SpeakyReads

This is a tool which I first created to make my life easier. I discovered that a great way to improve my speaking proficiency is to get an audiobook and: 1. Listen to a paragraph 2. Record myself reading the paragraph 3. Compare myself with the original recording The thing is, I wasted time getting lost in the audiobook and trying to find where I need to continue from. Jumping back to hear the same paragraph again wasn't the easiest thing, either. Also, after a while it gets tedious to keep track of my old recordings and to follow my progress as I go through the book. Nevertheless, I could definitely feel that I was improving a lot even after a few pages. So I made this tool that can do all of the tedious tasks for me. That's the story of the "Reading Mode". Later on, I realized I can incorporate another type of practice. That's how "Dictation Mode" was born. In this mode, I could practice my listening and spelling. Some portion of the words in the text would be hidden and I'd have to fill them out by just listening to the audio. As you can imagine, that could become very addictive at times. After some positive feedback from friends, I decided I should make it available online for other people to use as well, and who knows, it might even become a thing.