FREE CHINESE LEARNING SITE!!!

[amego]

Okie, there's a great free Chinese learning site available for learning vocabulary. Many other languages are also available.

ALBIS

Well the Chinese module is done by me 请多多指教

Anyway ALBIS is a very innovative, fun and effective learning system as it incorporates a sort of "game" style approach and "force-feed" your brain to remember the words.

There are altogether 75 levels, each with 20 words, thus a total of 1500 essential words. I shall not say too much here as the program will speak for itself

An abstract from the site that I find is pretty convincing.

There are approximately 800 million native speakers of Mandarin, mainly in China. Are you interested in learning Mandarin? If so, you've come to the right site!

ALBIS can help you learn Mandarin, by allowing you to rapidly absorb Mandarin vocabulary. ALBIS is a system designed to hammer you with the same words or expressions again and again until you have completely memorized them. Once you have fully memorized the 20 expressions in one level, you move on to the next level.

Unlike flash cards, ALBIS forces you to come up with the correct term, with a prompt in your own language. There is a strict time limit. If you get it wrong, you have to start over again. This is similar to the situation you will encounter when trying to converse with someone in Mandarin: you'll have to find the right words quickly, without help.

Anyway, the inputting of answers is in hanyu pinyin, and I've a problem with words like lu and lü, nu and nü, because I'm afraid that some users may not be able input them correctly, resulting in wrong answers. I'm think of substituting ü with nv or nuu but they are not phonetically correct. Any suggestions? Thanks

Please do not hesitate to inform me of any problems, suggestions

请大家试试看ALBIS, 有什么意见请别迟疑，可以随时通知我。

Lastly, don't wait anymore! Try ALBIS out today

Wishing you all the best in learning

P.S. 会中文的朋友，老将们，有空也请多上ALBIS，评估一下它的水准，有什么错误的字眼请通知我，谢谢大家的支持。=)

[necroflux]

Thanks Amego!!!　I'm checking this out right now.

Edit: My first thought is that it should include tones - i.e. shui3 for water. As of now there is no mention of tones for the words, during testing or study phase.

You inputted all of this yourself? That's incredible, thanks a ton.

[horas]

-

amego,

I still think you should put the United Kingdom/Great Britain flag for English, NOT the English flag.

-

[horas]

necroflux

it should include tones

*

Yes, I agree with you. And the Chinese characters should be bigger and change places with the PinYin (which is much easier to decipher).

-

[tamora]

Great site! Thanks...

I think I will try this out - also for other languages.

Tamora

[JackP]

Is something wrong here, or is it blocked within China?

[amego]

Thanks Amego!!!　I'm checking this out right now.

Great site! Thanks...

I think I will try this out - also for other languages.

Tamora

Yesterday 10:01 PM

Thanx for your support and have fun! =p

Edit: My first thought is that it should include tones - i.e. shui3 for water. As of now there is no mention of tones for the words, during testing or study phase.

Well I wanted to add in the tones but my head told me not to as he wants it to be as simple and basic as possible =) But I'm sure as AlBIS develops, these issues will be resolved.

You inputted all of this yourself? That's incredible, thanks a ton.

Thanx, hmmm the basic infrastructure was done up by my head My job is to just translate =) My head is the great guy =) And he is a great guy too =p

Yes, I agree with you. And the Chinese characters should be bigger and change places with the PinYin (which is much easier to decipher).

Thanx for the suggestion, I see what you mean but Chinese characters can be a challenge to many beginners and the aim of this site is to be as simple and effective as possible. However, as future versions come along, users can set preferences like the inputting languages for answers =) Here's an extract from the site.

Users will be able to set preferences. It is not yet certain exactly what options will be available, but here is one example: Currently, when learning Japanese, the default is that words are displayed in the Roman script. So this is what you see during the preview:

kuuki

In Version 2.0, advanced users who know the Japanese writing system will be able to specify that they want it displayed in Japanese.

空気

It will be possible to set such preferences according to language.

Some other possible features are:

an option for users to create their own glossaries, and memorize vocabulary of their own choosing (such as technical vocabulary),

an option for groups of multiple users to see their progress and rankings on a chart, allowing them to have a competition to see who can clear levels the fastest.

A lot depends on the general public's reaction to ALBIS over time.

amego,

I still think you should put the United Kingdom/Great Britain flag for English, NOT the English flag.

