YouTranslate

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  Chrome Extension Interface

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  Pop Up Translation Audio Comparison

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  Pop Up

Inspiration

Our inspiration comes from a common experience: learning a new language is on many people's bucket lists. Yet, even after years of study in high school or college, few of us achieve lasting fluency or even retain much of the language over time. We realized traditional methods often feel robotic and disconnected. After speaking with first-generation immigrants, we learned a powerful lesson: they often master languages naturally by engaging with media they enjoy, like Bollywood movies. This showed us language learning doesn't have to be purely academic. We wanted to replicate that effective, enjoyable, media-based learning approach for YouTube – a platform virtually everyone watches – turning entertainment into real language acquisition.

What it does

YouTranslate is a browser extension that enhances language learning while watching YouTube videos. It randomly pauses videos and prompts users to recite or translate English phrases into Spanish (with plans to potentially expand to other languages in the future). The extension provides feedback on accuracy, helping users improve their pronunciation and translation skills by turning passive video consumption into interactive language practice.

How we built it

We developed YouTranslate as a browser extension using JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and Python. The extension interacts with Youtube's API to control video transcriptions and playback. For speech recognition, we utilize the Web Speech API and integrated it seamlessly into our backend in harmony with the Youtube API. The backend is built with Node.js and Express, and handles user data and provides feedback to assist learners in improving language skills. We also used the Levenshtein distance algorithm to compare the transcriptions from two audio samples, calculating the minimum number of edits needed to transform one transcript into the other. This method provided a percentage similarity score, allowing me to quantify how closely the audio samples match in terms of their spoken content.

Challenges we ran into

One challenge that we ran into is the Youtube Integration. Integrating this portion with the backend was difficult, as at times, the timings and the transcriptions weren't accurate or weren't being fetched properly. In addition, sometimes the user engagement would be a little difficult, as some of the buttons or functionality wouldn't work as intended. Overall, through time and debugging, we were able to fix these problems.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud to have created a functional prototype that helps users learn new languages in ways that are interactive and fun for the user. By successfuly integrating real-time speech recognition and providing immediate feedback, our team truly believes that we could bring this to a larger scale to help all language learners alike.

What we learned

Creating a browser extension that seamlessly integrates with YouTube's interface poses interesting technical challenges. The combination of video content consumption with active language practice creates an effective learning environment where users can practice Spanish using content they're already interested in. The feedback mechanism is essential for helping users gauge their progress and improve over time.

What's next for YouTranslate

Implementing a system to track which words/phrases users struggle with for personalized review Expanding language options beyond Spanish Adding difficulty levels to accommodate different proficiency levels Creating a user dashboard to track progress over time Developing more sophisticated pronunciation feedback mechanisms Adding options for users to control when and how often the video pauses

Built With

• css
• express.js
• html
• javascript
• node.js