Reading Chinese newspapers - learning about language use

[Scoobyqueen]

Is there interest from anyone in having regular discussions on a given chinese newspaper article? The objective would be to look at language use especially stock phrases and expression typically seen in newspapers. Often the language used by the media is different from other written sources and I would like to improve my skills in this area.

Edited April 16, 2013 at 12:43 PM by Scoobyqueen

[renzhe]

I can't promise anything, but I'd probably take part from time to time for practice.

[Scoobyqueen]

renzhe - thanks for your response. I

[isela]

I can't make it everyday. But if you have a list of summarized problems, then I can answer them regularly and all at a time. In fact, I think this is more efficient than the current way the forum works.

[renzhe]

I notice your episode project has extensive vocab. Would you say it benefits your learning putting together such a list as a posting?

That's a very good question. To be honest, I don't know.

I've found that it does help, if I actually go through the vocab list once or twice, and then rewatch the show. If I just collect the vocabulary, it doesn't help much. Some of it sticks, some of it is so topical that it's not worth learning, some of it I just forget ever seeing.

What I was planning to do was to finish the HSK vocabulary this year, and then start adding words from the vocab lists I've collected, to expand on the useful vocabulary. with some luck, I'll remember a sizable part of them. At that time, I might also rewatch selected episodes of older shows, to hear things in context again.

What actually happened is that I got more efficient at typing up the word lists, and I have cool scripts that do most of the dictionary lookup for me. That speeds up things considerably, the rest is a force of habit and a hope that I can mine the lists for useful vocab later.

[in_lab]

I think I'm not the only one who would be more interested in asking/answering questions about a news article than about replying to this thread, so I would suggest that you just try it. I don't mean that in an insulting way, I just think it would be a more efficient way of seeing if people are interested.

[Scoobyqueen]

I have cool scripts that do most of the dictionary lookup for me

Is that your own script? How does it work?

so I would suggest that you just try it.

Thanks for your comments. We have another thread going with several articles and we ended up just being a couple of people commenting which lead me to think to that people just werent interested. So I thought I would pose the question directly:wink: Keep an eye out for the threads.

[gato]

The NJStar word processor can also do automatic dictionary lookups with a word list. You can give the trial version a try (don't think it has an expiration date).

http://www.njstar.com/cms/njstar-chinese-word-processor-screenshots

NJStar Chinese Word Processor

[renzhe]

Is that your own script? How does it work?

Yes, it's very simple. A few dozen lines, really.

Basically, it takes a list of Chinese words and looks for them in a local copy of CC-CEDICT. If it finds a match, it outputs the word to a new file, with the pinyin and the first three definitions extracted.

[kdavid]

I'd definitely be interested in this type of project. I'd be off and on with my participation, though, as my job keeps me either really busy some times.

I thought I had read that a thread already existed, but I can't find it. Perhaps because I haven't looked close enough.

[imron]

There's this thread, which Heifeng has been posting short newspaper articles to on a regular basis since April.

[周易Joey]

II'm in. I like Radio Australia

[sukitc]

I'd love to participate.

[Scoobyqueen]

There's this thread, which Heifeng has been posting short newspaper articles to on a regular basis since April.

Ok let's go with that one then.

[roddy]

I would recommend starting a new thread regularly, on the basis that one long thread becomes intimidating to anyone new, or who has dropped out for a while - "I can't catch up with all THAT". Maybe a new one every week, or per article - although at the same time we don't want to flood the forum with them.

Something I've been toying with lately is the idea of a 'Chinese Stuff' (can't think of a better name ) forum, where material like this can be posted - and also online video, podcast episodes, blog posts, whatever. Anything that someone thinks is interesting enough that they're willing to post a link, an English introduction so lower level learners can get a handle on what is on offer, and discussion / wordlists / etc can take off from there.

[renzhe]

Well, if Scoobyqueen is interested in running this regularly, she could treat it as a mini-project and name each thread "Weekly reading project: Episode 23" or something, so people would still see the connection, but be more inclined to dip in and out.

Heifeng's thread is full of good articles, but I think that she intended it for practicing langdu, so they are selected for that reason, and not for possible interesting grammatical constructs or whatnot.

Also, maybe that thread would lose focus if there was too much discussion between articles.

Don't know, just thinking outloud.

[Scoobyqueen]

Yes, it's very simple. A few dozen lines, really.

Basically, it takes a list of Chinese words and looks for them in a local copy of CC-CEDICT. If it finds a match, it outputs the word to a new file, with the pinyin and the first three definitions extracted.

Which programming language do you use? Would Python be suitable. I saw on mnemosyne that a guy called Brian Vaughan used this for fetching vocab from dictionaries.

[renzhe]

Yeah, I used python because it's handy for that kind of work. Mnemosyne is also written in python, but that's a coincidence.

[Meng Lelan]

Is there interest from anyone in having regular discussions on a given chinese newspaper article?

Yes if you provide link to the printed form of the newspaper article.

Something I've been toying with lately is the idea of a 'Chinese Stuff' (can't think of a better name)

Or more precisely, Random Chinese. In other words, Everything Chinese in General and Nothing Chinese in Particular.

[Scoobyqueen]

Yeah, I used python because it's handy for that kind of work.

I am sort of chuffed I got that right since I haven’t got the first clue about programming. Would C++ also do the trick? I know someone who is fluent in that whom I could ask nicely.