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Lorinth’s log - 劳伦的博客 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 337 of 408 07 November 2014 at 3:11pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks Expugnator, you're right about this:
However, even in such cases, I try to check the pronunciation, because I've had nasty surprises in the past with characters I thought I knew perfectly well taking a different pronunciation in new words, e.g. very basic characters like 要 in 要求, 没 in 出没, 看 in 看护 , etc. So even there, there may be a trap. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 338 of 408 13 November 2014 at 10:52am | IP Logged | ||
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For once, I had two evenings to devote to Chinese learning, so I went ahead and totally
wasted them by trying to prepare a new Anki deck using movies I like (洗澡 and 天下无贼), subtitle files, subs2srs and Anki. Even after having read several tutorials (emk's, sprachprofi's and others), it turns out that each step is much more complicated than I had anticipated: - Many Chinese movies have hard coded subs, so impossible to extract them (would OCR produce any useful result anyway?) and, oh, impossible to hide them when reviewing (if I had been able to reach that stage, that is) - On the other hand, finding srt subtitle files is relatively easy, there are many dedicated engines, provided the movie is well known - All the subtitle files I have found were badly out of synch with the video. After downloading, trying, and failing, to understand how to use several tools to correct that, I ended up downloading a short extract of 洗澡 from Youtube and aligning the subtitles manually. Tedious, even with a 10 minute extract. I haven't reached the stage where I'd have to check whether the subtitles are even accurate. - The subs2srs documentation did not seem to match the version I was using, so I went into a burst of (many) trials and (many) errors. And, when time was up, I ended up with nothing usable in Anki, unfortunately. I'll try again, though, as this method seems so promising. If I manage to do it, I'll try to write up a tutorial intended for dummies like myself learning Chinese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 339 of 408 17 November 2014 at 10:50am | IP Logged | ||
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Finally, I can report some success on the subs2srs front.
Phase 1. I was confronted with a few problems that were very easy to solve in isolation, but were nevertheless annoying. For instance : - Chinese *.srt files are often encoded in BIG5 or GB-18030. Subs2srs needs UTF-8. I opened my file in OpenOffice and saved it in the UTF-8 format. - Handbrake had produced a *.m4a file that SubtitleEdit refused to open. In fact, an *.m4a file is just an *.mp4 file. Rename the extension and SubtitleEdit will open it. - SubtitleEdit refused to open any video file, until I noticed that I had a 32-bit version of VLC. I installed the 64-bit version, and SubtitleEdit could show me the video. After that, I used the Visual Sync tool in SubtitleEdit to try and match subtitles with the audio. Very easy to use – except that it did not work. I also used the Adjust All Times features, which is also very easy to use and which also failed to work. After a few hours of fiddling, I finally concluded that my *.srt file for 洗澡 was hopelessly buggy. Phase 2. I changed my mind: - From Youtube, I downloaded the movie 白蛇传说, which I also like. I used the *.flv format. - I found an *.srt file quite easily on http://www.opensubtitles.org and converted it into UTF-8. - I loaded the subtitles and the video into SubtitleEdit and – BINGO ! All subtitles were right on time ! I quit SubtitleEdit without saving, as everything seemed perfect. - I loaded everything into subs2srs. The latter complained about a badly formatted srt file. So I loaded it again into SubtitleEdit, saved it, and then subs2srs accepted it. The only option I changed was Pad Timings, which I activated (it's not by default). - Apart from that, I followed the procedure explained in the subs2srs manual (http://subs2srs.sourceforge.net/#importing_into_anki2) And after about one hour of work, my computer produced a tab separated file that I could import into Anki. Hard subtitles remain at the bottom of the snapshots, but they are so small that they are illegible (plus subs2srs has an option to crop pixels off the bottom of the pictures in such case, but I did not use it). Note that I use monolingual (Chinese) subtitles only. When I see the hanzi, more often than not, I can understand the sentence. I don't mind checking some words from time to time with an external program. My problem is not reading, it's understanding the spoken language. Infrequently, I have come across a card where the sound does not correspond to the subtitle. Also infrequently, I come across a sound file where the end syllable missing, so I should increase the Pad Timings values next time. What's next, apart from actually studying that 白蛇传说 desk? I may try to align ZH and EN or FR subtitles, which would be more convenient when I don't get the hanzi. I could use bigger snapshots while studying on my phone with Ankidroid. I may try to have Handbrake output a *.mkv file, open it in Subtitle Edit and OCR the Chinese subtitles. After all, it just might work. And if it works, I'd have less alignment problems. Once I'm finished with the 白蛇传说 desk, I have a pile of other interesting DVDs. PS: but, alas, after two days of bliss, this morning, when I fired Ankidroid to study today's pending cards, I discovered that Ankidroid produced no sound for this deck (while it does for other decks). What gives? Oh, I hate these tools when I have to spend more time fixing them than using them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 340 of 408 18 November 2014 at 9:27am | IP Logged | ||
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I've finally finished reading 三毛's 《撒哈拉的故事》. I haven't read the 附录 (appendix)
