Hello from 慢速中文 slow-chinese.com

[Weng.Xinyu]

Hey guys,

many appologies for being absent for a long time. I'm new in this forum, I even didn't notice your heated discussions on 2nd and 3rd page... Recently I'm getting myself settled down to the uni-life, celebrating the China's birthday (also mine) and of course keep writing new posts as well.

I've read all your discussions, very interesting and inspiring!!! You are the most meticulous learner I've ever seen, respect!!! Most of all, thanks for the criticals like pronunciation and controversial topics. To be honest, I'm a Wu-Chinese speaker, I'll do my best to avoid my accent. As for controversial topics, I'll say, I was being objective, whenever I have my personal opinions, they come after 我觉得. The most important thing is, I will always keep my Independence, which means, I'm neither doing political propaganda nor dictated by any authority who want to advocate for anything with any purpose.

As for the latest serial posts 同一个世界，同一个梦想, my intention was to introduce the 2008 Olympics, in which I myself also had an unforgetable experience. Once began to write, I counldn't help exceeding the length of an average post...Therefore I seperate it into 3 or 4 posts. So when some fans lose interest in them (I suppose), just have patience~

The sensational troop review on national day, I've already written some in the 6st post 国庆节, so I'm not going to write a similar one. I learned to compress the MP3 to a much smaller size, and added some content in Library. I must thank those warmhearted reader, who advertize 慢速中文, I personally can not get in touch with many chinese learners, please help me make 慢速中文 widespread!!! I'm extremely grateful!!!

Finally, pleeeease keep talking about 慢速中文, I'm all ears!!!

[Meng Lelan]

Ooooh, you're a Wu speaker? Maybe you can write up something for 慢速中文 about the Wu dialect. Isn't that what they speak in Shanghai or near Shanghai, if my memory is correct? My Chinese School class asked me to do today's culture lesson about dialects in China especially the Shanghai dialect, it would help if you did a podcast about this topic.

[Ed Log]

Here is a number of short texts with MP3 support

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

play them slow or fast on Windows Media Player

[Weng.Xinyu]

Ooooh, you're a Wu speaker? Maybe you can write up something for 慢速中文 about the Wu dialect. Isn't that what they speak in Shanghai or near Shanghai, if my memory is correct? My Chinese School class asked me to do today's culture lesson about dialects in China especially the Shanghai dialect, it would help if you did a podcast about this topic.

A good idea, I'll think about it !!! Thanks Lelan.

[Meng Lelan]

Oh, you're welcome, I'm constantly logging on to your website to see what's new.

It would indeed be fun to hear how 普通话 and 上海话 sound so different.

[roddy]

Now also mentioned on Sinosplice.

[gato]

Now also mentioned on Sinosplice.

Xinyu,

Adding a "normal speed" recording, in addition to the slow version, as suggested by Sinosplice, does sound like a good idea.

[Weng.Xinyu]

Adding a "normal speed" recording, in addition to the slow version, as suggested by Sinosplice, does sound like a good idea.

It is really a good idea, I'm going to add normal speed tracks.

Although it may take some time.

Thanks

[Meng Lelan]

Just got a listen to your Wu dialect podcast. Very nicely done, especially the short dialect samples. I always look forward to your every podcast. 继续保持下去， 加油！

[abcdefg]

What a fine site! I was asleep at the switch and am late to the party, to mix metaphors. Most happy to have discovered it. Thank you for putting in the creative work to make it so lively and effective. I especially enjoyed the discussion of "Nanjing, Nanjing." Saw it in a packed theater in Kunming soon after its release and talked about it with my Chinese friends for weeks.

[MadamKatherineV]

Hello Weng!

Your web site seems very well placed together. I would likely find it of great use in the near future. However for the moment, my Chinese is limited. I have just picked it up from a long absense. I know most of the grammar rules, and I know the sentence structure, and basic vocabulary. I can read basic sentences, but not long articles, and engage in light conversation, but not in depth.

Is your web site, for Chinese reading exercise?

Thank you.

Katherine V. London.

[wrbt]

I've got nothing original to say, just backing up the consensus that:

1. Cool site! Looks and feels really professionally done, you're obviously quite talented.

2. The addition of normal speed would be huge, would really make it one of the best sites on the internet for practicing Chinese.

Thanks!

[Weng.Xinyu]

Hi, guys, some people say the background music in the podcasts is distracting, (which is my favourite part), the most important thing is, it shall be helpful to the learner. I want to hear your opinions on it, should I lower the volumne of the bg music or just get rid of it all?

[Meng Lelan]

The background music is my favorite part too. Really liked how you mixed in the Shanghai street chatter before beginning an introduction in the Wu dialect podcast. Maybe the others here have better suggestions.

[animal world]

The music must stay!!!

The very first time i listened i found it distracting. Since then i really enjoy it and i actually look forward to the end of the first paragraph when the music kicks in. I particularly like your nice variety of music. Whenever you feature Chinese music, could you footnote what the music is and what instruments are being played? Sorry that we are such a demanding crowd!

Would you rather us making our comments at your website rather than (or in addition to) at this forum?

[wrbt]

Regarding speed, I don't think you even need to rerecord everything as there are tools available to speed up audio samples.

Attached is an example from your latest lesson that is sped up 30%, it actually sounds pretty natural. Granted the music is paced different and anything that had original sample at normal speed will sound chipmunkish but I think it would be an easy way to offer your existing material at natural conversation pace.

(see attached small sample)

faster.mp3

[jbradfor]

Attached is a word list for lesson 24. It was created more-or-less automatically by YAWLG, with a couple of edits from me to add spaces to get the correct parsing. The exclude file is basically the HSK A and HSK B word list, the most common 500 characters, plus a couple I added after seeing the output.

There are two versions, one in ZDT backup format, one is CEDict format.

Please let me know if anyone finds this useful. I'll probably keep posting as I make some more, but if I don't hear anything I'll probably stop eventually....

SlowChinese24.list.txt

SlowChinese24.backup.txt

[xianhua]

I've really enjoyed the last couple of podcasts about 粉丝 and 圣诞节. The 词汇 is a welcome addition too. Keep up the good work.

[Meng Lelan]

The last line of the 圣诞节 podcast was brilliant.

[Weng.Xinyu]

Hey 慢速中文的粉丝,

how are you guys doing?I'm here again to share with you some of my opinions.

First, I've tuned down the background music a little so that it is not so distracting. With music playing in the background, which has something to do with the topic, the podcast will sound more like a normal radio program that we are familiar with.

Second, about a normal speed version... I've recorded some, and attempted to add them to the posts, which, however disrupted the neatness, making the page very long. ( I can read a little programming language, but can't write). Now my solution is to read in a faster speed, closer to the normal, with the same attention paid to clarity. In this way, I think there's no need to record a normal speed version.

So I want to define 慢速中文 Slow Chinese as not only slow as a listening material, but also easy to understand as a reading material, and most importantly, it's not official, hahaha...

Third, as you have seen, I added 词汇 below the text, I hope people like jbradfor can thus save time. Another function called Share/Bookmark may be also useful to some of you. By the way, do you think it good if I add a download link of the text as PDF/Doc format so that it can be printed and made copies of?

Last but not least, I'm getting support from more and more people, even a sum of generous donation, I'm very grateful, and will keep working hard. Another good news is, I think I will not be working alone, some people have promised to help me on both writing and reading, I'm longing for the refreshment.

As I keep up the work, please keep supporting me, my friends!

Good luck !