Where to find natives speakers to records sentences?

[Alnosr]

Hello guys,

 

So I'm learning chinese, currently studying at uni in Taiwan.

But my study method is basically studying new words with sentences mimic through anki.Thus I need all of my sentences (15-20 a day) to get recording from a native speakers.

Thing is I dont know where to find people...I could basically ask my taiwanese classmates, but I want a somehow standard mandarin, so not possible. APP like hellotalk and stuff I tried it, but I can't export voice message from this app. And I dont know why but most of the recording quality is bad? I suppose it's not their phone but morever the app which leads to that. 

 

Do you guys know anyplace where I could get native speakers recording lot of sentences for me, with a decent quality? I'm currently trying rhinospeak, which is exactly what Iwas searching for but doesn't seem very active.

 

I was thinking about like forums with lot amount of people connected at the same time, something like reddit or forocoche (if you guys know) where I could ask for my recording and then a new person everyday is willing to help me (i guess? because recording 20 sentences usually dont take too long haha)

But I asked every chinese friend and they don't know what could correspond to what i'm searching.

 

Thank you !

[imron]

Put a sign up on the notice board at your university

 

On 10/28/2018 at 1:20 AM, Alnosr said:

but I want a somehow standard mandarin,

Much better to have recordings of how the people around you sound.

 

I'm sure you'll be able to find someone with decent Mandarin that is not too heavily influenced by Taiwanese.

[pon00050]

It looks like you want the sentences spoken with Mainland accent.

 

I am not familiar with the current setup/format but Glossika Mandarin (Beijing)  is the best bet that I can think of. It provides a bunch of sentences that are spoken with Mainland accent.

 

EDITED: I recommended Glossika because I imagine that it would be difficult to go through the process of finding the native speakers willing to record, resulting in something that you would be satisfied with.

[Flickserve]

As I understand it, you have your own sentences and vocabulary that you have sourced yourself and want good recordings so that you can put them into Anki. 

 

You need to pay for this service. Once you are willing to pay, then it becomes a lot easier ?

 

I have tried doing it by language partner but it really requires a lot of dedication. 

 

For standard Mandarin pronunciation, you can have mainland teachers. Some of them are on hellotalk or use a platform like italki. Even a community tutor on italki will be sufficient. In my experience, there are also many ordinary people on hellotalk with standard Mandarin. 

 

The difficulty with finding people on hellotalk is how do you pay them? Electronic payments is easiest like wechat and alipay but opening an account is not that easy. The get around is for you to find someone with a mainland wechat payment in Taiwan, give them cash and they send money to the other person on the mainland. 

 

If you use italki, then this is no problem as italki handle the payments. You pay italki, italki pays the tutor for you. The good thing about italki is that the other person has the idea that they are a teacher and responsible for the service that you ask from them. Ordinary exchange partners on hellotalk might not be so dedicated. 

 

Italki also has Taiwanese people teaching Mandarin. I found their accent is closer to standard Mandarin. They also seem to be a little more expensive than the mainland tutors. 

 

 

Then the next issue is to check their recording equipment. Many will simply record into their mobile phone with cheap headphones. I guess you want good quality recordings so you have to check with other person if they have a dedicated microphone into a computer or dictation device. Some people are quite sophisticated with the equipment as they like to do voice recordings of stories and post them up on the Internet.

 

One thing you should be aware of is sometimes words are used slightly differently in Taiwan and mainland Chinese. Something like cook dinner is 煮饭 or 做饭. So, if you ask a mainland person to say 煮饭  in a sentence, they might not flow so well speaking it out loud. 

[roddy]

Something like this would work - as said above, if you want this done well and efficiently, it's worth investing in. 

[mungouk]

On 10/27/2018 at 10:20 PM, Alnosr said:

APP like hellotalk and stuff I tried it, but I can't export voice message from this app. And I dont know why but most of the recording quality is bad? I suppose it's not their phone but morever the app which leads to that. 

 

I have audio messages on HelloTalk that are as clear as a bell.  I would say it's down to the phone and the environment people are in when they record the message.

 

btw you can export audio messages from the iOS version of HelloTalk.  For Android I guess you would need to poke around in the filesystem.

 

 

[大块头]

14 hours ago, roddy said:

Something like this would work - as said above, if you want this done well and efficiently, it's worth investing in. 

 

Upwork is another option.

[Alnosr]

Thank you guys for all your answers !

"Put a sign up on the notice board at your university" Waaah sound easy  but i didnt thought about it...Might be a great solution, I think i'm gonna start with that and if it doesnt work I guess I would have no other choice but to pay.

 

Thank you !