Gradint, a program for self-study of foreign languages

Gradint is a program that can be used to make your own self-study audio tapes for learning foreign-language vocabulary.  You can use it to help with a course, to prepare for speaking assignments, or just to keep track of the vocabulary you come across.

The method: Gradint uses a variant of the “graduated-interval recall” method published by Pimsleur in 1967.  It’s like audio flashcards that appear in a special pattern designed to help you remember.  The Pimsleur accelerated language courses use several techniques (they say some are patented), and Gradint does not imitate all that, but this particular 1967 idea is now in the public domain so Gradint can use it to help you learn your own choice of vocabulary.

Visual presentation of graduated-interval recall:

Animation (“memory balls” reinforcement)

Gradint gives only audio, so you concentrate on pronunciation. (And so you can listen during daily routines e.g. washing etc, since you don’t have to look or press buttons during a lesson.) Gradint can write its lessons to MP3 or similar files for you to hear later, or it can play them itself and try to adapt to emergency interruptions.  The words it uses can be taken from real sound recordings or they can be synthesized by computer.  You can add words to your collection at any time, and Gradint can manage collections of thousands of words (and supports batch entry).  It can also help you rehearse longer texts such as poems.

Gradint is free/libre and open-source software.

Setup instructions

1. Download the appropriate version.

Additional downloads for Chinese:

Yali Cheng’s Mandarin voice (hear a sample); a lower-pitch version of Yali’s voice; Cameron Wong’s Cantonese voice. These are larger downloads but less “robotic” than the voice that comes with Gradint. On Windows just open them; on other systems put them in the same folder as you put Gradint.

=> Yali Cheng’s Mandarin voice
=> hear a sample
=> lower-pitch version of Yali’s voice
=> Cameron Wong’s Cantonese voice

Windows:

Download the Windows installer and run it. (You do not need Administrator rights.)

=> Windows installer

Mac:

Download the Mac version, unpack it, and open Gradint. Should work with versions of OS X from 10.0 through 10.14, but on 10.15 it might need permission to run from the Security settings.

=> Mac version

GNU/Linux etc:

For GNU/Linux and other Unix systems (including OLPC laptops, NAS devices and the Raspberry Pi), download the Linux version, do tar -jxf gradint.bgz and run using gradint/gradint.py (compatible with both Python 2 and Python 3). Also install espeak and python-tk packages if possible.

=> Linux version

Windows Mobile:

For Windows Mobile (6.0 or earlier) install PythonCE, install gradint.cab and run Setup in the gradint folder. (This will also install eSpeak, and some scripts to read the clipboard. It will run faster if you have a RAMdisk.)

=> PythonCE
=> gradint.cab

S60:

For Nokia/Symbian S60 phones (e.g. E63, N71, N86, N97, 6120), install PyS60 and ScriptShell (those links are for 3rd edition phones; for other editions google it), unpack gradint-S60.zip into the phone’s data\python or python folder, open Python and run script gradint.py (I also have some Python utilities for S60 phones by the way).

=> PyS60
=> ScriptShell
=> gradint-S60.zip

Android:

For Android phones (including very old ones), install the old version 1.2.5 of QPython and disable Play Store updates on it (as version 3.0 is broken, especially on Android 4.x). Unpack gradint-android.zip into qpython/scripts (or com.hipipal.qpyplus/scripts on older versions), and optionally set QPython’s “default program” to gradint.py (or if you have SL4A+Python, use /sdcard/sl4a/scripts)

=> gradint-android.zip

RISC OS:

For RISC OS 4, download RISC OS Python 2.3 (via Internet Archive), gradint.zip and PlayIt; shift-click to open !gradint or click to run. For RISC OS 5 on ARM7+ use Python 3.8, edit !Run to say Python3, and use MP3s not WAVs; install AMPlayer, and eSpeak if possible.

=> RISC OS Python 2.3
=> gradint.zip

Online:

You can use Gradint Web edition with any browser. You can set up your own server with the Unix version (above) and the server scripts (also includes scripts for email-based service).

=> Gradint Web edition
=> server scripts

2. Tell the program which language you want to learn.  On most systems, Gradint will show a GUI which lets you do this.  A more technical way to do it is to edit the file settings.txt.

3. Give the program some words and phrases to teach.  This can be any combination of real recordings and computer-synthesized words, and you can always add more later.  You can use the graphical interface (on supported systems), or you can:

• place real recordings in the samples directory and its subdirectories (see the file README.txt in the samples directory)

=> the file README.txt in the samples directory

• add words that you want synthesized by computer to vocab.txt (see the instructions in vocab.txt)

=> the instructions in vocab.txt

4. If possible, prepare some audio prompts such as “say again” and “do you remember how to say”.  These can be real recordings or synthesized text.  Some text for English and Chinese is already provided, but if you won’t be using a speech synthesizer you can download sampled English prompts.  For any other language you should ideally add your own; for details of how to do this, see the file README.txt in the prompts subdirectory of the samples directory.

=> sampled English prompts
=> the file README.txt in the prompts subdirectory

You should then be able to run the program every time you want a lesson.

You can do more advanced things if you are able to edit configuration files. For details see the file advanced.txt (that link is for reference only; to make changes you will need to open the copy in your gradint installation).

=> see the file advanced.txt

For programmers: The source code is gradint.py which can be found within any of the downloads, or you can download the Gradint build environment which contains a Makefile and supporting files for producing the above releases from a Linux box. See its README.txt for details. There is also an SVN repository thanks to Cameron Wong: svn co http://svn.code.sf.net/p/e-guidedog/code/ssb22

=> download the Gradint build environment

and a GitHub repository: git clone https://github.com/ssb22/gradint.git

and a GitLab repository: git clone https://gitlab.com/ssb22/gradint.git

and a Bitbucket repository: git clone https://bitbucket.org/ssb22/gradint.git

Legal

All material © Silas S. Brown unless otherwise stated. Android is a trademark of Google LLC. ARM is a registered trademark of Advanced RISC Machines, Ltd or its subsidiaries. GitHub is a trademark of GitHub Inc. Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries. Mac is a trademark of Apple Inc. MP3 is a trademark that was registered in Europe to Hypermedia GmbH Webcasting but I was unable to confirm its current holder. Pimsleur is a registered trademark of Beverly Pimsleur exclusively licensed to Simon & Schuster. Python is a trademark of the Python Software Foundation. Raspberry Pi is a trademark of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. RISC OS is a trademark of Pace Micro Technology Plc which might now have passed to RISC OS Ltd but I was unable to find definitive documentation. Symbian might still be a trademark but I was unable to confirm its current holder. Unix is a trademark of The Open Group. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. Any other trademarks I mentioned without realising are trademarks of their respective holders.