Learning with Texts :: Help/Information

Learning with Texts

Help/Information

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▶ Preface - [↑]

I started this software application in 2010 as a hobby project for my personal learning (reading & listening to foreign texts, saving & reviewing new words and expressions).
In June 2011, I decided to publish the software in the hope that it will be useful to other language learners around the world.
The software is 100 % free, open source, and in the public domain. You may do with it what you like: use it, improve it, change it, publish an improved version, even use it within a commercial product.
English is not my mother tongue - so please forgive me any mistakes.
A piece of software will be never completely free of "bugs" - please inform me of any problem you will encounter. Your feedback and ideas are always welcome.
My programming style is quite chaotic, and my software is mostly undocumented. This will annoy people with much better programming habits than mine, but please bear in mind that LWT is a one-man hobby project and completely free.
Thank you for your attention. I hope you will enjoy this application as I do every day.

▶ Current Version - [↑]

The current version is 1.5.21 (January 14 2016).
View the Changelog.

▶ Important Links - [↑]

Project Page @ Sourceforge
Download Page @ Sourceforge
Help Forum @ Sourceforge
Source Code @ GitHub
Ideas & Suggestions @ Uservoice
Twitter
- Follow @LWT_Project
- Tweet
LWT Online Demo - try it out:
- General Hints:
  - Do not use for productive work!!
  - Your data may be deleted at any time by other users!!
  - Only one LWT table set is available - the multiple table set feature has been deactivated.
  - You may "reset" the demo by going to "Backup/Restore", and by clicking on "Install LWT Demo Database".
- START ONLINE DEMO (at sourceforge.net, User ID = lwt, Password = lwt)
LWT Reviews and Blog Posts
- The Mezzofanti Guild: How To Install Learning With Texts On Your Own Computer
- Street-Smart Language Learning™: Using Learning with Texts with Anki 2 (in five parts):
  Part 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5
- The Path to Fluency: Detailed review of LWT
- Jeremy Simonson: (Japanese) Learning with Texts
- Chicagoseoul's Blog: Learning with Texts
- Mikoto's Adventures in Japanese: LWT - Learning With Text Introduction
- Mikoto's Adventures in Japanese: LWT - A Guide to Setting up for Japanese Learning
- Mikoto's Adventures in Japanese: LWT - Tricks of the Trade
- Mikoto's Adventures in Japanese: LWT - Daniel’s Guide for Japanese Usage
- Fluent In 3 Months: Introducing LWT, with Benny's own (free) version of LWT.
LWT Forum Threads
- How-To-Learn-Any-Language Forum Thread about LWT
- forum.koohii.com: "Learning With Texts" software + Japanese?
Additional Resources
- Similar software or services
  - FLTR - Foreign Language Text Reader (Open Source Java Desktop Application).
  - LingQ.com (Web based service with tutoring. An account costs US$ 10 per month).
  - lingro.com (An on-line environment that allows anyone learning a language to quickly look up and learn the vocabulary).
  - readlang.com (An on-line service where you can import articles, read and translate them, and learn new words.).
- Resources for various languages
  - GoogleDocs Spreadsheet with recommendations for LWT Language Settings ("Templates")
    Important: Please be careful when making additions or corrections!
- For learners of Japanese
  - MeCab - Yet Another Part-of-Speech and Morphological Analyzer
  - Japanese Space Inserter
- LWT Tutorials in other languages
  - LWT installation tutorial for Japanese Users

▶ Abstract - [↑]

Learning with Texts (LWT) is a tool for Language Learning, inspired by:
- Stephen Krashen's principles in Second Language Acquisition,
- Steve Kaufmann's LingQ System and
- ideas from Khatzumoto, published at "AJATT - All Japanese All The Time".
You define languages you want to learn and import texts you want to use for learning.
While listening to the audio (optional), you read the text, save, review and test "terms" (words or multi word expressions, 2 to 9 words).
In new texts all your previously saved words and expressions are displayed according to their current learn statuses, tooltips show translations and romanizations (readings), editing, changing the status, dictionary lookup, etc. is just a click away.
Import of terms in TSV/CSV format, export in TSV format, and export to Anki (prepared for cloze tests), are also possible.
MOST IMPORTANT:

