.SRT subtitles for Happy Chinese with Susan

[mlescano]

UPDATE:

Now I'm syncing the subtitles myself and posting them here:

www.learnchineseslowly.com, where I'll be posting this and my musings about learning the language.

 

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2017-02-28: Yet another update: I just found out a YouTube playlist that already has synced text-based subtitles for almost all episodes. In this version the video is not cropped (so the original hard subs are still visible) and the subtitles are both Chinese and English at the same time:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiNe_bumx_AX4RA-Wa-rRZo082f4mdzu6

I'll still keep working on my Chinese-only cropped versions, as I believe this could lead to an even more immersive experience and also serves as a basis for flashcard generation.

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------Original post-------

 

Hi, everyone.

 

I'm Miguel. First post over here.

 

I'm watching 快乐汉语, the one with 苏珊. The Chinese subtitles are hard to read, so I'm typing them myself to a text file so It's easier to look up words and practice with the videos. So far I have the 3 first episodes in text format (not subtitle format, just plain text)

 

Maybe someone has done this before and they still have the files? Could you please share them?

 

My plan is to then create synched subtitle files, trim each video to 16:9 to get rid of the burned-in subtitles and mux the .srt into the mp4, and use this for further practice.

 

I can share the .txt files I have already typed, if anyone wants them, -and later the .srt files-, and I'll continue working on this. Maybe we can assemble a group to type and timecode the subtitles of different episodes?

 

Thanks!

[eslang]

Hello Miguel.

 

I have watched through a few episodes of  快乐汉语 (with 苏珊) on youtube.

 

The Chinese subtitles are hard to read because the video resolution is on the small scale and the font-size is much smaller compared to other Chinese dramas that I have watched online.  Some of the frames (scenes) have white subtitles that are "sitting on" a white background which makes it difficult to obtain a proper extraction of the embedded subtitles using esrXP software. 

 

I am interested to work on those that have Japanese subtitles and easily accessible online.

For example:

「舌尖上の中国」-第1話「自然からの贈物」【日本語字幕版】

青春映画　老男孩（同級生）　日本語字幕

【予告編】「夫婦のそんなこと」　《夫妻那些事》

 

Apparently, 快乐汉语 have (Japanese and Chinese) bilingual subtitles available only at

 

中国テレビ★CCTV大富公式サイト

http://www.cctvdf.com/j/

中国最大地上波テレビCCTV（中国中央電視台）の豊富な番組をリアルタイムで
日中二カ国語（日本語同通／日中ダブル字幕）で見られる！
総合チャンネルなのでヒヤリング力、語彙力アップにも最適！
きれいな“普通話”で“使える”中国語が学べるのはCCTV大富だけ！

 

So, count me in if anyone have the video links/files for (Japanese and Chinese) bilingual subtitles.

[Flickserve]

This is one of my 'future' projects. I want to go through the "growing up with Chinese" series first as all the pdf files are available.

However, I am making very slow progress.

[mlescano]

Hi, eslang. Yes, they're hard to read and that's why I'm looking for transcripts. Sorry, I can't find the subtitles at the site you mentioned.

 

Eslang and Flickserve: There's a site for working collaboratively on subtitles. It's called Amara.org.

 

I already have the subtitles for Episode 1 fully synced, and you can download them as a srt file:

http://www.amara.org/en/videos/1iVKOOUN9F36/info/kuai-le-yi-yu-hq-01-yuan-fang-lai-ke/?tab=video

The best way to take advantage of these subtitles is to download the video with clip converter, crop 8 pixels from the top and 104 from the bottom to get rid of the burned-in subtitles, and then play with VLC on any device.

 

I have subtitles for Episodes 2, 3 and 4 fully typed, but not yet synced (at the time of making this post):

02 http://www.amara.org/en/videos/3a4BVcD6B4j6/info/kuai-le-yi-yu-hq-02-xing-xiang-wen-ti/

03 http://www.amara.org/en/videos/VmronweaDHBB/info/kuai-le-yi-yu-hq-03-bao-jiao-zi/

04 http://www.amara.org/en/videos/BnuTRlr5CDH1/info/kuai-le-yi-yu-hq-04-zao-dian/

 

Here are Episodes 5-10. I still haven't started with them, but might do soon. Feel free to collaborate on them:

05 http://www.amara.org/en/videos/SlJxY6UrxH6J/info/kuai-le-yi-yu-hq-05-re-xin-ren/

06 http://www.amara.org/en/videos/aB2Qiqk16t0o/info/kuai-le-yi-yu-hq-06-rou-jia-mo/

07 http://www.amara.org/en/videos/h8iB4YjCdfr1/zh-cn/944376/

08 http://www.amara.org/en/videos/y1Zriu8mcF7j/info/kuai-le-yi-yu-hq-08-chun-wu-qiu-dong/

09 http://www.amara.org/en/videos/U0GvG7Ir32g1/info/kuai-le-yi-yu-hq-09-bei-jing-kao-ya/

10 http://www.amara.org/en/videos/4ETybFvEaoy0/info/kuai-le-yi-yu-hq-10-qing-ke/

 

Feel free to add more videos from this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC9B1674F36FD1069

 

If you know of a better platform for this than Amara, I'm all ears. In Amara it's hard to fine-tune the syncing. 

