Audio options

Audio options

Postby TheNCGoalie » Sat Oct 23, 2021 3:18 pm

I am really loving this app. I basically take everything I learn in Fluenz and Duolingo and turn it into cards for extra practice. Using Google sheets lets my German coworkers add content for me and it's a big game changer.

This is the format I use to make my cards...

Text 1:
Hast du eine Englische Speisekarte?

Text 2:
Do you have an English menu?

Text 3:
(Hast)(du)(eine)(Englische)(Speisekarte)?
(Have)(you)(an)(English)(menu)?

Text 1:
Speisekarte

Text 2:
menu (F)

Text 3:
(Speise)(karte)
(food)(map)

The first question I have, is it possible to format my Google Sheet in such a way that I keep my German and English .mp3 files in different folders within Google Docs? For some words, like park, that are spelled the same in English and German, the app will use the English text to speech version for both Text 1 and Text 2. If I could have a folder for all Text 1 .mp3 files and a separate folder for all Text 2 .mp3 files, it would be a big help.

It would also be amazing to get a feature to specify playback speed in the same column as the filename. Something like "Ich Lerne Deutch.mp3 75%" would make it super easy to add slowed down versions to a word or topic without having to create additional mp3 files. Another feature that would be amazing is to combine separate files, like "Ich Lerne Deutsch.mp3 + I'm Learning German.mp3" in the same column that would play both files in order. Lastly, the ability to do both would be fantastic, like "Ich Lerne Deutsch.mp3 75% + I'm Learning German.mp3 75%". This would be huge for my Text 3 side of the cards where I try to break down everything into smaller chunks and understand the individual pieces and focus on pronunciation.
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Re: Audio options

Postby Ernie » Fri Oct 29, 2021 3:08 pm

Right now, I don't have an easy solution for your different sound files with the same name. I thought you might be able to specify a subdirectory in your media file names, but it didn't work for me with Google Drive. Maybe this was something I added for say Dropbox, but I don't quite remember. But even if it did somehow work, the media files are all stored in a single "deck" directory in the app and there would be a problem with two files sharing the same name (one would get overwritten), unless I had logic to rename one.

I don't know what I think now about any programming changes to help with this. It can be dealt with on your end with file name changes, though I understand it's not idea. I will have to give this more thought.

You mentioned playback speed. Being able to adjust the playback speed of mp3 files is something I'd like to add. But I was thinking it would be a deck setting for a particular "side", not a "per file" setting. Would being able to slow down ALL German files say to 75% be of use to you? Any real reason of wanting to specify this in the text file on a per-file setting?

I don't know when I might add a speed setting for mp3 files, but I'll consider it for an update in the not too distant future.

As far as being able to play multiple sound files on a single side, I don't think this will happen anytime soon. While I can see the benefit, I don't think it would be that useful to very many people. I need to prioritize. But I'll consider.
Ernie
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Location: San Francisco / Taiwan

Re: Audio options

Postby Guest » Sat Oct 30, 2021 12:24 pm

Ernie wrote:Right now, I don't have an easy solution for your different sound files with the same name. I thought you might be able to specify a subdirectory in your media file names, but it didn't work for me with Google Drive. Maybe this was something I added for say Dropbox, but I don't quite remember. But even if it did somehow work, the media files are all stored in a single "deck" directory in the app and there would be a problem with two files sharing the same name (one would get overwritten), unless I had logic to rename one.

I don't know what I think now about any programming changes to help with this. It can be dealt with on your end with file name changes, though I understand it's not idea. I will have to give this more thought.


I can just change the file names for now, which isn’t a big deal because it’s not that many words that are the same that it becomes a problem. Having one folder for German and another for English would just be nice for keeping things organized, but I can manage without it.

Ernie wrote:You mentioned playback speed. Being able to adjust the playback speed of mp3 files is something I'd like to add. But I was thinking it would be a deck setting for a particular "side", not a "per file" setting. Would being able to slow down ALL German files say to 75% be of use to you? Any real reason of wanting to specify this in the text file on a per-file setting?

I don't know when I might add a speed setting for mp3 files, but I'll consider it for an update in the not too distant future.


I think per side would work just fine. The logic behind the way I suggested it is because I know it would be easy to make formulas in Google Sheets that would properly format a column based on the other sound columns.

Ernie wrote:As far as being able to play multiple sound files on a single side, I don't think this will happen anytime soon. While I can see the benefit, I don't think it would be that useful to very many people. I need to prioritize. But I'll consider.


The main reason I would love this feature is that my German coworkers who are helping me out with this would also like to use the app with the deck we create together to work on their own English grammar and pronunciation. Being able to combine two files for the side 3 example in my original post would be nice, but for my own personal use, I’ll just use German for that side for now.
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Re: Audio options

Postby Guest » Sun Oct 31, 2021 3:38 pm

In addition to my other response, I had another idea on playback speed. One of the things I keep hearing is that when you try to actually listen to real German, the speed that people talk becomes the biggest problem. It would be awesome to be able to have playback options that are faster than 100% just as a sort of challenge mode for listening and understanding!!
Guest
 

Re: Audio options

Postby Ernie » Mon Nov 01, 2021 12:41 pm

Thanks for the feedback. As I mentioned, the most likely of these updates to happen in the possible nearish future would be a speed adjustment setting the sound options that would work for mp3 files (which would include speaking up as well as slowing down).
Ernie
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