I love the Talking book tool! Is it possible to record BOTH in English AND Vernacular? I’m creating bilingual Somali - English literacy lessons and I want readers to hear both languages. How can I do that?
Thanks,
Mike
Mike,
It’s possible for a Bloom book to have audio in more than one language, by moving it to a collection with a different primary (vernacular) language. In this way you could make two separate ebooks or bloom reader books, one with Somali audio and one with English audio, from the same Bloom book.
It’s not currently possible to make a single epub or bloom reader book that contains audio in two languages. We intended audio primarily as an aid to beginning readers of their own language, and didn’t think they would be trying to learn to read two languages at the same time. It also seemed to us that it would break up the flow of the book.
If you have a need for this, a feature request would be welcome. Some things to think about:
- How often would you switch languages? Would you read a sentence in Somali, then re-read it in English? A paragraph? A whole page? The whole book? Or just take each bit of text in whatever language in the order it occurs in the book? Does the reader program need to offer control over which language(s) are read aloud? (Probably not possible with 3rd-party epub readers.)
- What controls over bilingual audio should there be? Does something in Bloom control whether audio from one or more languages is published? Or something in the reader control whether one or both are read (only in Bloom Reader)? Or do we just publish whatever audio is found?
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Hi John,
Let me consult my colleague in Minnesota who is working on this project. I’ll get back to you soon with her input.
Thanks,
Mike
This has shipped in 4.3 beta.
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