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Comment by bomewish

2 days ago

Initial reactions.

1) Let us keep the right sidebar permanently out, and DON'T grey out the rest of the screen. I want to be able to click on target language words and immediately see them. Like, you've given us the translated sentence, but I can't see which word is which;

2) Colour _the same words_ in both languages when doing mouseover;

3) Or just highlight BOTH as we're listening [but note issue below!];

4) Make the keyboard use a bit more intuitive - i.e. left/right obviously means "go back or forward in the video/audio", but now I have to CLICK on the yt video again to get that behavior. It should be auto so I don't have to do that. Similarly, I want to click on a word to know it's meaning, but then go back to space->pause behavior. Rn clicking a word breaks that. Just adds friction to users.

5) Consider yt-dlp to save the videos so if we are studying one, and yt pulls it, we can keep using. Maybe for the roadmap.

6) Consider allowing us to add words to vocab -- and which vocab -- directly from mouseover [without clogging up UI - not sure there]. Right now it's a bit convoluted [right sidebar, which again should be permanent and integrated, not greying out the main screen - but even if that was fixed, that's a lot of mouse movement]

6) Handle idiomatic language issues better. You'll probably need another LLM pass/method for this, but IT'S a BIG ONE! Languages don't map 1:1 obviously, so for example this one:

https://app.fluentsubs.com/stream?v=cm8mnqrqe084ervb0mi6a4sa...

"genommen" was translated as "taken" <- means nothing.

I dump into 4o and it explains

In the phrase „genau genommen“, the word „genommen“ is part of a fixed idiomatic expression and doesn't translate literally as "taken."

„Genau genommen“ means "strictly speaking" or "to be precise."

So the full sentence:

„Wir sind heute wieder auf der Straße unterwegs, genau genommen auf dem Flohmarkt…“

translates to:

"Today we're out on the street again — strictly speaking, at the flea market…"

It’s specifying or narrowing down what “on the street” means in this context.

**

So you'll need to pull out these idiomatic phrases and then make sure they can be analysed as a single unit, so to speak. Learners are gonna have to be acquainted with those, and now the workflow is obviously broken.

Basically just get a model to bundle them and then in the sidebar on the right that has like "drill into X" you've got the PHRASE as a unit of analysis.

Thanks for all the feedback! Really appreciated!

1. Makes sense! 2./3. That's a bit hard, but like point 6 I think it is possible to map certain parts. 4. Makes sense 5. I put it on the roadmap but I think it is not so much of a priority now. I want to have an offline mode at a certain point (as well as a dedicated app) 6. Yes, this is hard and expensive. But I think that I should have a high quality section with proper quality control. I have some ideas to quickly create lessons as a teacher, but right now I'm mainly firefighting stability and quality

Thanks again for the extensive write-up

  • For 2/3 — isn’t it just another api call to get the mappings [solving 6 as a side effect] then somehow wiring it up to the frontend like you already do?

    The sidebar greying out the foreground now and not able to stay locked REALLY breaks flow. Fixing that slightly mitigates.

    It’s amazing tho and I’ll subscribe soon enough.