Pinyin Recordings

[trevelyan]

For those interested, we've just put recordings of all pinyin sounds online. These include the pesky 轻声. The speaker is a native Beijing female.

http://www.adsotrans.com/new.html

Access them by selecting the "Sounds" option on the advanced page. Text will be returned with each character as a link to its proper sound. There is no tone sandhi yet (一 and 不 will not change depending on the following tones, etc.), but the rest of the pinyin should be properly contextual. Click on any character to download/play it.

I'd be happy to pass along the files in bulk for anyone interested in making non-commercial use of them. Also -- if there are any web-designers with ideas on how to make things a bit more presentable on our own site, I'd love to hear from you.

[rockytriton]

hey that's really awesome. I may want to use the sounds in my free flashcard program in the future, but I don't have time to do it right now.

One design feature I would love for you to add is the ability to enter new text without clicking back first... So on the results page, it would display the results, maybe followed by an HR tag and then the input box again...

[bogleg]

Hi David,

I'd love to integrate the sounds. How are they packaged and do they include sounds for the neutral tone as well? I tried to test the adsotrans site just now, but it seems a little slow right now.

Chris

[trevelyan]

Chris,

I'll send you a private message with a link to the download and a separate file containing the pinyin sounds corresponding to each file.The wav files themselves are 44.0kz and haven't been downsampled, so they're fairly hefty. If you redistribute please just stick a note attributing copyright to Adso and specifying non-commercial use only.

Rocky,

If you Adsotate stuff through the main page (not the advanced page) the text will center below a link that says "teach me". Click on that and the Quick Add form will popup. The advanced form just gives the HTML as some people like to cut and paste HTML and the addition code can get in the way.

[character]

It would be interesting if a user could download the sounds and have them played by your Firefox plugin: mouse over text, see the annotation and hear the word. It would be great if it was an option for your excellent News in Chinese as well, but that might be bandwidth-intensive.

[trevelyan]

It would be nice to be able to do that, although it would require desktop software since its infeasible to stream the sounds from the server. I simply don't have the time or resources to develop something like this anyway, so any progress on any desktop application will have to wait for someone more familiar with desktop development.

[geek_frappa]

you don't need streaming software.

just some javascript: you can get the code here. mouseover for demo.

http://www.pzlabs.com/marconi/

[geek_frappa]

for example, in IE4+

onMouseOut ="stopSound();return true">xin1 nian2 kuai4 le4

for firefox/mozilla, here is a good article,

http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/mark/audio/play.htm

[trevelyan]

Thanks Geek.... will experiment with this...

[Konglong]

Trev, I'm interested in utilizing your pinyin sounds file. Can you send me the download link? Great idea. I'd actually been pondering this idea lately. My family is making a trip out to Taiwan and I want to train them how to read pinyin so they make sense when reading from their dictionary.

Thanks

[geek_frappa]

ok, about 600 sounds from the internet added...

http://www.pzlabs.com/marconi/

would automatically playing the sounds be annoying? or should we wait for the user to mouse over the pinyin?

i will probably have everyone upload their sound files as volunteers for all types of words... hmmmmm...

[Lugubert]

The more sites I try, the more confused I get. The girl is supposed to be a Beijinger. Wenlin is supposed to give you a standard Putonghua pronunciation. Yet, the vowel quality of an and ang are obviously different in Adso, the an being more closed and fronted, approaching IPA [æ], than the fully open ang vowel [a], but they are identically open (to my ears, at least) in Wenlin. I have observed the Adso difference in a girl from Hangzhou, and thought it was a Southern feature. Please explain, link or whatever!

[HashiriKata]

Lugubert,

The pronunciations you get from Wenlin should be standard. However, the sounds represented by the letter a in an and ang are actually two different sounds. Those who pronounce them identically definitely don't do it correctly (and there are people who mistake the letters for the sounds they present). The same can be said for the letter e in men and meng.

[trevelyan]

The girl is supposed to be a Beijinger. Wenlin is supposed to give you a standard Putonghua pronunciation. Yet, the vowel quality of an and ang are obviously different in Adso

Beijinghua doesn't get more 地地道道 than this without significantly more cussing. I'm used to hearing the distinction in question, incidentally, so if it isn't standard mandarin it's a surprise to me.

[Lugubert]

Hashirikata, can you (preferably referring to IPA) explain the men/meng difference? I have tried to listen to a few native speakers in real life and to Wenlin and tapes, but so far, the e's are identical to me.

[HashiriKata]

Ok, I'll try: I think the e in (_)en is /ə/, and that in (_)eng is /^/.

My assignment of symbols may not be 100% accurate, but the existence of difference between the 2 is definite. You can also think about it this way: since n is a front sound and ng is a back sound, the sound that precedes them should necessarily be influent and therefore move nearer to their positions, thus the more-front /ə/ and the further-back /^/.

[geek_frappa]

improved speed and preloading for easier listening... :o) it does not sound natural yet, but i am getting voice talent to improve the quality of the sound.

http://www.pzlabs.com/marconi/?q=wo+yi+wo+shi+mei+guo+ren+wei+rong

[JohnnyGin]

Trevelyan

I love the sound files so far.

I'd love to get them all, can I?

I could almost get them one by one

from your adsotrans site, but how would

I get all the neutral tones?

Cheers,

Johnny Gin

[trevelyan]

JohnnyGin cannot receive private messages. Therefore you may not send your message to him/her.

Tried to send you the link through a private message. Send me an email and I'll pass along the link to the download.

[JohnnyGin]

Thanx!