Luc Wastiaux
patreon
The future of AwesomeTTS
🕑 Added 2020-12-05 01:46:17 +0000 UTCI've been doing a lot of thinking about how AwesomeTTS should evolve in the future and wanted to share my thoughts.
But first, HUGE thanks to all of my fans. Cesar, RR, GD are the 3 most long standing fans, thank you !
AwesomeTTS - text to speech
AwesomeTTS has been pretty successful but I believe it needs an overhaul.
- It needs to be smarter. it should know which language my deck is in, which language I normally use, so that regular operations can be achieved with less clicks.
- Show Language first: as we add more and more TTS services, it becomes confusing for the user. Languages should be shown first, possibly with some filtering, such that the user would only see languages they're interested in. Being able to quickly try the various voices will also help.
- Simplify: some features are there for historical reasons, to the extend that no one uses them, we should remove them and simplify the code.
I don't know yet whether these improvements will be in AwesomeTTS, or in a brand new Add-on started from scratch, which would be designed in a much cleaner way. Either way, users will continue to benefit from the functionality they are currently using.
Translation
I want to create an add-on focused on translation. Both batch-generation of translated text, and also on-the-fly translation using a right click menu when selecting any text in Anki. This will allow language learners to quickly clear up any doubts they have while learning languages. It would also allow dictionary lookups.
Chinese
Finally, I am planning on creating an add-on focused on Chinese. Pinyin/Jyutping conversion, dictionary lookups, flashcard creation from examples, and other similar functionality should be supported. I have licensed the ABC Wenlin dictionary in preparation for this addon.
All of these add-ons will be paid addons due to the paid resources they require. But existing patreon fans will have access to these tools, and any new tools I create.
Do you have any ideas for add-ons centered around language learning ? Do let me know !
Comments
I study Mandarin and Cantonese as well. Great to know you're working on a similar project ! The pinyin/jyutping python module uses pleco/cantonese.org and MDBG. It's decently accurate , though not perfect. With Wenlin, i'm hoping to allow quickly add example uses of words into flashcards in Anki. Developing Anki addons is fun. You can create something very simple in a few minutes. I highly recommend it if you have time to tinker, though as you said, it will compete against language learning for your free time. In my case, I used to have a good system, I have a 30mn bus commute. I can't do any programming, so the time is spent reviewing on Anki. That used to work well until we started working from home due to Covid ! Now my reviewing has taken a hit.
Yeah, I have been designing a Mandarin study app, only just started coding it (I'm a software engineer). The issue is, I already have a decent study pattern set up using Anki, so often I just use my spare time to actually study Mandarin rather than tinker with an app that would take me many dozens of hours to complete haha. If I ever do get an MVP working I will show you :) Thanks for making that jyutping code available as a module! Its really hard to find resources for Cantonese. (I have paused my studies of Canto till I get to HSK 6 in Mandarin, but I do plan to study it one day too! I love the language.)
