Graded reading exercises

[renzhe]

This is something I've found useful for langdu practice. I could have posted this on one of the pronunciation threads, but didn't want to derail them, and it will be easier to find this way:

http://www.yes-chinese.com/reading

Click on one of the tabs at the top of the page (I recommend "Grown-up") and pick an article. They are graded according to the HSK-level, and there are native speaker recordings to compare to.

This stuff is too easy for reading practice (even the most difficult ones are relatively easy to get through), so you can concentrate on phrasing and pronunciation.

[li3wei1]

I tried a few, and it sounds like it's a machine reading it, or someone has recorded each character, and a machine is mashing it up, the way they do with railway announcements.

[anonymoose]

I agree. I just listened to 地球一小时 and it sounds very unnatural to me. Pronunciation of individual characters may be standard, but I wouldn't recommend using this for phrasing or rhythm.

[imron]

I like what they're doing with the mouseovers, but agree it sounds like a text-to-speech rather than a natural recording.

[abcdefg]

I listened to several at the HSK 3 and 4 level. They sounded "real" to my ear, by which I mean I think they were read by a human instead of by a synthesized voice or a machine. But I'd bet the microphone and recording equipment used was not very high fidelity. Gives them a "tinny" and "distant" sound, without much "presence." It's also pretty clear that they were being read for teaching purposes and we weren't just "eavesdropping" on a native speaker having an ordinary conversation. The presentation is "stiff" and "stilted."

All in all, I still find these a useful exercise, especially for pronunciation and phrasing as suggested. Thanks for posting the link.

[imron]

Have a listen to the first paragraph of this one.

Especially the transition to the word 豆浆 in 都少不了豆浆 and the transition to 油条 in 吃的时候把油条. There's definitely something funny going on there.

[abcdefg]

#6 -- Yes, that is strange. Like it was spliced together or something. Certainly not natural in its speech rhythm.

Such a good concept. Why couldn't they just do it right? Frustrating to find something so close to being useful, yet so far away.

[li3wei1]

it sounds to me like they've recorded the words, rather than the characters, into a huge database, and hooked that up to their parsing system. This allows them to give the pronunciation of individual words when you click on them, which is good, but detracts from the value when you listen to a whole sentence.

[anonymoose]

Have a listen to the first paragraph of this one.

Especially the transition to the word 豆浆 in 都少不了豆浆 and the transition to 油条 in 吃的时候把油条. There's definitely something funny going on there.

Yes. And if you click on 地方 and listen to the recording, the tones are incorrect. (The second character should have a neutral tone).

[renzhe]

Hrm, I only gave it a quick cursory listen, since I rely on a personal native speaker for phrasing at the moment. So I didn't notice. Sorry about that.

That does diminish the usefulness somewhat, but I still find that it's a nice, graded collection of things to practice reading outloud that are more approachable than reading newspaper articles outloud.