses Program ICP , an amazingly easy way to learn Chinese, if you do the homework. As the man in the parent post says, "dedication and commitment" are required.
I am having such fun that I have enrolled in evening Mandarin classes at GMU which does use ICP. It's my new way of gaming, learning how to read, write and speak Chinese.
Have fun, Lao Xuesheng (Old Student)
ps. I am not sure but there may be a Integrated Japanese Program, USC Japanese Language Center. I found it at the " USC Japanese Dept. page . Have fun.
Not to mention this howler
Perhaps the interview question would be "correct this description of how the read, write, and execute permissions on a UNIX directory work"...
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