New website for Chinese text + audio

[dporter1465]

Friends,

In response to a number of earlier queries about Chinese text+audio resources on this site, I've just set up a new webpage featuring short, accessible Chinese mini-essays with accompanying podcasts, graded by approximate level of difficulty. The mini-essays are original pieces on a variety of topics relating to life in Beijing. They're intended to be much more accessible than ordinary Chinese newspapers, magazines, and most other web-based content, so hopefully they'll be useful to intermediate-level students.

You can listen to the podcast while reading the text in your browser, or you can copy and paste the text into Clavis Sinica, Wenlin, or another text reader program to get help learning whatever words and characters you don't recognize.

There are ten mini-essays up on the pilot site so far. If the response is positive, I'll go ahead and continue expanding it. This is a brand new experiment, so I'm very much interested in comments and suggestions.

The site is called the Chinese Voices Project, and the URL is:

http://clavisinica.com/CVP/voices.html.

Happy reading -- and do let me know what you think!

David Porter

[atitarev]

Great stuff! Thank you!

Do you think it's worth to provide the phonetic guide for the text (separate files or below the Chinese text).

Here's my 5-minute effort to romanise the 1st text into Hanyu Pinyin. Segmentation and variations might need fixing.:

Jiājiào

Wǒ yīzhí zài Běijīng de yī ge jiājiào gōngsī shàngkè. Wèi Běijīng shì yīxiē mǎshàng jiùyào cānjiā gāokǎo de gāo sān xuésheng zuò fǔdǎo. Suīrán bǐjiào xīnkǔ，dàn xīnshui háishi bùcuò de. Gāokǎo yǒngyuǎn shì yī gèzhōng guóxué shēng zuì zhòngyào de shìqing，suǒyǐ hěn duō xuésheng jiāzhǎng dōu xǐhuan gěi zìjǐ de háizi zhǎo jiājiào lǎoshī. Érqiě Běijīng de fùrén bǐ Zhōngguó dìdì qítā chéngshì duō. Suǒyǐ Běijīng shì de jiājiào gōngsī hěn duō，érqiě shēngyi dōu hěn bùcuò. Wǒ shàngkè de háizi chéngjì dōu bù shì tài hǎo，dàn tāmen de jiātíng tiáojiàn dōu hěn hǎo. Zhèxiē háizi de xuéxí dōu chéngle tāmen jiātíng zuì zhòngyào de shìqing. Wǒ měi cì qù tāmen jiā shàngkè de shíhou，jiāzhǎng dūhuì duì wǒ tèbié de rèqíng. Xiànzài tiān lěng le，háizi de jiāzhǎng měi cì dūhuì zài wǒ qù zhīqián bǎ rèchá zhǔnbèi hǎo. Měi cì xiàkè，dūhuì hěn zǐxì de wèn wǒ tāmen háizi de xuéxí qíngkuàng. Měidāng wǒ gàosu tāmen háizi xuéxí dehěn hǎo de shíhou，tāmen dūhuì tèbié de gāoxìng. Shàng dàxué shì měi ge jiāzhǎng duì zìjǐ háizi de xīwàng. Dàn gāokǎo zhǐyǒu yīcì，suǒyǐ měi nián dūhuì yǒu yīxiē jiāzhǎng shīwàng. Xīwàng wǒ jīnnián shàngkè de xuésheng néng kǎo hǎo.

I'll check the audio later to give feedback.

Does Clavisinica provide text conversion?

[dporter1465]

Great stuff! Thank you!

Do you think it's worth to provide the phonetic guide for the text (separate files or below the Chinese text).

That's an interesting suggestion. I guess my thought was that the audio would suffice for the phonetic side (listening practice). Personally, I'd prefer not to get into the habit of "reading" pinyin texts, as I'm really trying to force my brain to wrap itself around a character-based language system!

Does Clavisinica provide text conversion?

No, Clavis doesn't provide a phonetic transcription of an entire text, but it does provide pinyin and English gloss for individual characters and words, as well as lists of other related characters and words using the same parts. Again, the idea is to avoid using a transcription as a crutch. I think it's best to read through as much of a (character) text as one can without using pinyin, and then go back and work over the hard parts with a dictionary or reading tool.

[nubix]

Thank you David.

[atitarev]

I guess my thought was that the audio would suffice for the phonetic side (listening practice). Personally, I'd prefer not to get into the habit of "reading" pinyin texts, as I'm really trying to force my brain to wrap itself around a character-based language system!

