WordsFromText: how to read English with pleasure
Reading in the original for many is a problem. The abundance of unfamiliar words complicates the perception of the text and leads to a loss of enthusiasm. This happens when the complexity of the text exceeds your current level, or when you read the text not on your topic. Techies can easily communicate on work topics, but succumb to articles about politics, music, and serious fiction.
The goal of our service is to solve this problem.
Several years ago we wrote on Habré about this service. The idea found a response, the site acquired regular users, although at that time the service could only show the statistics of words from the text. In recent months, the service has become smarter.
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The key goal of the service is to give people the opportunity to read and see in the original what they are interested in. And while maximally simplify the work with unfamiliar words.
So we did 2 things.
First , we translate unfamiliar words directly in the text. Translations depend on the part of speech. This allows you not to roll out a dictionary entry, but to give a capacious short translation. For example:
Second , we allow users to download the text of a book or article themselves. The site works with txt , doc , docx , ps , pdf , fb2 , epub , mobi , srt . You can feed the service URL : the site will automatically highlight the content of the article and offer to read it with the translation of unfamiliar words.
This approach brings reading pleasure and benefits. Translation of unfamiliar words makes reading easier, easier. At the same time expanding the range of texts that you can read. You download an interesting or useful work. The text did not pass through the prism of the translator's perception - this is especially important for fiction.
This is a direct benefit that the reading of the original text on the service brings. But there is another aspect - language learning .
The first and most important learning is that you are reading the text in the original. Expressions, combinations of words are stored in your memory. You get used to perceive the English text. But this learning, if I may say so, is passive.
Another site helps to accumulate vocabulary . For this, we made a few tools.
Tool 1. Word statistics from text.
The site analyzes which words are more common. Learn first of all the words from the top - they are more likely to come in handy.
The site also shows the context of the use of the word, so as not to memorize it stupidly, but to see in front of you an example of usage. The context is taken from your own text.
Tool 2. Paginated statistics and transitions from reading to learning words.
If you have downloaded a large book, then the general statistics is quite useless: there will be too many words. And all at once they are not needed.
Therefore, every few pages of text, we suggest you go to the study of words and see / learn the words from the next pages. When you reach the end of the range, the site will prompt you to repeat the words from the text you just read.
Our page is about 1800 characters, which corresponds to a page in a paper book. You choose the number of pages through which the site invites you to learn the words.
Instructions 3 and 4 are intended for learning words directly.
Tool 3. Export words.
Export words to applications and services such as Anki , Memrise , etc. These are popular word learning methods based on repeating word cards. They use clever algorithms that control the frequency of repetition of words for more reliable memorization.
We wrote detailed instructions on the export of words for those who love this method of learning.
Tool 4. Print words.
There are people who find it easier to print a leaflet with words and teach them in their free time or on the road. They will suit our ability to print words.
We can not only read. Our new feature is working with video. You can download the subtitles and then download them back with the translation of unfamiliar words.
Similar translations in subtitles will not teach you a lot if you read the Russian text fluently. Therefore, do not be lazy to stop the player from time to time to carefully read and realize the unknown word.
You yourself mark known words and words to study .
There are 2 methods how to significantly speed up this process.
1. In the top of the most frequently used words, you will most likely almost know everything. Do not click on each word, but use Shift:
2. Download a book or article in which you understand everything , and mark all words as known.
Perhaps, for the first article is enough.
We have not yet described many possibilities - first of all, about the interaction with the text and about the personal dictionary. If someone found the service interesting, watch the video in which we fully disclose this topic. Or just try it on the service.
The site is adaptive. It works equally well from a phone, tablet and computer. We follow it very carefully.
We recently introduced a paid subscription to access new features of the site. We left old features (if one of the readers used the site in 2011–2014) free of charge.
Payment - 320 rubles for 3 months, or 160 rubles for a month. We hope that this money will help us to further support and develop the project.
One month trial period is available to everyone. It seems to us that this time is quite enough to assess whether the service is useful enough to pay for it.
If you don’t want to pay, you can still upload your texts in all formats, view word statistics, type words with translations and keep a personal dictionary.
We will be glad if the service will be useful to you.
Write in the comments, what would you first of all improve - we will improve. We have a list of ideas for the site: idea.wordsfromtext.com . We try to listen to users. For example, from this list of ideas we have now made about 35 out of 76, of which many are “not small things”.
We have planned a lot of work with dictionaries for the next month: we will improve short translations, add detailed English-Russian and English-English dictionaries.