[mlescano]

UPDATE:

 

I decided to Google some lines from what I've already transcribed, and after some four attempts I stumbled upon a site where a kind soul has already posted the full transcriptions for this TV show:

https://happychinesetv.wordpress.com

 

This is a fantastic starting point from where to create synced subtitles.

[Flickserve]

UPDATE:

I decided to Google some lines from what I've already transcribed, and after some four attempts I stumbled upon a site where a kind soul has already posted the full transcriptions for this TV show:

https://happychinesetv.wordpress.com

This is a fantastic starting point from where to create synced subtitles.

Wow. Thanks for that. I could never find them either. I am happy enough with the transcripts though.

[eslang]

Hi mlescano

 

That's a great find!  Thank you for posting the link to the transcripts.

 

The (Japanese and Chinese) bilingual subtitles are available through the Japan cable television services such as Hikari-TV, J:Com, Sky-Perfect JSAT Group, and EO-Hikari-TV, for subscribers only.

 

(FAQ in Chinese)

http://www.cctvdf.com/c/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=240&Itemid=244

 

If you know of a better platform for this than Amara, I'm all ears. In Amara it's hard to fine-tune the syncing.

 

Amara looks like another version of ViKi that is "crowdsourced subtitling platform that engages volunteers from around the world to translate online videos".   

 

Same as Flickserve, the transcripts are good enough for me.

 

[mlescano]

Update: I finally got started with my old project of generating synced subtitles for this show. Here's the first episode:

 

https://youtu.be/fbQxXibXOxE

[mlescano]

Episode 2 with synced .srt subtitles here:

https://youtu.be/vG72tiJPwZc

 

[Mati1]

Synced subtitles? But the videos I've seen on the CCTV page and on Youtube always had the burnt in subtitles ...

Oh, I see what you did there hehe. Good job! Finally a way do display big high quality subtitles without extra effort. And viewers with perfect Chinese knowledge can turn them off completely.

[mlescano]

You're right, Mati1. They already had synced subtitles. What I meant was "soft" subtitles, and since the most well-known format for soft subtitles is SRT, I've just changed the topic name.

 

I believe having soft subtitles makes this show a lot more useful for learners. You can first try to understand it with subs off, then with subs on. YouTube allows you to change the subtitle size to make it more readable. You can also download the .txt from the link I provide in each video, open it in Pleco and follow along.

 

.srt subtitles also allow you to easily create flashcards with subs2srs. I'm carefully syncing them so you can just use them "as is" with subs2srs, without having to do any further cleanup.

[NinKenDo]

Awesome, I'll produce subs2srs decks from these. If anybody's interested I can put them up somewhere.

[Flickserve]

Just post them here in this thread. 

[mlescano]

Sure, go ahead and create the Anki cards.  For the audio, you can first save a mono 48-64kbps audiofile with Audacity, so the resulting deck is smaller. Thumbnails would be fine at 240x135 (because it's now widescreen). In advanced subtitle options you can choose to discard anything with less than 4 characters, to get rid of the numerous "对对对", but not kill any chengyus in the process. I haven't synced the English translations, so your decks might be monolingual unless you prepare those. Hey, monolingual might actually be better, because I slightly altered the grouping of the subtitles to comply with readability standards, so it would be a headache to sync with the English. 

 

Episode 3 is ready!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIaqA64FOxs

 

I just discovered you can have Kaiti-styled subtitles if you choose Cursive from the list of font styles in Youtube's Subtitle options. Here I also choose 200% size, and window color black with opacity 100%.

[Flickserve]

3 hours ago, mlescano said:

I haven't synced the English translations

I am working out a way of syncing the subtitles in English if you only have the Chinese  .srt  . It involves manipulation of the text in excel.

[mlescano]

Nice! Here's Episode 4:

 

https://youtu.be/EPLxq-IJMKI

 

[mlescano]

Episode 5 ready! Xiaowei's blind date! Watch here:

https://youtu.be/XMY0K7N8AA4

 

Get the .SRT subtitles from here:

http://www.learnchineseslowly.com/blog/happy-chinese-ep005-srt-subtitles-and-transcription

[mlescano]

Hey, guys, good news:

 

1) I just found out that YouTube user haztuznezo has already synced text-based dual-language subtitles for almost all episodes. The playlist is here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiNe_bumx_AX4RA-Wa-rRZo082f4mdzu6

I'll still keep working on my cropped, Chinese-only video versions, as they allow you to watch it with/without subtitles, leading to an even more immersive experience. This could also serve as the basis for subtitles in other languages, for the benefit of Mandarin students everywhere. I'll borrow haztuznezo's subtitles with timings as a starting point, to speed up the process.

 

2) Rainbowfish, the guy who originally typed the transcripts commented on my Learn chinese slowly blog, mentioned me in his Happy Chinese blog and also mentioned this thread.

 

On other news, I have already created flashcards for my personal use for episodes 1-5, using subs2srs. I believe they make for very good listening practice: By focusing on a single line at a time, you really notice how people actually speak, how it differs from the "standard", how they add extra noises here and there that are not in the subtitles, and how they slur together sounds when speaking fast. I'll soon give more details on recommended settings for subs2srs and Anki if you also want "listening practice only" cards.

[mlescano]

Hey, guys!

 

Episode 06 is here, finally:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqFceX67ucI

 

Susan makes hamburgers!

[艾墨本]

Keep them coming. Although I probably won't use them I'm sure many other will find these useful. Great job!