Slow Chinese

[Ed Log]

Does anyone know of a website where there are MP3 files o someone reading text (also available) at various speeds? Perhaps categorised into speed and complexity

e.g.

Very Slow / Very Complex

Slow / Very Complex

Normal / Very Complex

or

Very Slow / intermediate

Slow / intermediate

Normal / intermediate

or

Very Slow / easy

Slow / easy

Normal / easy

[muyongshi]

Try this topic

[leeyah]

... & for a change of scene you can also try Logos children's library in Chinese,. There are 9 mp3 stories read by a young native speaker, in a slow tempo, easy vocab, in relatively advanced Chinese narrative syntax (some "tough" grammar + fixed phrases).

[roddy]

Split a bunch of posts off to the pronunciation forum - OP's looking for readings at different speeds, not a discussion about one speakers pronunciation.

[Neil_H]

If you right click the play button in Windows Media player 11 you can set the speed to slow, normal or fast. Not all MP3 files work with this but most do and it will allow you to make use of your existing files.

[Ed Log]

The problem with changing the playback speed it makes the sounds somewhat strange. Good idea though.

Guess someone could create a website for short MP3's read at 3 different speeds to be posted.

[self-taught-mba]

We have one. Short readings read 4 times. Slow, Med, Fast, Natural. If someone can give us a good hosting solution we will open it up to the world. Bandwidth costs. (Dreamhost rejected us because someone spoofed our old domain)

[trevelyan]

How much content do you want to put up, Matt? We'd be happy to host this sort of thing over at Popup Chinese. We don't display user-generated stuff on the main page, but it would be easy to create a separate index for it if there was enough material.

Cheers,

--dave

[Ed Log]

perhaps if you set some ground-rules and have people send in text along with 3 speeds of audio.

e.g.

Complexity (or what ever you use on your site)

- Beginner

- Intermediate

- Advanced

Speed

- Slow (80 wpm)

- Fast (120 wpm)

- Natural (TBA)

If the sound quality and enunciation are OK then they could be posted. People could use the slow, then fast followed by natural to get used to listening to spoken word with the text available for assistance.

Jumping ahead of the probability it will get launched but classification of content is vital, to allow people to post and listen to the content they have an interest in. Lists with a search option are just a lazy way to classify content

e.g.

1 Business

1.1 In a Meeting

1.1.1 Ordering coffee (Lv 3)

1.1.2 Agreeing on point 2 (Lv 1)

1.2 Business reporting

1.2.1 Discussing Profits (Lv 2)

1.2.2 Opening a new branch (Lv 1)

2 Going to the shops

2.1 etc

Might be a bit of work screening it and making sure the content is clean and creating the hierarchy but crowd sourcing is never easy (but it is cheap and stimulates creativity)