Looking for people wanting to share Audio Files for flashcards

[chinskycraze]

Hi everybody,

So, here's the deal. Some time ago, I started using Anki to create flashcards with audio pronunciations. But I soon found out that getting the audio files can be a painstaking and time-consuming process. So I sat down and spent some long evenings on cutting the CDs that came with my language books into neat audio files. I’ve got complete vocabulary for around 10 books, but the sound repository is far from complete yet.

That’s where you come in. I’m looking for people willing to spend their time on similar projects and share their collections on a tit-for-tat basis.

Creating the files is quite easy with a free software Audacity, which enables you to automate the process to a certain degree, but there is still some menial work to be done, nonetheless. I can write a short manual if you want.

My files are MP3, 64kb, so they’re high quality. Each file contains a word, and is named according to the pattern, where the word is written in Traditional Characters:

Word_m.mp3 for words pronounced by a male native speaker

or

Word_f.mp3 for words pronounced by a female native speaker

There is also an alternative set with names in Simplified Characters. I've done some random checking, and all seems to have been renamed correctly, but the set was built using an automated script, so I cannot guarantee something didn't go boink in the proces.

I currently have the following books in my collection (they should be fairly complete, but I cannot guarantee they're 100% accurate):

New Practical Chinese Reader Book 1

New Practical Chinese Reader Book 2

New Practical Chinese Reader Book 3

New Practical Chinese Reader Book 4

New Practical Chinese Reader Book 5

Boya Chinese Gaoji II

Chinese Wide Angle Gaoji Xia

Ultimate Chinese CDs

Complete HSK Vocabulary from Interactive Chinese Software

Complete Idioms and Sayings from Interactive Chinese Software

Living Language CDs

Edgar Chinese

Open for Business Chinese Vol. 1 (Words and Sentences)

Hanyu Kouyu Gaoji Second Edition (Beijing University Press)

Hanyu Kouyu Gaoji First Edition (Beijing University Press)

I also have a fair collection (a couple of hundred files) of words recorded from the Nciku.com site, which can be an even more time-consuming pastime, though the quality of the recordings vary greatly.

I am especially interested in more advanced textbooks (Upper-Intermediate and Advanced) or even cut-up good-quality recordings by native speakers taken from other sources (Audiobooks, podcasts, Nciku.com site, etc.), but I will welcome anybody who can contribute to expanding the repository with a book not included in the collection, however basic the level.

For copyright reasons, please don’t expect me to post the files on a file-sharing server. For fairness’s sake, please don’t ask me to share the files with you, unless you’re ready to take the time and trouble to expand the repository yourself.

Hoping there's more flashcard freaks out there wanting to make their lives easier.

Cheers!

Edited March 16, 2012 at 11:49 AM by chinskycraze

[T-revor]

I can't say I have anything worth sharing at this point, and I'm not so interested in collecting words myself, but here are two things I've done in the past to get some good vocabulary pronounced by natives:

1. I've used a tutor based in China to record things to mp3. I pay her about $20/hour and there's lots of vocab you can get for an hour's worth of recording. I can give you the name of the person I use over PM if you want. She's pretty good.

2. Check out rhinospike.com

[Silent]

Each file contains a word, and is named according to the pattern

If it's just words you're after I'ld recommend you download some shared HSK decks. They already contain a fair amount of audiofiles. I've never bothered to create files of words. I did for sentences, but found the benefits too small compared to the effort. Just listening, possibly reading along and looping parts that are of interest seems to work much better for me.

[chinskycraze]

Hi T-revor,

thx for the reply, but I'm going to pass on the offer. I've got a few Chinese friends with decent putonghua to do the recordings for me for free. They've been helpful on many occasions already, and never complained Though, getting the word pronunced is usually not that much of a problem; there's a number of services out there where you can get them for free (rhinospike.com being one of them, but there's still frovo.com (mixed quality), nciku.com or trainchinese.com). The problem is more in cutting and naming it to add it to flashcards.

That's why I want to share my collection or parts of it with people who need the files for their flashcards, provided they're wiling to contribute to the project. I fully realise that, considering the size of my collection, a lot of users will have a relatively small percentage of files not already contained in my repository, but I still think it's worth the trouble. I hope there's people out there who feel the same.

[dlee85]

Have you tried the pinyin toolkit plugin? The speech is not natural ~ it chops pinyin sounds together and sometimes it makes mistakes, but it's a hell of a lot faster than recording your own. And it will even automatically fill in the pinyin for you if you enter in the hanzi

[chinskycraze]

Naturally, I cannot imagine how time-consuming life without the Pinyin Toolkit. Creating my cards would take up days or weeks instead of mere hours I even swapped the original audio set with audio files from Wenlin, as recommended by the makers of the plugin, in order to improve the quality.

Nevertheless, the devil is in the detail. It’s not only that the generated audio is rather choppy and unnatural to listen too, but it is entirely useless if your aim is to improve your pronunciation, as it gives you wrong instructions on how to pronounce the words. Just consider the fact that a third-tone syllable’s pronunciation changes depending on the context, and I don’t just mean the third-tone sandhi, but the fact that the third tone is rarely pronounced in its full length. Or consider the pronunciation of a neutral tone, which depends on the preceding tone as well. Not to mention that some words have different accents, and I don’t mean toneless syllables, but a word accent superimposed on the tones of the syllables. For all that you need a native speaker to pronounce the word or phrase.

[drungood]

Pleco dictionary for iPhone (and Android I think) has an add-on for pronunciation by native speakers. It's annoying to have to use iOS every time I want this though. If they would develop a PC program to access the dictionary, I would pay money for it...

