Current favorite online Chinese resources (CP excepted)

doezeedoats
November 27, 2008, 02:51 AM posted in General Discussion

nciku.com - dictionary with a memory! - automatic vocab lists, etc.

yellowbridge.com - did anybody say flashcards? Holy s#@%!

dict.variants.moe.edu.tw - a dictionary of character variants, this is hard core (50 variations on write 龍 /龙 !)

MDBG.net

Those are my current favorites, all free. What are yours?

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tiaopidepi
December 10, 2008, 02:51 PM

I like two sites that have beginners' textbook texts on them. I actually own the Integrated Chinese book (and one of the New PCR) but it's nice to have digital text.

http://www.language.berkeley.edu/ic/ 

http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/PCR/PCR%20index.htm 

I read these with the help of a Hanzi-to-Pinyin tool that I wrote. It copies the ZDT interface but fixes a few bugs as I find them. For example, H2P tools often convert 说 to shui or don't handle sandhi properly.

Although it's really a tool just for my use, there's an online version and a (Windows) desktop version here:

http://apardoe.spaces.live.com/

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lechuan
May 27, 2009, 07:49 PM

Great idea for a thread!

Another great place to discuss all things Chinese: http://www.chinese-forums.com/

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goulnik
December 10, 2008, 06:00 PM

imandarinpod.com has intermediate-level podcasts 3 times a week, entirely in Chinese with full pdf transcripts, also including background supplements, all free of charge.

topics are typically more conservative than CPod's, but still very useful. Daily listening practice for me in the car (I seldom check the transcripts for lack of time)

already mentioned nciku is a very useful, bi-directional online dictionary, I make systematic use of it in my character maps and news annotations, they also have a mobile interface, nciku mini. Not sure who is behind but it is a very good resource.

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doezeedoats
December 12, 2008, 08:05 AM

on nciku...

I've noticed just in the last couple of weeks that nciku is enhancing functionality. One recent add is animated stroke order. Also has box to enter characters by drawing with the mouse curser, and every example sentence has a "play" arrow to listen to, which you can set to play automatically three times.

BTW, if you use Firefox and deal with traditional characters at all, it's worth getting the Firefox add-on Fireinput. Paste or type a complex character, select it, right click the mouse and find the trad.->sim. option on the drop-down and, conversion done, you're ready to look it up in nciku (takes @ 2 seconds). Do the same thing in reverse with any word in the nciku page and it converts the entire page to traditional characters. Amazing. Makes it worth switching to Firefox by itself.

One more cool one: This converts pinyin with numbers to pinyin with tone marks, e.g. shui4fu2-> shuì fú (說服):

http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/converter-pinyin-unicode.html

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doezeedoats
December 15, 2008, 03:13 AM

I cheched out imandarinpod.com. Good northern male Mandarin accent on the lesson i tried.

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rastafeyd01
December 15, 2008, 10:37 AM

I enjoy watching the Happy China videos from www.chinese.cn, previously of www.linese.com and www.confuciusinstitute.net.  Not only is the language they use pretty advanced, but it also includes english and chinese subtitles.  Once they've arrived at a new destination they usually put out several videos a week.

Moreover, the videos are all available for download, have PDF files of the dialogue, and the older downloads allow for downloading the material not just in video format, but also in mp3.

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zhaoliang
December 17, 2008, 03:43 AM

Ask Benny puts a fun twist on it.  Plus, if you live in Shanghai, you can participate in free events like Mandarin Monday.

 

 

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doezeedoats
January 05, 2009, 07:05 AM

I looked at chineseetymology.org today. Good site for taking your familiarity with characters to another level. Bronze, seal and oracle bone pics of characters, plus radical breakdown, English meanings, Cantonese and Taiwanese pronunciation...

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helenhelen
January 08, 2009, 12:07 AM

www.lang-8.com. It's basically a language learning based social networking blog site thing. You write entries in the language you're learning, native speakers come along and correct them, you reciprocate. So far I'm finding it to be a highly efficient and rather effective way of practising and getting feedback on my written Chinese, as well as doing a little guanxi. To be recommended!

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doezeedoats
January 09, 2009, 03:57 AM

"Pablo" -- This is a great (and free) dict/character search tool, downloadable from this site ...has stroke order animation, character entry using mouse, and a super multi-radical character selection function (like 心 and 月 brings up the short list with 情).

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henning
December 10, 2008, 03:19 PM

  • popupchinese (the HSK and listening tests are superb and the lessons are fun, also. Perfect complement to CPod)
  • skritter (currently massively using that one to refresh my writing skills which have approached zero)
  • Goulnik's news (I learned tons from those news)

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RJ
January 09, 2009, 08:24 PM

dzd,

good post. I use all those you mentioned and like them all very much plus popup chinese, nciku, and skritter. Mikeinewshot just mentioned this one and so far I like it also.

http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/Chinese/lessons.htm

the rest I will have to try out.

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emeraldearth
January 09, 2009, 11:21 PM

www.livemocha.com

you get points for taking quizzes and submitting writing or speaking submissions, also you can correct other people's submissions.  You can also chat with other users.

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fordbronco
January 09, 2009, 11:27 PM

yeah the university of oxford website w/ videos that rj&mike posted is awesome. used it extensively in the days before cpod was invented. they haven't changed the site in almost 5 years but the material and presentation is excellent.

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doezeedoats
January 10, 2009, 03:06 AM

Goulniky, on imandarinpod, I guess I like both. 张静 seems to me to be a really good reader--I get mesmerized by her voice. Tragically, the older lessons are being removed as the new ones are posted, so much old stuff is gone into the ether.

BTW, www.chinaknowledge.de has lots and lots...like this page dedicated to the 214 radicals.

"163 
yi 
village 阝那 邦 郎 郡 部 郭 都 鄉"

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jennayong
February 19, 2009, 06:59 PM

I use www.archchinese.com to learn characters. The user interface is really neat and runs very well on my old PC. The character decomposition is great for me to learn the character components.

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RJ
February 20, 2009, 04:48 PM

jennayong,

 

thanks - I really like the archchinese site. I had not seen that one before.

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helenhelen
March 15, 2009, 05:12 PM

http://readchinese.nflc.org/?page=home is my current favourite 5-minutes-day thing. It's just little bits and pieces to read, with notes, readings, exercises, etc.

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user8220
May 27, 2009, 03:07 AM

Does anyone have a resource for streaming Chinese TV on a Mac?  Everything I try seems very hit or miss.

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goulnik
January 09, 2009, 08:36 AM

doezeedoats, the iMandarinPod.com podcast you checked (good northern male Mandarin accent) is the part I like least. It's the standard, cultural background type of lesson you find in Chinese textbooks. Those recordings also seem repurposed material judging from audio quality.

I much prefer the more recent dialogues or stories with women voices, on lighter topics.