You will get much more users, IMHO, if you do provide phonetic guides, this kind of reading is in high demand. If phonetic guides are in a separate file, it can be used by those who wish to double check the tones or a word or two. Even looking up characters is shortened. Some users may not be sure if it is k or g, etc.

[Luobot]

I listened to the first one last night, and it has a very nice sound, just the way it does when someone is telling you a personal story.

It's a bit above my present level so I only understood (or misunderstood) some of it.

If only I could read along in Pinyin.

Would it be possible to make a Pinyin text available?

[nipponman]

Thanks for that, I've already listened to some of them and it seems like a great resource. The person speaks slowly enough so that even I can hear him:)

[thph2006]

Thanks for the content. Looks like the links to the mp3s of the two titles listed below are dead though.

Yuanmingyuan: The Film (1.4 / 262)

Reclaiming the Mother Tongue (1.4 / 326)

[fulgentius]

Hey, really nice. I'm happy to say that even with only a year of Chinese I can piece together the first few well enough to make it worthwhile. There is very little out there in this line which doesn't either: 1) go over my head completely or 2) bore me to death.

Though the first mp3 doesn't seem to play right now. Using Firefox 2.0 on a Mac if that matters.

Anyway, I'd say keep it up and please add more first level texts.

[fulgentius]

Oh, and if you could add traditional character versions that would be ideal.

[atitarev]

Adding more value to the site:

The more Chinese resource provides, the better, as usual.

Chinese simplified texts and the matching audio files is a good start.

So, what could be added:

1) Hanyu Pinyin phonetic guide

2) Traditional characters version

3) English translation

4) Vocabulary list

5) Grammar comments

The more the better.

Number 2) is very easy indeed, IMHO, not so important, as anyone could convert to traditional using online tools.

Number 1) is a bit more time-consuming. Basic conversion could be done using tools but then it needs some checking for variants and word segmentation

4) and 5) may be just highlights or some difficult words

Number 3) Is time consuming but it's often sought after by Chinese learners.

If all 5 are present, the success of your site is guranteed!

It is a good effort as it is, anyway. Thanks for providing it!

[dporter1465]

Thanks for the content. Looks like the links to the mp3s of the two titles listed below are dead though.

Yuanmingyuan: The Film (1.4 / 262)

Reclaiming the Mother Tongue (1.4 / 326)

Thanks for catching this. These two broken links have now been fixed.

[HashiriKata]

Hi David,

I've had a brief try at your site and I think the basic idea is very good and it seems to fill the intermediate gap nicely.

Atitarev suggestions are all worth considering, but you may fall into the danger of trying too much without enough resources. Another problem may be is when you try to satisfy everyone's every wish, your site may turn out to be just another forgetable average. So my suggestion is for the time being just stick to your original idea, improve the quantity and maintain the quality of the selection, then you'll see your site as something more identifiable with a definable and dependable base of users.

All the best!

[fulgentius]

I agree with HK. Traditional characters would be nice, since I imagine many intermediate students who start with traditional may not be too familiar with simplified yet, and it would be nice if they did not have to rely on additional online tools to use the site. It should be an easy addition.

Also fairly easy, I think, would be a few vocab and grammar notes for each one. You could just cover the more specialized words and any grammar that an intermediate learner may not know yet.

But if your choice is major enhancements or more content, I vote for the latter.

[nipponman]

I third that, traditional characters will be good for people like me who aren't good at readin' simplified. But, should probably increased the content b/c it seems the quality is relatively high already.

[dporter1465]

Traditional characters will be good for people like me who aren't good at readin' simplified. But, should probably increased the content b/c it seems the quality is relatively high already.

Clavis Sinica (and many other programs) will allow you easily to view these texts in traditional characters, so I think I'll hold off on posting traditional character versions to the sites.

We are steadily adding more content, though: I think the new pieces on bicycle theft in Beijing, the Forbidden City Starbucks controversy, and the scandalized response to Curse of the Golden Flower are particularly good reads...

Any suggestions for additional topics would be welcome!

[Czech Cara]

Hi, it really is NOT bad, it seems we diligents are up to our ears in learning material, when do we fing time to go out and talk?

Btw, did You know the radio stations also have the audio for some reports?

http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/ 'bad things about China'

http://gb.cri.cn/1321/more/5026/more5026.htm good things about China