u/MaciekLubocki

Hi everyone,
I'm working on a project involving German lemmas from the Grimm's Dictionary (Deutsches Wörterbuch). I have the list of words, but I am missing the definitions.

I’ve tried:

1. OCR (quality is too poor for Fraktur/old German).
2. Prompting LLMs (Claude/GPT-4), but they hallucinate archaic definitions constantly.
3. Contacting Woerterbuchnetz/Trier. I can search manually.

Is there a public, open-access dump (XML, TEI, JSON, or SQL) of the full DWB available somewhere? I am looking for structured data that maps lemmas to their original definitions.

Any leads on GitHub repos, university datasets (Zenodo, etc.), or hidden mirrors would be greatly appreciated!

Hi everyone,
I'm working on a project involving German lemmas from the Grimm's Dictionary (Deutsches Wörterbuch). I have the list of words, but I am missing the definitions.

I’ve tried:

1. OCR (quality is too poor for Fraktur/old German).
2. Prompting LLMs (Claude/GPT-4), but they hallucinate archaic definitions constantly.
3. Contacting Woerterbuchnetz/Trier. I can search manually.

Is there a public, open-access dump (XML, TEI, JSON, or SQL) of the full DWB available somewhere? I am looking for structured data that maps lemmas to their original definitions.

Any leads on GitHub repos, university datasets (Zenodo, etc.), or hidden mirrors would be greatly appreciated!

Hi everyone,
I'm working on a project involving German lemmas from the Grimm's Dictionary (Deutsches Wörterbuch). I have the list of words, but I am missing the definitions.

I’ve tried:

1. OCR (quality is too poor for Fraktur/old German).
2. Prompting LLMs (Claude/GPT-4), but they hallucinate archaic definitions constantly.
3. Contacting Woerterbuchnetz/Trier. I can search manually.

Is there a public, open-access dump (XML, TEI, JSON, or SQL) of the full DWB available somewhere? I am looking for structured data that maps lemmas to their original definitions.

Any leads on GitHub repos, university datasets (Zenodo, etc.), or hidden mirrors would be greatly appreciated!

Hey everyone,

I’m a solo dev. For the last 3 years, I’ve been building a massive, multi-language learning platform (about 90% done). To catch my breath and finally "validate the market," I spent the last 2 months building and shipping 6 smaller, focused web apps based on the mechanics of my main system.

The "Scouts" I sent out:

• Voice-first flashcards (hands-free practice)
• German article (der/die/das) lookup tool
• Real-time 1v1 vocabulary battles
• Multilingual word-chain games
• And a few other niche tools.

The Strategy:
Most are browser/PWA first, priced at cheap lifetime deals ($3.99 - $7.99 USD). No subscriptions, no accounts.

The Result: Total silence.
Despite running some ads and promoting them on YouTube:

• Ads bring traffic, but 0 conversions. People land on the page, look around, and leave.
• Organic reach is dead. YouTube views tanked the moment I stopped the ad spend.
• The "German Lookup" and "Vocab Battle" (free) have some users, but zero retention.

What I think I’ve validated so far (The Brutal Truth):

1. Small tools are hard to sell: A $3.99 price tag might actually signal "low quality" rather than a "good deal."
2. No Marketing = No Oxygen: Even useful tools get buried instantly without a massive distribution engine.
3. PWA friction: Maybe people just don’t want to pay for a tool that lives in a mobile browser?

The Pivot:
I’ve decided to stop spreading myself thin. I’m focusing on the Voice-First Flashcard app as the main "entry product." The hook: Learn while your hands and eyes are busy (cooking, commuting, walking). It listens to your voice, checks your pronunciation, and uses SRS (spaced repetition).

My concern:
If I can't sell a $4 micro-app that solves a specific problem, will anyone care about the "Massive Platform" I’ve spent 3 years on?

