pinyin textbook with audio

[zozzen]

Since yesterday, i've began to read putonghua (pinyin) article 10 mins a day, and try to sound exactly like the "textbook". These books are good for polishing my putonghua, but all of them are only targeted for simple conversation , and i'm looking for some advanced texts with audio and pinyin. Does anyone know any material like this?

In my case, i can speak almost fluently, read and write perfectly, but I often make a minor pronunciation mistake. That's not a really big barrier in my communication with friends, but as I finally have sufficient number of friends who can speak perfect putonghua (much different than where i was previously located in henan) , I'd be shamed if i missed the chance to "rebuild" my putonghua.

[imron]

Have you considered news broadcasts? CRI provides 10 min daily broadcasts with transcripts.

[zozzen]

great link!

some phrases in the news (especially political news) is really difficult to read. That's not really a human language, but i'll try to read it every day.

[atitarev]

It's hard to find advanced texts in Pinyin but if you find electronic transcripts in Hanzi, why don't you convert them into Pinyin yourself using a plethora of tools available - at the same exposing yourself to reading Hanzi? Not having a go, just advising, I use this method - when I read transcripts and my Chinese must be worse than yours. Obviously, my Pinyin reading is much faster than Hanzi reading. For simpler texts I just use Hanzi.

EDIT:

I looked at the links Imron provided, they are actually in Chinese characters, so you CAN read them.

Thanks for the link, Imron. The URL is quite long and it's not obvious where you are (which section of the site), what did you click from the main page to get there, please (in order to get updated pages next time)?

[roddy]

I think looking for stuff with pinyin is going to restrict you too much - material designed for advanced learners, or not for learners at all, just isn't going to have pinyin. You need to either be willing to put it into pinyin yourself one way or another, or learn the characters so you don't need to. Although I guess you can do both of those yourself. (edit: beaten to it!)

Pity the CRI stuff does have an RSS podcast feed.

You might want to look at 德国之声. They have three shows a day and the first five to ten minutes is quick news items. They have the content on their site in Chinese if you look for it.

[imron]

The URL is quite long and it's not obvious where you are (which section of the site), what did you click from the main page to get there

On the top right of the page, just below the login, there's a link that says 华语广播. On that page, there is a news update section. At the bottom right of that section is a link that says 更多, which will take you to the page I linked above.

That link will always contain the most up to date broadcasts.

Anyway, your best bet is just to save it as a bookmark+keyword, that's what I do, so I just type cri into the location bar, and it takes me there automatically.

I originally got the link from here.

[flameproof]

It's hard to find advanced texts in Pinyin but if you find electronic transcripts in Hanzi, why don't you convert them into Pinyin yourself using a plethora of tools available...

Such as the wonderful freeware ZDT > http://zdt.sourceforge.net

[zozzen]

It's hard to find advanced texts in Pinyin but if you find electronic transcripts in Hanzi, why don't you convert them into Pinyin yourself using a plethora of tools available - at the same exposing yourself to reading Hanzi? Not having a go, just advising, I use this method - when I read transcripts and my Chinese must be worse than yours. Obviously, my Pinyin reading is much faster than Hanzi reading. For simpler texts I just use Hanzi.

I did the same with a software called "hanconvert" on Imron's link, but reading the text and pinyin in two separate windows is quite exhausting.

The best format i think is like this:

我 最 愛 吃

Wo3 zui4 ai4 chi1

Am now trying zdt now~~~ Hope it can make learning easier

[zozzen]

You might want to look at 德国之声. They have three shows a day and the first five to ten minutes is quick news items. They have the content on their site in Chinese if you look for it.

unfortunately, the recently deteriorating Sino-Germany relationship makes dw-world.de inaccessible under the Great Firewall.....

(i'm in kunming now, and i've heard that these german sites have been blocked since dec. )

[roddy]

It's been blocked for quite some time, nothing to do with recent events. I get the podcasts fine, but the site itself does require a proxy.

Incidentally 德国之声 itself reported this morning that things are on the mend, with a Chinese government minister saying that Merkel is welcome in Beijing at any time. Didn't say if she would be allowed to leave again though. The BBC also mentioned that there has been '秘密外交' underway for sometime.

Podcast link is http://rss.dw-world.de/rss/xml/podcast_radio_china

[atitarev]

Thanks, Imron for explaining.

[flameproof]

Ok, if you don't want to convert, if you just want a Pinyin (plus characters) book with Audio, here are 3:

http://www.amazon.cn/detail/product.asp?prodid=zjbk071994

http://www.amazon.cn/detail/product.asp?prodid=zjbk202443

http://www.amazon.cn/detail/product.asp?prodid=bkbk727743

All are by Sinolingua. All are rmb20-30. All come with a CD. The CD is in excellent quality and the speaker has a very nice storyteller voice.

The depth of each book should be around 1500 different characters. The first 2 have 20 short stories each (each about 400-500 characters). The last book has stories of different length.

If you go to the book shop, print out the Amazon pages and make sure the ISBN is on it. If you are not in China, there are online shops where you buy them still cheap (like from Elena, she often posts here).

[zozzen]

I checked several books like this in a local bookshops but that doesn't quite match my need. My case is difficult to tackle. I apparently can speak acceptable putonghua (and some non-native speaker even believe that i can speak perfectly), but i still can't avoid flaws and mistakes from time to time.

Now i converted a dozen of articles based on different topics about China, covering various alive but relatively rarely used phrases like 罷黜, and try to read them every day. By reading a hundred word article, I can find out around 2-3 words that i wrongly pronounce. Hope that after a month i can correct all my pronunciation.

[Radial]

Is it possible to set CRI as a RSS download... I keep looking over their site and do not see how I can do it for their Chinese broadcasts (did manage to find it for the English).

[flameproof]

Hope that after a month i can correct all my pronunciation.

I see little hope. And I see little necessity. Bad Mandarin is the most common language in China.

[zozzen]

I see little hope. And I see little necessity. Bad Mandarin is the most common language in China.

it would be okay as long as it doesn't harm the communication, but during the past few weeks I've kept checking my pronunciation and amazingly found that I wrongly pronounce a lot of sounds that hinders my communication.

耐力 ( I said 內力, nei li )

凝視 (i said yin shi )

作家 (I said zuo4 jia)

洗臉 ( i said xi mian4)

彈跳 (i said Dan4 tiao4)

橫排 ( i said huang2 pai )

And a lot more....

I feel lucky that i have enough number of friends who speak standard mandarin and I won't miss this chance.

The putonghua dictionary I use is this:

http://www.putonghuaweb.com/pthdict.htm

(PPC freeware funded by a charity to promote putonghua)

So far I still can't correct all mispronunciation but the progress is okay for me. I