Site:
http://wordsfromtext.com/
How to effectively start using the site:
http://wordsfromtext.com/start/
The goal of our service is to solve this problem.
Several years ago we wrote on Habré about this service. The idea found a response, the site acquired regular users, although at that time the service could only show the statistics of words from the text. In recent months, the service has become smarter.
')
The key goal of the service is to give people the opportunity to read and see in the original what they are interested in. And while maximally simplify the work with unfamiliar words.
So we did 2 things.
First , we translate unfamiliar words directly in the text. Translations depend on the part of speech. This allows you not to roll out a dictionary entry, but to give a capacious short translation. For example:
Second , we allow users to download the text of a book or article themselves. The site works with txt , doc , docx , ps , pdf , fb2 , epub , mobi , srt . You can feed the service URL : the site will automatically highlight the content of the article and offer to read it with the translation of unfamiliar words.
This approach brings reading pleasure and benefits. Translation of unfamiliar words makes reading easier, easier. At the same time expanding the range of texts that you can read. You download an interesting or useful work. The text did not pass through the prism of the translator's perception - this is especially important for fiction.
This is a direct benefit that the reading of the original text on the service brings. But there is another aspect - language learning .
How we help to learn the language
The first and most important learning is that you are reading the text in the original. Expressions, combinations of words are stored in your memory. You get used to perceive the English text. But this learning, if I may say so, is passive.
Another site helps to accumulate vocabulary . For this, we made a few tools.
Tool 1. Word statistics from text.
The site analyzes which words are more common. Learn first of all the words from the top - they are more likely to come in handy.
The site also shows the context of the use of the word, so as not to memorize it stupidly, but to see in front of you an example of usage. The context is taken from your own text.
Tool 2. Paginated statistics and transitions from reading to learning words.
If you have downloaded a large book, then the general statistics is quite useless: there will be too many words. And all at once they are not needed.
Therefore, every few pages of text, we suggest you go to the study of words and see / learn the words from the next pages. When you reach the end of the range, the site will prompt you to repeat the words from the text you just read.
Our page is about 1800 characters, which corresponds to a page in a paper book. You choose the number of pages through which the site invites you to learn the words.
Instructions 3 and 4 are intended for learning words directly.
Tool 3. Export words.
Export words to applications and services such as Anki , Memrise , etc. These are popular word learning methods based on repeating word cards. They use clever algorithms that control the frequency of repetition of words for more reliable memorization.
We wrote detailed instructions on the export of words for those who love this method of learning.
Tool 4. Print words.
There are people who find it easier to print a leaflet with words and teach them in their free time or on the road. They will suit our ability to print words.
Video format
We can not only read. Our new feature is working with video. You can download the subtitles and then download them back with the translation of unfamiliar words.
Similar translations in subtitles will not teach you a lot if you read the Russian text fluently. Therefore, do not be lazy to stop the player from time to time to carefully read and realize the unknown word.
How does the site know which words you know?
You yourself mark known words and words to study .
There are 2 methods how to significantly speed up this process.
1. In the top of the most frequently used words, you will most likely almost know everything. Do not click on each word, but use Shift:
2. Download a book or article in which you understand everything , and mark all words as known.
What else
Perhaps, for the first article is enough.
We have not yet described many possibilities - first of all, about the interaction with the text and about the personal dictionary. If someone found the service interesting, watch the video in which we fully disclose this topic. Or just try it on the service.
The site is adaptive. It works equally well from a phone, tablet and computer. We follow it very carefully.
Payment and monthly trial
We recently introduced a paid subscription to access new features of the site. We left old features (if one of the readers used the site in 2011–2014) free of charge.
Payment - 320 rubles for 3 months, or 160 rubles for a month. We hope that this money will help us to further support and develop the project.
One month trial period is available to everyone. It seems to us that this time is quite enough to assess whether the service is useful enough to pay for it.
If you don’t want to pay, you can still upload your texts in all formats, view word statistics, type words with translations and keep a personal dictionary.
so
We will be glad if the service will be useful to you.
Write in the comments, what would you first of all improve - we will improve. We have a list of ideas for the site: idea.wordsfromtext.com . We try to listen to users. For example, from this list of ideas we have now made about 35 out of 76, of which many are “not small things”.
We have planned a lot of work with dictionaries for the next month: we will improve short translations, add detailed English-Russian and English-English dictionaries.
Site:
http://wordsfromtext.com/
How to effectively start using the site:
http://wordsfromtext.com/start/
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/285924/
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