PDF layouts
WillBuckingham
October 24, 2011, 04:13 PM posted in General DiscussionJust a thought about PDF layouts. I'm not sure if this has been suggested before. But I was wondering if it might be possible to change the default ordering of text on Intermediate PDFs and above. Currently there is Hanzi/Pinyin/English line-by-line. But my sense is that at this level it is useful to be dealing with more sustained chunks of Chinese text, to avoid the eye lazily wandering to the English below.
So I was wondering if it might be possible to have PDFs at Intermediate and above structured as follows:
- Complete text in Hanzi
- Complete text in Pinyin
- Complete text in English
I don't know if other people would find this helpful, or how much hassle it might be to put into place. At the moment I'm covering up the English on the PDFs as I go along; but it might be more useful from a pedagogical point of view to divide things this way. At Newbie and Elementary, the line-by-line approach makes sense; but it makes less sense as you move on up the different levels. Any thoughts?
humanitad-china
October 25, 2011, 05:25 AMi agree with the suggested format
i would just like to be able to print out the 汉字 without having to slowly copy-paste each dialogue point to a word document.
i don't need to print all the pinyin and english translation... but that is just because i want to save the paper and ink...
hamshank
October 25, 2011, 06:37 AMI like the suggestion... It gets my vote.
Here is a long shot.... How about BoPoMoFo as an option for the traditional PDF's?
jennyzhu
October 25, 2011, 06:54 AMDo you mean to have 3 separate PDFs?
kingbee
October 25, 2011, 07:04 AMI completely agree with the OP. Odd, as I was just thinking the same thing this morning.
Would it take much effort to do and host?
WillBuckingham
October 25, 2011, 07:08 AM3 PDFs would be far too complicated, I think Jenny. So I was thinking it's more a matter of the layout of the PDFs themselves. So currently they are in the following form:
A: 你怎么了？
A: nǐ zěnme le?
A: What's up with you?
B: 我的电脑坏了！
B: wǒ de diànnǎo huài le.
B: A! My computer's broken.
This is very handy at Newbie and Ele level. But at the higher levels, my suggestion was that it is more useful to bunch the hanzi together, so that you get:
A: 你怎么了？
B: 我的电脑坏了！
A: nǐ zěnme le?
B: wǒ de diànnǎo huài le.
A: What's up with you?
B: My computer's broken.
What this means is that for longer Intermediate, Upper-Intermediate and Advanced dialogue PDFs, the entire Chinese text appears as a block. This is a good way of weaning the lazy (yours truly!) off the temptation to let their eyes wander to the Pinyin and the English. But @pretzellogic's comments are also worth taking into account (I just haven't overcome my failings in the same way...)
bodawei
User goulnik created a plug-in for this purpose and I used it for a while. (You can sit it on your tool bar and getting just Chinese in the pdf is one click away). I tried it a short time ago and unfortunately can't get it to work, nor can I access his website. I use Chrome, maybe it is something that has changed in Chrome.
You are not the only one who feels this way. I also made the point that at Intermediate and above the pinyin and English is a distraction but I don't think there is enough noise yet to force changes.
OuYiwei
October 25, 2011, 07:58 AMFor me, I like the current PDF format (for Intermediate level at least), as I use the PDF files to create flashcards in Anki. For that purpose, having the Hanzi, pinyin and English all together is really convenient.
Then when I study, I have the Hanzi on the front of the flashcard, and have the Pinyin and English on the back so that I can verify my pronunciation/tones and check the English as needed.
jennyzhu
October 27, 2011, 02:27 AMThank you for all your ideas. It's not always easy to cater to different students and study habits with the same platform. Unfortunately somethings need to be standardized. Nontheless, thank you for giving us insight into how you are learning.
pretzellogic
October 25, 2011, 02:28 AMIt sounds like you're asking the broader cpod community for opinions, as well as cpod staff. In that vein....
My take is that i've found that the intermediate, upper inter, and advanced as currently provided are more than enough chunks of Chinese for me. I know what you're talking about where your lazy immediately looks to what is being said in English, but i've learned to overcome this failing :-). One of the things I did at upper intermediate was write down the hanzi, then try and translate it into English. Then see if my translation matched cpod's. Maybe half the time I was about 50-70% right, but it was good exercise. Plus i was able to not look at the English as a reward.
Plus, it was also easier for me to match up what was said in Mandarin to what the pinyin was, and what the English was, when there was only a sentence or 2 to be translated. The other way would likely be more challenging.