Foreign manga reader: Learn grammar and pronunciation while reading comics

Abstract

Foreign-language comics are potentially an enjoyable way to learn foreign languages. However, the difficulty of reading authentic material makes them inaccessible to novice learners. We present the Foreign Manga Reader, a system that helps readers comprehend foreign-language written materials and learn multiple aspects of the language. Specifically, it generates a sentence-structure visualization to help learners understand the grammar, pronounces dialogs to improve listening comprehension and pronunciation, and translates dialogs, phrases, and words to teach vocabulary. Learners can use the system to match their experience level, giving novices access to dialog-level translations and pronunciations, and more advanced learners with access to information at the level of phrases and individual words. The annotations are automatically generated, and can be used with arbitrary written materials in several languages. A preliminary study suggests that learners find our system useful for understanding and learning from authentic foreign-language material.