[chinskycraze]

Yes, I was considering purchasing one of the bundles for a long time now, but so far I've been quite satisfied with the free stuff on offer. I was contemplating the audio bundles, too, not sure how comprehensive these are though, nor what the quality is. But then again, that's a topic for a whole different thread. I feel a bit awkward that I have to stress it in every single reply here that getting the audio recording for a particular item itself is not the problem, getting a bunch of recordings in a format easy to use in a flashcard programme such as Anki is, while not difficult, then at least time consumming.

That's why the actual idea behind starting the thread was (as the title might suggest) to find people wanting to exchange their ready-to-use audio files with me in order to expand the repository at hand, so that I have the files ready to be added with a single drag-and-drop motion when I need them. I am sure there's a fair number of people out there who had been spending hours extracting audio files from various sources to put into Anki & c.o. and who probably wish someone else had done part of the job for them. Well, here's the chance for them to speed up their workflow as well.

Btw. don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about all the helpful tips people have been providing here. I appreciate the helpfulness at work here, and although I personally knew of all those solutions suggested, I'm sure they might still be helpful to some other people out there who stumble across this thread. And who knows, by a shere stroke of serenipidy someone might actually suggest a resource I had not heard of before. But, then again, were I looking for resources to get audio files from, I'd started a thread on the lines of: "Looking for audio recordings of Mandarin words", so, for the time being, guys,

Yes, I was considering purchasing one of the bundles for a long time now, but so far I've been quite satisfied with the free stuff on offer. I was contemplating the audio bundles, too, not sure how comprehensive these are though, nor what the quality is. But then again, that's a topic for a whole different thread. I feel a bit awkward that I have to stress it in every single reply here that getting the audio recording for a particular item itself is not the problem, getting a bunch of recordings in a format easy to use in a flashcard programme such as Anki is, while not difficult, then at least time consuming.

That's why the actual idea behind starting the thread was (as the title might suggest) to find people wanting to exchange their ready-to-use audio files with me in order to expand the repository at hand, so that I have the files ready to be added with a single drag-and-drop motion when I need them. I am sure there's a fair number of people out there who had been spending hours extracting audio files from various sources to put into Anki & c.o. and who probably wish someone else had done part of the job for them. Well, here's the chance for them to speed up their workflow as well.

Btw. don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about all the helpful tips people have been providing here. I appreciate the helpfulness at work here, and although I personally knew of all those solutions suggested, I'm sure they might still be helpful to some other people out there who stumble across this thread. And who knows, by a sheer stroke of serendipity someone might actually suggest a resource I had not heard of before. But, then again, were I looking for resources to get audio files from, I'd started a thread on the lines of: "Looking for audio recordings of Mandarin words", so, for the time being, guys, let's 言归正传, if you don't mind

[Unfadeable]

Are you looking for words or sentences? Since someone already entered the example sentences from Practical Audio Visual Chinese 4 into Anki, I was planning to chop up the audio and attach it to the deck. I'd say this is a lower-intermediate textbook. I'm not sure how many sentences there are but probably around 1000. If this sounds of interest to anyone I will get to work on it faster =)

Definitely interested in other sentence decks since I'm hoping this approach will improve my weak listening skills.

[chinskycraze]

Sentences are definitelly welcome as well, and I'd be definitelly interested in the deck you're working on. Although the lion's share of my collection is single vocabulary files, I can still offer a fair collection of sentences in exchange.

One is a collection of some 700 odd sentences from "Open for Business Chinese Vol. 1", which is probably Upper-Intermediate, bordering on Advanced, but with a clear focus on business vocabulary. Alternatively, I am currently working on a another collection of sentences, more general, however, built around the vocabulary that I've added from Upper-Advanced Books. It already comprises some 1100+ sentences, and there's still more vocabs to go. It might take some time to finish though.

I guess, when it comes to collections of sentence, it makes more sense to exchange whole decks rather than separate sound files.

Keep me posted on your progess. And if you need any help or advice on how to chop up the audiofiles effectively, feel free to send me a querry.

Cheers!

[chinskycraze]

For those of you daunted by Traditional Characters. Now there is also an alternative set with names in Simplified Characters. I've done some random checking, and all seems to have been renamed correctly, but the set was built using an automated script, so I cannot guarantee something didn't go boink in the proces.

[BMK]

I'd be very interested in getting involved with this. I've spent a fair bit of time recently cutting up audio samples from various sources in Audacity and adding them to Anki. I couldn't help thinking that a collaborative effort with a few people who were conscientious and dedicated would make things much more efficient.

It looks like I've been using different sources, so I should be able to offer some audio files that would be new to you.

Fair warning: I'm at a beginner level, so the sentences and vocabulary I'm working on might be more basic than what you're interested in. Also, I'm really just getting started with this, so I don't have a huge repository of files to offer.

Let me know.

[chinskycraze]

@ BKM

sorry for the delay in reply, I haven't logged in here for ages, was busy with so many other things.

Sound's good. I don't mind the level of proficiency of the people involved in the exchange, as long as there is an exchange going on. My intention was to motivate people into a collaborative effort so as to actively create more and more audio resources, rather than just wait passively for others to provide what they need. As you can see by the number of replies to this post, there's not that many people interested in making the effort.

If the sources your files come from are different than mine, then you are making a definite contribution and we could exchange some repositories. Just tell me what you've got. (You can also sent me a private message with your email address, as you can see I'm not always that quick to reply to the posts here).