though, except a letter in which the author explains her interesting views (to say the least) about the comparative value of marriage in Europe and in China. I was taken off guard by that book. Perhaps I was expecting old-fashioned feel-good postcard exoticism. In fact, this is a very dark book - despite the brutally blazing sun that pounds on every page - which fully deserves its reputation as a contemporary classic of Chinese literature. However, although many people say it is adapted to intermediate learners, I felt that book was rather hard to read. In fact it took nearly 100 pages before I started feeling at ease. After that, it was a very pleasurable read, with about 6-10 unknown words per page, which is OK for extensive reading. I underlined those words while reading and looked them up, or just some of them, after having read the page in full. And then, when I reached the last chapter, it suddenly became much harder again, with 10-15 or even more new words per page, which means I was not reading extensively, but intensively. I wouldn't have been able to make it without looking up many words while reading. It's not only the vocabulary, but also the syntax that seemed a bit more involved than in other Chinese books I've read up to know, as if the writer needed longer, more convoluted sentences to lead the reader into a nuanced mixed of feelings, with lots of telling details about the personal, social and historical contexts. It's not like that everywhere, though: the dialogues can be sharp. And lastly, there are of course many transliterations of Spanish and Arabic names that are not always obvious to spot. That last story (哭泣的骆驼), by the way, is probably one of the most interesting in the book, as it includes a stronger historical background, a thrilling plot and an incredibly sad vision of human beings. The ending is violent, scary, depressing and beautiful. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 341 of 408 20 November 2014 at 10:22am | IP Logged | ||
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For once, after having finished 三毛's 《撒哈拉的故事》, I did not hesitate long before I
chose another novel. I definitely needed something lighter and easier to read. So I started vol. 2 of the adventures of 哈利•波特, i.e. 《哈利•波特与密室》. As I had hoped, I found it easier than vol. 1, which I read 2 years ago, not to mention easier than 三毛. My plan was to listen to an audio version while reading, but the sound of the audio versions I found online is so atrocious they hurt my ears. Does anybody know where I can find a decent audio version of 《哈利•波特与密室》? A legal version is fine, I'm willing to pay for that kind of stuff. In principle, I don't want to read works translated into Chinese: I'm not learning the language for its own sake but to get to know a culture and translated books do not tell me much about China. However, I'd bought this book 1.5 year ago, and it was sitting unused on a shelf (I have another one left like that on my shelf: Stevenson's Treasure Island - 金银 岛). And, by the way, to hell with principles, I'm having fun reading 哈利•波特 again. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 342 of 408 21 November 2014 at 9:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Yet another bonanza for beginner/intermediate level Mandarin learners:
兒童之路 The site is full of stories for kids, with transcript (traditional characters and pinyin) and downloadable recordings (mp3). I registered and tried one story (火龙的传说), read it, downloaded it to my phone, etc. As I did not take the time to read the fine print, I don't know whether you can listen to/read/download anything you want without paying in the long run. The recordings do not use a shrieking vocoder, as is sometimes the case, but, as far as I can tell, a real human voice. As I'm not used to traditional characters, I googled one sentence and, sure enough, I found a simplified character version of the same text on another site. -- Apart from that: - I've been reading Harry Potter II, 《哈利•波特与密室》, up to page 25/203. - I've been studying my usual daily dose of words (with Pleco) and characters (with Skritter). - I've added another routine, i.e. my 白蛇传说 Anki deck produced with subs2srs. It's fun. Of course, I haven't reached the stage where reviews start piling up :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 343 of 408 25 November 2014 at 11:53am | IP Logged | ||
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Strange fact of the day #1: on page 35 of the Chinese version of Harry Potter II (《哈利•波
特与密室》), there are approximately 728 characters, out of which 113 (i.e. a non-negligible proportion of 15,5219%) are made of proper names. Strange fact of the day #2: these last 3 days, I totally *forgot* to study with Skritter. I don't keep a log or a reminder for SRS reviews, because it's burnt into my daily habits - or I thought so. It's quite surprising that this should happen. The result: this morning, when I suddenly remembered the very existence of Skritter, I was confronted with 311 cards to review. Yuck! Apart from that, I can feel a very strong wanderlust crisis coming my way. I've tried to fight it by creating a new Cloze deletion deck in Anki, to spice up my daily routine. But the temptation is there. I feel the urge to go to the second-hand bookshop and see what worn-out Assimil they have in store. Help! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 344 of 408 27 November 2014 at 2:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here are my first impressions with italki.
I had not attended a Chinese class for over two years. Before that, I'd been using Skype and a web-based school (http://www.echineseSPAMMING.com) for two 1-hour lessons per week. It was a positive experience, but I had to stop due to lack of time. Then, a few weeks ago, my employer decided to install a wifi network in the cafeteria. So I thought, hey, I'm using lunch time to study Chinese anyway, so why not take advantage of the time difference and try italki? After registering with italki, I was offered the possibility to try 3 teachers. The first one was excellent, the second one not so stellar, the third one cancelled the lesson before it could happen, the second third one did not show up at all, and then italki told me I had used up my three trial lessons - which wasn't true but, as I wanted to go ahead, I chose to hire the first teacher, though she was a bit more expensive than some others, for some pompously called "advanced Chinese conversation" lessons. That teacher is excellent. I'm the one who chooses the subject of the lesson (a podcast). I send her an mp3 or a link in advance, maybe a list of difficult words and, up to now, the teacher had prepared the lesson effectively, could ask and answer questions, explain the vocab, correct my Chinese, etc. So I'm entirely satisfied with her and I do hope I'll be able to work with her for some time. The only drawback up to now: the cafeteria can be a noisy place at times, so I replaced my cheap headphones with a model that's more adapted to this kind of environment (one that covers the ears entirely, with a decent microphone) and I chose a quieter, less crowded time, which made for a much more satisfying experience. I also installed a Skype session recorder, so I hope I can listen again to our lesson. -- Wanderlust: I've learnt some hiragana characters. Which is most probably a waste of time. But who knows. Edited by lorinth on 27 November 2014 at 5:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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