[Athen] Advice on German foreign language learning for blind student

[chagnon at pubcom.com]

Begin quote: "PDF (which we know does not support language switching)"

 

The PDF/UA-1 standard does indeed support multiple languages and "switching"
through the global language setting in metadata (File / Properties), and the
local language attribute on selected tagged content.

 

It's the assistive technologies that fail to correctly process the
languages. Or the content creators who fail to tag their content with the
language attribute.

 

Don't blame the file format for this shortcoming.

 

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Bevi Chagnon  | Designer, Accessibility Technician |
<mailto:Chagnon at PubCom.com> Chagnon at PubCom.com 

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PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing

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From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf
Of Stager, Catherine
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 12:39 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Advice on German foreign language learning for blind
student

 

I just worked with Pearson to get a student access to their German textbook
in ePub via VitalSource (Thanks, Doug Hacker).  Hopefully, it is fully
marked up properly, but be forewarned that Pearson's default for language
textbooks through AccessText is PDF (which we know does not support language
switching).  

 

As far as OCR, I always found Abbyy Finereader got better results for
languages.

Best regards,

Cath

 

Catherine M. Stager

Assistive Technology Specialist

Disability Support Services - Assistive Technology

Pronouns: she/her/hers.

Leave a message or text Cath (720) 336-1245
Check out our Getting Started Guides for At Home Support!
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dxbn9-nYhNL3lHYCA..&URL=https%3a%2f%2fwww.mypronouns.org%2fwhat-and-why>  

 

 

 

 

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu
<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> > On Behalf Of
Mosley, Leigh
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 6:49 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu
<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu> >
Subject: Re: [Athen] Advice on German foreign language learning for blind
student

 

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Hi Adina,

 

What a great question! In my experience, I found that VoiceOver seems to
recognize most languages and pronounce them correctly right out of the box.
NVDA and JAWS require you to first download a specific voice for that
language and to make sure your speech synthesizer is set to Windows OneCore
for NVDA or Vocalizer Expressive for JAWS.  But then they all work well, as
long as the page is coded with the correct <lang> tag.  

 

Unfortunately, I have yet to find an online resource with multiple languages
on the same page that correctly uses <p lang=  or  <span lang= tags to show
the screen reader when to switch back and forth.  It's extremely frustrating
because it basically renders all online foreign-language teaching resources
useless with a screen reader.  Occasionally VoiceOver figures it out on its
own, but not at all reliably. 

 

Also, I'm guessing that once you get into more obscure languages (my only
relevant experience here being with ancient Greek), just because something
is coded correctly, that still doesn't mean a screen reader can cope with it
(i.e. there are no ancient Greek voices to download for NVDA/JAWS and even
VoiceOver throws up its tiny hands in dismay). 

 

Please keep us posted, as this is an area of great interest to me.

 

Leigh

 

Leigh Mosley

Accessibility Coordinator

University of Tennessee Libraries

1015 Volunteer Boulevard

Knoxville, TN 37996-1000

865-974-0011

lmosley1 at utk.edu <mailto:lmosley1 at utk.edu> 



 

 

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu
<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> > On Behalf Of Adina
Mulliken
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2023 5:55 PM
To: athen-list at u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu> 
Subject: [Athen] Advice on German foreign language learning for blind
student

 

Hi everyone,

I'm interested in finding out about materials and strategies for a blind
student who may want to learn German.   My understanding is the student uses
a screen reader but we don't know which one yet.  We don't know if they read
Braille.  We don't know what course materials the professor uses yet, but
we're trying to begin learning about what might be involved with obtaining
and converting appropriate materials.  

 

I understand that popular screen readers can read German.   I've looked
through athen listserv's archives and found a few relevant posts, although I
probably could have searched further.  I looked on Bookshare and found 74
results came up under foreign language learning materials in German and
available in the United States.

 

Does anyone have additional advice?  

 

Here are the links I found on this listserv in case anyone wants to know

*
http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/htdig/athen-list/2019-July/015345.
html
<https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmailman12.
u.washington.edu%2Fmailman%2Fhtdig%2Fathen-list%2F2019-July%2F015345.html&da
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*
http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/htdig/athen-list/2019-July/015325.
html
<https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmailman12.
u.washington.edu%2Fmailman%2Fhtdig%2Fathen-list%2F2019-July%2F015325.html&da
ta=05%7C01%7Clmosley1%40utk.edu%7Ca3dc6c8af01e4d07546b08db145ec808%7C515813d
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"German contracted Braille for example is just as complex as our grade 2,
and though I speak German I read the contractions with great difficulty.
This is because I only learned it for a year when I was nineteen so I'm
terrible at it.
But reading German by setting my display to use the computer Braille table
is easy for me because it is just the alphabet and the special accented
letters."

*
http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/htdig/athen-list/2019-November/015
820.html
<https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmailman12.
u.washington.edu%2Fmailman%2Fhtdig%2Fathen-list%2F2019-November%2F015820.htm
l&data=05%7C01%7Clmosley1%40utk.edu%7Ca3dc6c8af01e4d07546b08db145ec808%7C515
813d9717d45dd9eca9aa19c09d6f9%7C0%7C0%7C638126169551458224%7CUnknown%7CTWFpb
GZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C
3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=FLy3p8lZp9L4TWTGQ2vYEARIFHyyX3Y97jVDPRgKx4Y%3D&reserved=
0> 

 

 

Thank you!

Adina

 

Adina Mulliken

Associate Professor, Librarian Silberman Social Work and Urban Public Health
Library

Hunter College, City University of New York

2180 3rd Ave. New York, NY

Phone 212-396-7665

Pronouns she/her

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