Re: Learn Arabic tool ?

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

--- Martin Godisch <martin at godisch dot de> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2003 at 07:35:13 -0700, Nadim Shaikli wrote:
> 
> > It has UTF-8 support and a GUI is being actively worked on as is noted on
> > the URL above (not sure the curses would work with Arabic due to shaping
> > requirements among other things, but its sure worth a try).
>
> I think there should be no problem in an UTF-8 enabled environment.
> Although I didn't test Arabic, it appears to work with Hebrew (non-Latin
> characters, right-to-left writing).

Arabic is a bit more complicated in that it not only requires Bidi, it
also needs what is termed shaping (that's when characters change their
shape based on where they are within the word).  This is very much a
solved problem.  How did you go about invoking Bidi in curses ?  Could
you please state what is needed for us to replicate your settings ?

> > With our recent release (and subsequent contact of freedict.de) about
> >  Arabic_Wordlist-0.5,
> > 
> >   http://www.arabeyes.org/project.php?proj=Wordlist
> > 
> > latrine could really be useful for those looking to learn Arabic.
> 
> I tried it out, but latrine doesn't work with the resulting dictionary.
> That's probably because latrine's parser is mainly a freedict parser and
> no dictd parser. There should be no problem though, since the parser has
> been written in a modular way and another one can easily be added.
> Writing a dictd parser sounds reasonable, I'll have a deeper look into
> this...

We just got confirmation from freedict.de about them hosting the Arabic
Wordlist (eng-ar), so it should be on their website soon.  BTW: the wordlist
as it stands can be molded into any format imaginable (its shipping as
a bunch of .PO text files which can be stripped down to a 'word = translated'
form in 2-3 lines of perl).

> > Martin, any plans to 'ease' the learning process by including pictures,
> > hints, etc so that kids can be engaged (eg, show a picture of a ball and
> > have them type 'ball', etc) ?  Maybe include say 100-200 of the most common
> > words/phrases as a start or similar.
> 
> Not yet. Currently I'm debugging the GTK+ interface, and I plan to
> implement support for multiple dictionaries and such thereafter. When
> the GTK+ interface (and the dictd parser) is working, it may be worth
> thinking about pictures again.

Great, do keep up informed.

> > Are there other tools out there worth mentioning ?
> 
> I wrote this program because the Langenscheidt Vokabeltrainer
> (http://www.vokabeln.de/info.htm, closed source) is available only for
> Windows.

I'm not a German speaker, but the screenshots certainly look interesting.
Looks like you found a decent path-blazer :-)

We're still looking for people to test Martin's LaTrine ?  Anyone ?

Regards,

 - Nadim


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