To run LWT, you'll need:

(1) A modern web browser.
I recommend (in this order)
- Chrome,
- Firefox,
- Safari, or
- Internet Explorer 11+.
If MP3 audio playback doesn't work, install Adobe Flash, or consider switching to a different browser. MP3 playback on some Firefox editions (like the one for Mac OS X) does not seem to work, and playback via Adobe Flash does not seem to work either if the audio is on a different domain (due to security reasons within Flash).
Firefox needs the HTML Ruby Add-On to display ruby markup (i. e. to display annotations above a text) properly.

(2) A local web server.
An easy way to install a local web server are preconfigured packages like
- EasyPHP (Windows), or
- MAMP (Mac OS X), or
- a LAMP (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP) server (Linux).
(3) The LWT Application.
The ZIP Archive can be downloaded here.
The installation is explained
- here (Windows),
- here (Mac OS X) and
- here (Ubuntu, LinuxMint, etc.).

▶ Features - [↑]

You define languages you want to learn.
You define the web dictionaries you want to use.
You define how sentences and words in the language will be split up.
You upload texts, and they are automatically split into sentences and words! Later re-parsing is possible.
Optional: Assign the URL of an mp3 audio file of the text (Dropbox, local server, ...) in order to listen while reading the text.
You read the text while listening to the audio, and you see immediately the status of every word (unknown, learning, learned, well-known, ignored).
You click on words, and you use the external dictionaries to find out their meanings.
You save words or expressions (2..9 words) with optional romanization (for asiatic languages), translations and example sentence, you change its status, you edit them whenever needed (like in LingQ).
You test your understanding of words and expressions within or without sentence context.
MCD (Massive-Context Cloze Deletion) testing, as proposed by Khatzumoto @ AJATT, built-in!
See your progress on the statistics page.
You may export the words and expressions and use them in Anki or other programs.
You may upload words and expressions into LWT (from LingQ or other sources, CSV/TSV) - they are immediately available in all texts!
New since Version 1.5.0: Create and edit an improved annotated text version (a hyperliteral translation as interlinear text) for online or offline learning. Read more here.
The application is 100 % free, open source, and in the Public Domain. Do with it what you like!
Prerequisites: a local webserver (Apache, PHP, mySQL), e.g. EasyPHP (Windows), MAMP (OS X), or a LAMP server (Linux).
Enjoy your language learning!

▶ Screencasts/Videos - [↑]

01 - Starting with French (created with version 1.0.2)
Finding learning material, importing a text with audio, saving words and expressions, changing the status, printing.

Mentioned websites in this screencast:
- LingQ - Library
- Fluent in 3 months - Learning materials
- ieLanguages - French I Tutorial
A video from FluentCzech:

Please have a look at the other great videos of FluentCzech that contain many good ideas for language learning!
Website of FluentCzech (anthonylauder.com)
A video from Benny the Irish polyglot:

Fluent In 3 Months: Introducing LWT, with Benny's own (free) version of LWT.

▶ (Un-) License - [↑]

