<story><title>Show HN: Learn German with Short Stories</title><url>https://webbu.app/german</url><text>Hi HN! I have been working on a webapp to keep learning German and today I want to share the first version. In the past, I have used books with &amp;quot;Short stories&amp;quot; to learn the language and I always wanted more stories so I thought I could put that into an app. Short stories are nice because the learner can attempt to understand words from the context of the text and it feels like less effort than a traditional language app.&lt;p&gt;Additionally, the app format allows for practice questions at the end and you can use LLMs to check whether the answers are correct; so the users can check themselves.&lt;p&gt;So this is that! Let me know if you have any questions.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;webbu.app&amp;#x2F;german&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;webbu.app&amp;#x2F;german&lt;/a&gt;</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>thomasahle</author><text>Seems silly to translate short stories into German, rather than just using German short stories. Even if translation got incredibly good, the &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; German stories would have the extra benefit of teaching you about the culture.&lt;p&gt;On that note, do you have a recommendation for a collection of actual German short stories?</text></item><item><author>cloogshicer</author><text>Native German speaker here. My partner is a native English speaker and I was about to recommend this to her.&lt;p&gt;However, it looks like a lot of this is auto generated&amp;#x2F;translated, making it sound unnatural or sometimes just wrong.&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;p&gt;I looked at this example story [1] and the practice question is slightly bad grammar. It should be &amp;quot;Wer ging im Wald spazieren?&amp;quot;, not &amp;quot;Wer ging spazieren im Wald?&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Or: &amp;quot;Sie lachten und hatten eine gute Zeit [...]&amp;quot; --&amp;gt; This seems like a bad translation of &amp;quot;had a good time&amp;quot;, which doesn&amp;#x27;t translate directly to German like this.&lt;p&gt;Would definitely not recommend this overall.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;webbu.app&amp;#x2F;l&amp;#x2F;german&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;ein-unerwarteter-spaziergang-im-wald&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;webbu.app&amp;#x2F;l&amp;#x2F;german&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;ein-unerwarteter-spaziergan...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ainar-g</author><text>Not exactly stories in text, but there is a YouTube channel called “Deutsch Lernen Durch Hören”[1] (“Learning German Through Listening”), which has hundreds of stories for all levels.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;@DldH&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;@DldH&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Show HN: Learn German with Short Stories</title><url>https://webbu.app/german</url><text>Hi HN! I have been working on a webapp to keep learning German and today I want to share the first version. In the past, I have used books with &amp;quot;Short stories&amp;quot; to learn the language and I always wanted more stories so I thought I could put that into an app. Short stories are nice because the learner can attempt to understand words from the context of the text and it feels like less effort than a traditional language app.&lt;p&gt;Additionally, the app format allows for practice questions at the end and you can use LLMs to check whether the answers are correct; so the users can check themselves.&lt;p&gt;So this is that! Let me know if you have any questions.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;webbu.app&amp;#x2F;german&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;webbu.app&amp;#x2F;german&lt;/a&gt;</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>thomasahle</author><text>Seems silly to translate short stories into German, rather than just using German short stories. Even if translation got incredibly good, the &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; German stories would have the extra benefit of teaching you about the culture.&lt;p&gt;On that note, do you have a recommendation for a collection of actual German short stories?</text></item><item><author>cloogshicer</author><text>Native German speaker here. My partner is a native English speaker and I was about to recommend this to her.&lt;p&gt;However, it looks like a lot of this is auto generated&amp;#x2F;translated, making it sound unnatural or sometimes just wrong.&lt;p&gt;For example:&lt;p&gt;I looked at this example story [1] and the practice question is slightly bad grammar. It should be &amp;quot;Wer ging im Wald spazieren?&amp;quot;, not &amp;quot;Wer ging spazieren im Wald?&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Or: &amp;quot;Sie lachten und hatten eine gute Zeit [...]&amp;quot; --&amp;gt; This seems like a bad translation of &amp;quot;had a good time&amp;quot;, which doesn&amp;#x27;t translate directly to German like this.&lt;p&gt;Would definitely not recommend this overall.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;webbu.app&amp;#x2F;l&amp;#x2F;german&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;ein-unerwarteter-spaziergang-im-wald&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;webbu.app&amp;#x2F;l&amp;#x2F;german&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;ein-unerwarteter-spaziergan...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>WalterBright</author><text>Der Struwwelpeter</text></comment>