I need your brutal feedback:

1. Is "Hands-free language learning" a strong enough hook to stand out in the crowded EdTech market?
2. Should I ditch the "cheap lifetime" model and go for a higher price or subscription to signal value?
3. Am I still thinking too much like a builder and not enough like a founder?

I’d rather hear the truth now than after another year of dev.

thank you.

Hey!

Looking for voice chat partners over Google Meet, Zoom, or Teams — something with proper video and screen-share. Not after formal lessons, just relaxed conversation in the languages I'm trying to keep alive (or get going).

What I can offer:

- 🇵🇱 Polish — native

- 🇬🇧 English — C1/C2

What I'd love to practice:

- 🇯🇵 Japanese — around B1

- 🇩🇪 German — around B2

- 🇨🇳 Chinese — total beginner, so go easy on me 😅

Happy to split call time half-and-half (your language / mine), or just chat and switch when one of us stalls. I'm into language stuff, travel, food, tech, music, and basically anything that makes a real conversation worth having.

If any of this overlaps with what you're after, drop a comment or DM and we can try a short call. No commitment — let's just see if the vibe clicks.

Hi everybody,

I created a TikTok channel and posted my self-made video. I made it myself, taking care to align with platform rules.

The movie was loaded successfully and I wanted to promote it. After I bought coins and pressed the start button, I got info that my promotion was not delivered. NO explanation. I appealed. After around 1 minute it was rejected. I created a ticked. I was asked to provide the address where the movie is, EVEN THOUGH I had only just one movie at that time... I provided it. After several days this ticked was closed WITHOUT ANY RESPONSE.

Yesterday I created another ticked for this existing one. The mechanism is exactly the same. I am served again by some chat AI or other mechanism without any reflection. This is really disappointing.

What's more, I see that this movie is not visible, as there is nobody who watched it. So I am pretty sure that TikTok not only blocks me from promoting this, but also doesn't want people to see it organically? Other movies I posted are visible and some people had already seen them. But this particular movie has a zero seen status (just me).

What can I do? The movie is made not to break any of the TikTok rules; it is about a 100% FREE education app. So why does this platform block me, and...

Hey everyone. I’m feeling really frustrated and could use some advice from people who might have overcome this.

I’ve been learning Japanese for over a decade. It wasn't in a school setting, mostly self-taught, casually but continuously. I’m somewhere between N4 and N3 (probably closer to N3).

For the past year, I’ve been taking conversation lessons on Preply. Here is the weird part: my lessons go incredibly well. I can converse freely with my Japanese tutors, I understand almost everything they say, and I can express myself easily.

But... the moment I turn on Netflix to watch a Japanese drama or movie, it’s a total disaster. I understand practically nothing. It’s actually devastating to realize that after so many years of learning, I still can’t watch a simple show.

I know all about the differences between polite Japanese (teineigo/keigo) and casual street Japanese. I know dialects exist. But my Preply lessons (while great for speaking) aren't helping me bridge this gap, and I feel like I've hit a massive plateau.

I am willing to put in a lot of work to change this. Has anyone been stuck in this "Tutor Japanese" trap? How do I train my brain to understand native, unstructured media? Any specific methods, tools, or routines you recommend?

Thank you!

EDIT: I'm overwhelmed by the responses, thank you all. A few patterns I'm seeing in the advice:

1. Lower the difficulty — start with kids' shows / slice of life / school dramas. Thought at first it would be better to immerse into real life movies for natives... now I think that is not the best pattern to follow.

2. Active note-taking with JP subs on, write down everything unknown, not just watch.

3. Don't trust JLPT vibes-level. Honestly, JLPT itself isn't a goal for me — I just used the levels as rough shorthand to describe where I might be, based on how natives react when I talk to them. Fair point that it's not a real measurement though.

4. The gap I'm feeling is normal — even fluent speakers hit walls with unfamiliar register/genre I'll be working through specific recommendations (Tadoku, Erin's Challenge, "I'm Mita Your Housekeeper", Shirokuma Cafe). Will report back in a month. Genuinely — thanks. This community is really helpful.