"Learning with Texts" (LWT) is free and unencumbered software released into the PUBLIC DOMAIN.
Anyone is free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or distribute this software, either in source code form or as a compiled binary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any means.
In jurisdictions that recognize copyright laws, the author or authors of this software dedicate any and all copyright interest in the software to the public domain. We make this dedication for the benefit of the public at large and to the detriment of our heirs and successors. We intend this dedication to be an overt act of relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights to this software under copyright law.
Please read also the disclaimer.
For more information, please refer to unlicense.org/.
The following software packages, bundled within the LWT software, have different licenses:
- jQuery, jQueryUI - Copyright © John Resig et.al., jquery.org/license (js/jquery.js, js/jquery-ui.min.js)
- jQuery.ScrollTo - Copyright © Ariel Flesler, flesler.blogspot.com (js/jquery.scrollTo.min.js)
- Jeditable - jQuery in-place edit plugin - Copyright © Mika Tuupola, Dylan Verheul, www.appelsiini.net/projects/jeditable (js/jquery.jeditable.mini.js)
- jQueryUI Tag-it! - Copyright © Levy Carneiro Jr., aehlke.github.com/tag-it/ (js/tag-it.js)
- оverLIB 4.22 - Copyright © Erik Bоsrup, www.bosrup.com/ (js/overlib/...)
- sorttable - Copyright © Stuart Langridge, www.kryogenix.org/code/browser/sorttable/ (js/sorttable/...)
- CountUp - Copyright © Praveen Lobo, PraveenLobo.com/techblog/javascript-countup-timer/ (js/countuptimer.js)
- jPlayer - Copyright © Happyworm Ltd, www.jplayer.org/about/ (js/jquery.jplayer.min.js, js/Jplayer.swf, css/jplayer_skin/...)
- Floating Menu - Copyright © JTricks.com, www.jtricks.com/licensing.html (js/floating.js)
- mobiledetect - Copyright © Șerban Ghiță & Victor Stanciu, mobiledetect.net (php-mobile-detect/Mobile_Detect.php)
- iUI - Copyright © iUI, www.iui-js.org/ (iui)
The icons in the "icn" subdirectory are Copyright © Yusuke Kamiyamane. All rights reserved. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. The wizard icon "wizard.png" is the "Free Wizard Icon", free for commercial use, from icojam.com (Author: IcoJam / Andrew Zhebrakov).
The following examples, supplied within the LWT download package, have the following licenses:
- Chinese: The Man and the Dog - Copyright © Praxis Language LLC, now ChinesePod Ltd., Source, MP3 licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 Unported license.
- German: Die Leiden des jungen Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - in the Public Domain, Source: Text, Audio.
- French: Mon premier don du sang - Copyright © France Bienvenue, Source. License: "Bien sûr, les enseignants de FLE peuvent utiliser nos enregistrements et nos transcriptions pour leurs cours. Merci de mentionner notre site !".
- Korean, Japanese, Thai, Hebrew - own creations from different sources.

▶ Disclaimer - [↑]

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

▶ Installation on MS Windows - [↑]

Are you upgrading? See section "Upgrade on MS Windows"!
Step 1: Go to www.easyphp.org/easyphp-devserver.php.
Step 2: Download the "EasyPHP DevServer for Windows XP to Windows 8" (currently EasyPHP 14.1 VC9).
Step 3: Open your Downloads folder and run the downloaded EasyPHP-DevServer-14.1VC9-install.exe into C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-... .
Step 4: Go to sourceforge.net/projects/lwt and download the latest zip archive lwt_v_x_y.zip.
Step 5: Copy the downloaded zip archive lwt_v_x_y.zip into the directory data\localweb below the EasyPHP installation directory, i.e. C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-...\data\localweb.
Step 6: Now right-click on the zip archive and select "Extract all", and unzip everything into a new folder C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-...\data\localweb\lwt_v_x_y. Rename the folder lwt_v_x_y to lwt.
Step 7: The zip archive C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-...\data\localweb\lwt_v_x_y.zip may be deleted.
Step 8: Now go into C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-...\data\localweb\lwt. Rename the file connect_easyphp.inc.php to connect.inc.php. (Sometimes the "php" extension is hidden, so be careful! You can display file extensions via the Windows Explorer settings and check it.)
Step 9: Start EasyPHP via the Windows Start Menu. In the Task Bar near the clock appears the EasyPHP app icon (it may be hidden!).
Step 10: LWT can now be started. Right-Click on the EasyPHP icon in the taskbar, choose "Local Web", and click on "lwt" in the webpage. You may also bookmark the LWT home page: 127.0.0.1/lwt.
Step 11: You may now install the LWT demo database, or define the first language you want to learn.
If you want to use LWT again, just do step 9 and 10. Via "EasyPHP icon - Configuration - EasyPHP" you may start EasyPHP automatically when starting Windows. Now step 9 is no longer needed.
The local webserver will be stopped by clicking on "Stop" in EasyPHP menu (see icon near the clock). You can now exit EasyPHP.
Watch the video: Installation of "Learning With Texts" on MS Windows
Uninstall: Just run the EasyPHP Uninstaller, afterwards delete the EasyPHP directory below C:\Program Files (x86).
You have questions about EasyPHP: Try the »EasyPHP Introduction«, or the »EasyPHP FAQ«, or the »EasyPHP Forum«.