I see, I'll inform my head. Thanx

Is something wrong here, or is it blocked within China?

Hmmm, I don't think so Perhaps its other things like high traffic?

Meanwhile please continue to enjoy ALBIS and add suggestions. Thanx a million for your support

[roddy]

I don't know what the reason is, but the link to the site isn't working from here in Beijing. However, even without looking I can tell you you should add tones If you want to make it simpler, cut down the amount of vocab you are presenting - much better to learn half of it well, than to learn half of all of it.

[amego]

I don't know what the reason is, but the link to the site isn't working from here in Beijing.

Hmmm I'll try to figure why

However, even without looking I can tell you you should add tones.

Okie, I shall convince my boss

Can you please get the Cantonese one arranged as soon as possible!

Alright

Very sorry for all the inconveniences

[Kong Junrui]

Hey, I'm checking this out but I don't understand how this works.

I clicked on the English flag on the front page, and made an account and everything, and looked in the drop-down menu for Chinese which isn't there. Is there something I'm doing wrong? How do I start the lessons?

Thanks for your help, and I gotta say, the site looks pretty nice right now!

[Kong Junrui]

Ah, never mind. Less than 30 seconds after posting that^ I realized I was supposed to click on Mandarin, which I didn't see. Whoops!

[necroflux]

Amego, regarding tones your boss is definitely in the wrong - he must not understand the Chinese language to request that you leave them out, without tones it's very hard to get use from what would otherwise be a very useful site. Tell him necroflux said it's his way or the highway, that should scare him.

Have you ever heard of Rosetta Stone? That is a program similar to what this site does, although it uses pictures instead and uses multiple choice instead of fill in the blank. I think the pictures are a good thing, however fill in the blank type tests force higher quality learning that multiple choice (I can memorize the correct answer out of four in short term memory, without any long term benefit.)

[tamora]

Yeah, I agree to the other comments on adding tones. This should definitely be done for learners to get maximum benefit from this great site.

Keep up the good work!!

Tamora

[Lu]

I agree that you should definately add tones. Once talked with an American guy whose Chinese was quite fluent, good vocab too, could make conversation, but he spoke completely toneless. It just hurt my ears listerning to him, it was really atrocious Chinese he spoke.

[JackP]

Hmmm, I don't think so Perhaps its other things like high traffic?

Well... The site is still not reachable in the normal way, but using anonymouse it is...

Oh... I think you got the point already, but I think you should insert tone indicators

[amego]

HiHi everyone, I've already told my head this tone issue

Anyway he added a REAL COOL feature!!! Users can now toggle between Roman and Chinese characters for previewing and inputting of answers!!! That's really great news for advanced learners

P.S. Toggle by pressing the A|亞 buttons.

[necroflux]

Chinese character input - that's great! That actually incorporates tones in and of itself if one uses hanyu pinyin input (and forces themselves to use the tones while typing).

Thanks and tell the boss thanks (unless he's not a good boss, then he get's a stern look of reluctant recognition hehe).

[amego]

Thanks and tell the boss thanks (unless he's not a good boss, then he get's a stern look of reluctant recognition hehe).

Muhahah shhhh, not too loud, I told him to read this thread to read the suggestions..oops...haha... Anyway he's really a nice boss, very friendly *Both thumbs up* Nice working with him =p

[amego]

Hey guys, its been a long long time...好久不见，大家还好吧 anyway albis has moved to a new server, meaning that it can be access from China (hopefully), and feel free to check it out, many new features had been added, such as the much requested tones, of course its still not perfect, albis is still growing =)

Check it out now!

[imron]

I would consider increasing the size of the font for Chinese characters. Using Firefox and going through the Preview section, the characters are tiny. Of course with Firefox I can always manually increase the font size, but it'd be nice if it was done automatically.

Also, I'm not sure what your source is, however in level 1, I noticed a couple of discrepancies between Albis and my Xiandai Hanyu Cidian - not sure if this is just due to differences between Singapore/Mainland Mandarin.

石头 shítóu (second syllable should be neutral - shítou )

树枝 shǔzhī (should be shù not shǔ - shùzhī)

土壤 túrǎng (should be tǔ not tú - tǔrǎng).

Also, one other thing regarding the pinyin, for shǔi the tone should appear over the i - shuǐ and not the u.

If you want to Albis be taken seriously as a tool for learning Mandarin, it's vital to make sure the information you're providing is error free, otherwise people won't have confidence in your program.