Use Subs2srs to turn TV shows with subs into SRS Flashcards

Nukemarine   Fri Apr 09, 2010 4:53 pm GMT
Sorry for the cross posting from other forums, but I thought users on this site could benefit from knowing about this (I did not find any mention of this program with the search function).

Detailed post at: http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=2643

The user CB4960 created a program that uses the subtitles of TV shows or movies plus the video of the show and create sound, text and image files for easy importing into an SRS such as Supermemo or Anki.

I've used it for learning Japanese, but I've also created flashcards from "Sex and the City" and "Prison Break" for my wife who's learning English.

In addition, I found this helped boost my listening ability which I detailed here (again, for Japanese but the same could be accomplished for English): http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=3828
Tom   Fri Apr 09, 2010 9:55 pm GMT
Thanks for the info.

According to the discussion on the site you linked to, this tool converts the WHOLE movie into sentences. Is there any way to pick the specific sentences you want? I can't see why I would want to add everything I see/hear to SuperMemo/Anki/etc.

Not to be too negative, but this looks like an interesting tool for proficient computer users. As for other users... Let me put it this way: If "regular users" complain about the difficulty of SuperMemo, you certainly cannot expect them to download illegal movies, locate matching subtitle files and go through 14 steps to extract video files for their SRS collection. Look at the number of options in the program's window:
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/6201/v17anomain.png
Nukemarine   Sat Apr 10, 2010 8:53 am GMT
Tom:

"Is there any way to pick the specific sentences you want?" - Yes, if you're savvy enough, you can edit the subtitle file itself (it's a text file) and delete all but the sentences you want. There's also a text limiter options to not include short lines (say 15 characters or less) or certain characters and words.

However, in my experience, it was better to import into Anki (I don't use supermemo) then delete sentences one by one. You sort of experience the entire show sentence by sentence which has immediate benefits based on personal experience and when I used this with Japanese people to teach them English.

"Not to be too negative, but this looks like an interesting tool for proficient computer users." - That's been mentioned on the Koohii forums also. However, I don't think the subs2srs is too complicated. You need the video file and the subtitle file each in its own folder, and that's about it. Now, this may exclude some users, but that does not invalidate the usefulness of this program for learning colloquial English.

In addition, one does not have to illegally download movies. One can copy a legally owned DVD then find subtitle files. The subtitles are easy to find for English movies.

Now the commentary:

Please realize, this was programmed by a guy who is learning Japanese. He showed a sample deck that had an image from a video and the line in subtitles. On the forum, we immediately realized the enormous benefit this would bring to learners and asked him to further develop it. As such, the programmer kept improving the program by making it user friendly (such as adding a GUI) and taking out a lot of intensive items (such as downloading video processing software).

And it's free and open sourced.

Tom, I would also like to invite you to read more of the posts at http://Forum.Koohii.com as it can be of use. The users there are mainly focused on learning Japanese, and as such many of the techniques are refined to learn a complicated language in the most efficient manner possible. Yet those techniques can be applied to learning any language.

In addition, a large number of the members have English as a second (or later) language yet speak it fluently.