▶ Upgrade on MS Windows - [↑]

Step 1: Backup (Copy or ZIP) the directory C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-...\www\lwt. Backup your database (within LWT).
Step 2: Unpack the downloaded ZIP archive lwt_v_x_y.zip in a directory of your choice.
Step 3: Copy everything (incl. sub-directories) you unpacked to C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-...\www\lwt.
You must keep (those are not included in the distributed package):
- the database connection parameters C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-...\www\lwt\connect.inc.php (you created this by renaming, see installation) and
- the whole media sub-directory C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-...\www\lwt\media (contains your MP3 audio files).
Step 4: Clear the web browser cache and start EasyPHP and LWT as usual.

▶ Installation on Mac OS X - [↑]

Are you upgrading? See section "Upgrade on Mac OS X"!
Step 1: Go to www.mamp.info/en/downloads/.
Step 2: Download "MAMP & MAMP PRO" (currently MAMP_MAMP_PRO_3.0.5.pkg).
Step 3: Double-click on the downloaded installation package MAMP_MAMP_PRO_3.0.5.pkg, accept the license, click on "Install for all users..." and on "Continue", on the next panel titled "Standard Install on Macintosh HD" click on "Customize", deselect "MAMP PRO", and click Install. You must enter your password. After this step MAMP is installed within a folder named "MAMP" in the Applications folder.
Step 4: Go to sourceforge.net/projects/lwt and download the latest zip archive lwt_v_x_y.zip.
Step 5: Copy the downloaded zip archive lwt_v_x_y.zip into the directory htdocs below the MAMP directory, i.e. /Applications/MAMP/htdocs. Doubleclick on the zip archive to unzip; a new folder lwt_v_x_y will be created in htdocs.
Step 6: Rename the new folder lwt_v_x_y to lwt. The zip archive lwt_v_x_y.zip may be deleted.
Step 7: Go to /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/lwt. Rename the file connect_mamp.inc.php to connect.inc.php.
Step 8: Open MAMP.app in /Applications/MAMP. Accept the messages from the firewall. Apache and MySQL start automatically.
Step 9: LWT can now be started in your web browser, go to: localhost:8888/lwt.
Step 10: You may install the LWT demo database, or define the first language you want to learn.
If you want to use LWT again, just do step 8 and 9.
The local webserver (MAMP) will be automatically stopped by quitting the MAMP application.
Watch the video: Installation of "Learning With Texts" on Mac OS X
Uninstall: Just delete the folder /Applications/MAMP.
You have questions about MAMP: Try the MAMP Help & Documentation.

▶ Upgrade on Mac OS X - [↑]

Step 1: Backup (Copy or ZIP) the directory /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/lwt. Backup your database (within LWT).
Step 2: Unpack the downloaded ZIP archive lwt_v_x_y.zip in a directory of your choice.
Step 3: Copy everything (incl. sub-directories) you unpacked to /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/lwt.
You must keep (those are not included in the distributed package):
- the database connection parameters /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/lwt/connect.inc.php (you created this by renaming, see installation) and
- the whole media sub-directory /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/lwt/media (contains your MP3 audio files).
Step 4: Clear the web browser cache and start MAMP and LWT as usual.

