Ask HN: Language Learning Tool combining ebooks, translations, audiobooks

Is there a tool that exists for this purpose?

I have an idea to vibe-code a tool but I know I will struggle and might give up midway -- so putting this idea out here in case there are tools that do this already:

Say you want to learn a new language in a fun way -- and you pick a book you like for that purpose.

If you have an epub copy of the same book in both English and the other language, you could have a UI that displays both side-by-side with synchronized scrolling and highlighting so you can read them together. (or even interweaves paragraphs in with a different color for either language)

If you also have the MP3s of audiobooks -- the tool can optionally let you playback select portions of the text in either language.

Additional features like integration into a dictionary on click for word definitions, individual word pronunciation guides, synonyms etc would make it even more feature rich.

Is there already a tool or say a Calibre plug-in that does something like this already? Thanks!

inspiration: Reading Harry Potter in French [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89z2kPYmYps]

3 points

・

albert_e

・

4 days ago

3 comments

pmpmpm ・ 3 days ago

https://readini.com Side by side, synchronized audio, dictionary, learning words. I'm the author. Considering coming back to working on this project, with more books and languages.

  • albert_e ・ 2 days ago

    Wonderful! Thanks for sharing and hope you find time to expand on this project. Good luck!

    I am interested in English-French at the moment and was hoping to use sideloaded ebooks and mp3 audiobook versions - not necessarily just old classics out of copyright.

    It seems there are some open source projects that replicate Amazon Whispersync (sync audio to text and highlight words/phrases as they are spoken).

    • pmpmpm ・ 2 days ago

      Thank you. It gives me some motivation :)