I suspect I am not the only one who prefers reading books over reading from the computer screen. Well, a middle way seems to have arrived. I recently purchased the Amazon Kindle and have pleasantly rediscovered reading again. No clutter and no eye strain experienced from a computer screen.
Anyway, I had an idea for Lingq. How about providing a way of converting texts on this site to ebook format? Of course, active study would still need to be done on the site but I would personally enjoy re-reading texts later this way. It also would encourage users to save paper from printing, and lessen time in front of the PC.
The ebook market is currently booming and many different manufacturers are producing new devices so I’m sure this is one for the future and could gain Lingq some attention.
I got a Kindle for Christmas and would love to get LingQ on to it. I guess there is a little development work to be done here but it would sure make the ebook more useful to me.
At present I can only get English books on my Kindle.
I don’t know how the Kindle differs, but I have a Hanlin V3, and I already do this. I just copy and paste the text into a text file (.txt) and then transfer it to the device using a USB cable. For different character sets (Chinese, Japanese, Russian, e.t.c.,) I have to set the system language to that language for it to display properly, but that’s not difficult. The Kindle should be able to do something similar I’d think.
I haven’t bought any ebook reader yet because I am still waiting for the mythical tablet PC from Apple. I really hope that such a thing exists because I am spending too much time in front of the desktop PC. Hopefully Apple’s tablet would set me free from my desk.
Btw, Mark, how well does LingQ work on the Mac now? I suppose the tablet’s browser would be some version of Safari. I hope there won’t be any limitation using LingQ with Safari.
I would want the LingQ functions on my ebook. Highlighted words, dictionary, ability to LingQ words. maybe the tablet PC is the answer or we have to develop a LingQ lite for other hand held devices.
There is an easier way to convert stuff to ebook reader format. At least if you have PDF functionality (like we have on the Hanlin HA HA HA HA HA! Ahem.)
I have installed a virtual printer which “prints” to PDF format file. I have set the page size to A6 and voila! Instant LingQ ebook output.
I think i have DoPDF Version 7 freeware. Google will find it for you. There are others though.
@cantolango, actually, it really functions unbelievably well even on the iPhone! You can add and edit lingqs, read, listen. I haven’t found any limitation other than the small screen size, which the islate will eliminate. Mark my words, the islate is real and will be announced at the end of January. Let’s just hope the thing costs less than a small fortune. Otherwise, we would be better off with one of those newer netbooks with 10 hour battery life and nice screens.
"There are free programs that will convert you pdf file to mobi file that can be read on a kindle. One of them is mobicreator, after mobicreator converst the pdf, you drag and drop the converted file into the document folder of you kindle. You can also send pdf files to amazon to be converted, If you don’t want to pay the small fee be sure to send it to free email address. If you send it to the free convertion email address they will send the converted file to your email and then you just drag and drop into the document fold on you kindle. the free email address should be “your kindle name@free.Kindle.com”
Free ebooks from many languages (you can select your which format you want the book in, you even have Kindle format Steve) http://manybooks.net/language.php
Another public domain ebook site. You have books in english, french, german and spanish. (formats: EPUB, Mobipocket/Kindle, PDF, Custom PDF, Settings for custom PDF) http://feedbooks.com/
This is fantastic information and I am going to look into all of it. How much of LingQ survives this? Do you see highlighting? I assume there are no functions.
I would also strongly recommend this forum for all you could ever possibly want to know about ebook readers: MobileRead Forums. There is a library of free books in various formats, advice about Calibre, and a lot of very smart people who understand how to write firmware.
@Steve: you can almost certainly get foreign language books in Kindle-friendly formatting on the mobile read forum, if you mean that the Kindle isn’t displaying non-Latin texts correctly then I’m sure there’s a firmware patch you can apply. Hitomi has a Kindle too, she says it can cope with Japanese in PDF with embedded fonts.
I download the LingQ lessons I’m working on onto my reader so I can read them while listening to the mp3s. I also download interesting forum threads and articles on linguistics that people recommend. I have a couple of public domain Japanese grammar books too (when I remember where I got them I’ll post the links). I don’t have ability to mark text on the Hanlin so I just read it. Fancier readers have dictionaries and stuff but they probably cost a lot more.
The firmware supplied with my Hanlin didn’t support Japanese characters. I got onto the suppliers who got onto the manufacturers who provided a firmware patch. I had to load Cyberbit fonts and now I’m up and running with Japanese, Chinese, Russian, French and German books.
@TasXsiT: you should not have to mess with the system language to display different languages, but you may need a different font set like Cyberbit (google for it).
steve
You can use Russian fonts for reading books on your Kindle too. http://www.the-ebook.org/?p=1544
Good luck with update (перепрошивка in russian)
Приятного чтения
I’d like to say thank you to everyone posting their input on this topic. Some of these sites look really helpful and I’ve been thinking about this topic recently.
We’ll look into it.