Chinese Character and Phrase learning website

[Sphery]

Hello everybody!

I'm working on a website where you can learn characters and phrases. The webpage will show you the character or phrase and you need to insert the pinyin with tones, and then choose the meaning from 4 options. I just need to translate the website to english, and implement more characters. I want it to be leveling, so at start you will start with basic, and commonly used words and then harder and rare words as you evolve, and reach higher and higher level. If you are interested in the webpage I'll show you, but it's still hungarian, and needs some time to be translated.

But I need some help, as my Chinese is not that good (mainly our team developed the site for me and my friends) I need some help with the vocabulary in it. Is there anyone here, who has an excel file where the characters are placed in a level of difficulty order? So the first 50 characters are basic, easy and useful, but the characters from 400-500 are harder, not that common etc... I think you get the point.

I know that websites like this already exists, but all of them are non-free, and I want this site to be free for everyone, and we want to implement a social engine in it, so it'll also be interactive.

Thanks for help!

Sphery

[renzhe]

Look up HSK word lists. They are graded according to difficulty, and there are many places where you can download them. AFAIK, they are not under copyright, and you can use a free dictionary like CC-CEDICT to find translations. They are not graded as finely as you expect, but it's probably the most useful resource you'll find. There is an old list with 4 levels and ~9000 words (for the old test) and a newer one which I believe has about 5000 words (for the new test).

There is also the Taiwanese TOP wordlist, with some 8000 words, also graded into four levels.

You should be able to combine these into something useful. Good luck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_Shuiping_Kaoshi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_of_Chinese_as_a_Foreign_Language#Vocabulary_Lists

[Sphery]

Great! Thank you! The HSK world list stuff helped me a lot! I've found this one: http://lingomi.com/blog/hsk-lists-2010/ . This is really cool! Feel free to share it!

[Gymnosopher]

With regard to 'most useful' some Chinese learners refer to the frequency characters appear as with Patrick Zein's list here http://www.zein.se/p...k/3000char.html

So whilst the 'usefulness' will come in the words that are characters combined together, however being able to read/know xxx number of characters helps with general reading and learning of new words.

(you can also take a look at the discussion of word frequency and related links here http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/367-list-of-word-frequency/)

Edited November 13, 2011 at 04:48 AM by Gymnosopher

[jbradfor]

Will it use SRS? How is it different than flashcard programs (e.g. anki), with the exception of course that it is web based?

[Sphery]

Thank you for the lists! To jbradfor: By SRS you mean spaced repetition software? Because we're working on that, and it will be different from flashcard softwares because after the learning process (and during it) it will ask you to insert the datas of the word. So you get 苹果 for example, you need to input the pinyin without tones (pingguo), then the tones (23) after all choose the meaning from 4 options. It will also have some "gamification" in it, you will be able to level up, highscores and time records and sutff, to make the learning process more fun. We will also try to add some social module in it, to make it more interactive, and it will be easier to send feedback for us. I'll link the page here as soon as it will be finished, and you can send me feedback here.

[Sphery]

I'm also looking for a software or a method how to convert text like this "ni3 hao3" to "nǐ hǎo" in a really large amount. Because I can upload my questions to the system via excel, and I have a large excel file with 2000+ words, but I would like to apply the procedure I have just mentioned before to all lines, and I don't want to do it manually because of my lack of energy and freetime. Is there any way to do it automatically? Thank you guys for your help!

[OneEye]

This will do the pinyin conversion for you. Make sure to change any ü's to v's before you input it (they'll come out correctly on the other side).

[jbradfor]

So you get 苹果 for example, you need to input the pinyin without tones (pingguo), then the tones (23) after all choose the meaning from 4 options.

ZDT can do that as well. Anki can too, if you set up the cards correctly. Also, my personal opinion, don't split the pinyin into letters and tones separately; one needs to combine them mentally.

The games / social parts seems like it could be an improvement.

I'm also looking for a software or a method how to convert text like this "ni3 hao3" to "nǐ hǎo" in a really large amount.

I have a gawk script that does it as well. It just uses search-and-replace, so it could be redone in pretty much any language (that supports regex search and replace).

[Sphery]

Also, my personal opinion, don't split the pinyin into letters and tones separately; one needs to combine them mentally.

Yeah, maybe you're right. Not you're the first person who's telling me this. But it will be released soon, as the english translation is ready, and we've already implemented it, we're just waiting for our proofreader to check it. You know, english is not our mother tongue, and we're not more than 18 so that's why there might be some funny grammar problems hiding there. As soon as the site will be launched, I'll post a comment about it, and wait for your feedback. To tell you the truth, the site will not be only used for chinese, there are also groups of french and german languages too. But mainly it's for math and history. These groups are just only accessible on the hungarian version, but the chinese will be our first "global" group, we hope that it'll satisfie the demands of a chinese learner.

[imron]

don't split the pinyin into letters and tones separately; one needs to combine them mentally.

Exactly. If you split out letters and tones, you'll never get the hang of tones.