▶ Installation on Linux (Ubuntu, LinuxMint, etc.) - [↑]

Are you upgrading? See section "Upgrade on Linux (Ubuntu, LinuxMint, etc.)"!
The following installation procedure of LAMP "Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP" and LWT is for newer Ubuntu, LinuxMint, and similar Linux systems.
For other Linux systems, see the external links here.
Step 1: Open a Terminal and type and execute the following commands:
- sudo apt-get update
- sudo apt-get install lamp-server^
After the first command you must enter your password.
Mind the caret (^) at the end of the second command.
During the second command you must confirm once with Y. You are also asked several times for a MySQL password for user "root". Just press [Return] in all these cases.
Step 2: Open a browser and go to sourceforge.net/projects/lwt and download the latest zip archive lwt_v_x_y.zip. It will be normally placed in /home/[your userid]/Downloads.
Step 3: Open a file explorer, go to /home/[your userid]/Downloads and extract the LWT zip archive.
Step 4: Rename the new directory lwt_v_x_y to lwt. The zip archive lwt_v_x_y.zip may be deleted.
Step 5: Rename the file connect_xampp.inc.php in /home/[your userid]/Downloads/lwt to connect.inc.php.
Step 6: Open a Terminal window, type and execute the following commands:
- sudo mv /home/[your userid]/Downloads/lwt /var/www/html
- sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/lwt
- sudo rm /var/www/html/index.html
- sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
Step 7: LWT can now be started in your web browser, go to: localhost/lwt.
Step 8: You may install the LWT demo database, or define the first language you want to learn.
If you want to use LWT again, just do step 7.
Watch the video: Installation of "Learning With Texts" on LinuxMint

▶ Upgrade on Linux (Ubuntu, LinuxMint, etc.) - [↑]

Step 1: Backup (Copy or ZIP) the directory /var/www/html/lwt. Backup your database (within LWT).
Step 2: Open a browser and go to sourceforge.net/projects/lwt and download the latest zip archive lwt_v_x_y.zip. It will be normally placed in /home/[your userid]/Downloads.
Step 3: Open a file explorer, go to /home/[your userid]/Downloads and extract the LWT zip archive into the new directory lwt_v_x_y.
Step 4: Open a Terminal window, type and execute the following commands::
- sudo cp -R /home/[your userid]/Downloads/lwt_v_x_y/* /var/www/html/lwt
- sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/lwt
- sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
You will keep (those are not included in the distributed package):
- the database connection parameters /var/www/html/lwt/connect.inc.php (you created this by renaming connect_xampp.inc.php, see installation) and
- the whole media sub-directory /var/www/html/lwt/media (contains your MP3 audio files).
Step 5: Clear the web browser cache and open LWT as usual.

▶ How to install LWT at a (free) Webhoster - [↑]

Here I will explain how to install LWT at 000webhost.com, a free web hoster. The installation at other web hosting services is similar.
Order free hosting. Goto www.000webhost.com/order.php. Enter the data and sign up.
Shortly after signing up you see your account Details Overview. Save your signup data and the data on this page. They are also send to you via email.
Enter the Control Panel.
Click on "MySQL" under "Software/Services". Create a database.

After creation save the data displayed. You need them later.
Download and unpack LWT in a directory of your choice. Rename the downloaded file connect_xampp.inc.php into connect.inc.php. Open a text editor and change:

$server = "localhost";
$userid = "root";
$passwd = "";
$dbname = "learning-with-texts";

to the information given after database creation:

$server = "mysql6.000webhost.com";
$userid = "a2649099_lwt";
$passwd = "thepassword";
$dbname = "a2649099_lwt";
Click on "View FTP Details" under "Files".

Download and install FileZilla, a program to transfer files to and from an external server. Start FileZilla and open the Site Manager. Click on New Site and enter the details from the web page.

Click on Connect. On the left hand side you see the files on your computer, on the right hand side the files at the web ho

Learning with Texts Help/Information

Learning with Texts

Help/Information