Complete Newbie Dictionary

go_manly
December 15, 2009, 06:49 AM posted in General Discussion

Now that the Newbie lessons are no longer being produced, I have made up a dictionary covering all the Newbie lessons.

Download Here

It covers the dialogs only - there is no extra expansion vocabulary.

 

While compiling this dictionary, I noticed a few glaring omissions from the Newbie series:

The words

wŏmende (我们的),  nĭmende (你们的),  tāmende (他们的),  tāmende (她们的)

were not covered in any Newbie lesson.

Even more amazingly, tāde (他的) 'his', was not covered in any lesson, although tāde (她的) - 'her(s)' was.

I know this assertion will be challenged, but I can guarantee I have been through every dialog.

Somewhat less surprising: I would have expected the use of năguórén (哪国人) - 'a person of which country?'.  The phrase 'Nǐ shì nǎguórén?' is taught very early on in most texts and on other websites.

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go_manly
December 15, 2009, 04:22 AM

Instead  Download here

 

For some reason, the link above does not work.

Why don't we get the 15 minute window to edit these posts?

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go_manly
December 16, 2009, 09:09 PM

I never agreed to be your governess!!

I'm puzzled as to what that refers to?

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pretzellogic
December 15, 2009, 04:50 AM

Hi go_manly,

I'm unable to download your dictionary. But i'm curious. How many entries are in the dictionary? You did an great job figuring out what words Cpod has and hasn't covered at the newbie level. 

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go_manly
December 15, 2009, 05:08 AM

hi pretzellogic,

There are just over 900 words.

Did you use the first link or the second. The first doesn't work.

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pretzellogic
December 15, 2009, 05:14 AM

I used both.  I suspect its more on my side than anything else. I'm in China at the moment.

900 words at newbie level.  I'm sure that there were plenty of redundancies in there as well. We've had a number of food lessons, so chi1 came up about 900 times on its own. 

I might have missed it, but are you planning on doing a elementary and intermediate dictionary as well?  I think they'd be really helpful.

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bababardwan
December 15, 2009, 05:22 AM

go_manly

Why don't we get the 15 minute window to edit these posts?

..because you get way longer.If you go to your ME section and then the posts tab there,you'll see a list of all the posts you initiated and a little pencil tool to the right of each post...click on that and you can edit your original post.

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go_manly
December 15, 2009, 07:23 AM

baba

Thanks for that. The original link now works.

 

pretzellogic

That's right, you can't access that site from China. I believe tal has a fix for that. Otherwise, send me a PM with your email address, and I'll mail it to you.

I have already done an Elementary and Newbie Dictionary (ie. one dictionary, two levels). You can also have that if you want it. Anyone outside China can download it here.

I am in the very early stages of sifting through the Intermediate Lessons. An Intermediate dictionary is a possibility, but that is a long way off. I'm not sure what form that might take, because once the vocab gets too great, we might as well just use a regular dictionary. To make the effort worthwhile, I have to see some value in it for myself - something that a normal dictionary does not offer. For the lower levels, that benefit was brevity. I'm not sure what the benefit might be at the Intermediate level.

Something else may be of use though. Three of my school students have agreed to transcibe the Intermediate podcasts for a small amount of money. I'm sure they'll run out of steam, but hopefully I'll be able to share a few transcription before that happens. I'll see what progress they've made when I return to work late January.

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orangina
December 15, 2009, 08:13 AM

go_manly, this qing wen addresses many ways to ask where someone is from. I think it was better as a qing wen than it would have been as a newbie, because different ways of saying it could be covered.

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Tal
December 15, 2009, 08:35 AM

I'm afraid that 'fix' went down (along with many others) last October 1st. The only sure-fire way I know of now for China based poddies to download go_manly's stuff is to subscribe to a good VPN.

Or Bob, you could look into a file hosting site that isn't blocked in China - lol. Not sure what that would be offhand, if one occurs to me I'll post again. (Any ideas anyone?)

Ha, if you do an Intermediate dictionary you might as well start looking into publication! You could become famous! And if your students transcribe the Intermediate Podcasts, I could become unfamous! (But not I hope 'infamous'.)

In the meantime a selection of podcast transcripts done my myself and a few other diligent poddies can be found here.

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RJ
December 15, 2009, 10:26 AM

Tal, you already are infamous, my friend. :-)

go_manly, looking forward to more transcripts.

 

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hamshank
December 15, 2009, 04:47 AM

Thanks for that...I downloaded it and it looks good.

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Tal
December 15, 2009, 11:05 AM

Well, that speaks volumes for your dedication, and the effectiveness of CPod of course!

Infamous already? Oh no! I'm gutted!

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orkelm
December 15, 2009, 06:06 PM

Go_manly,

Thanks, I just downloaded your list and it's really cool to have all of these words in one pdf. 

Truly appreciated,

Orlando

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rods
December 15, 2009, 10:22 PM

Wow Go_manly! I just downloaded both dictionaries. They're going to be very handy. Thank you for your generosity and hard work.

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zhenlijiang
December 16, 2009, 07:11 AM

go_manly,

Yes I have offered to finish lesson transcripts started by other poddies before--I can't remember exactly how long ago that was. But it's always great to see such attempts being made by poddies (because, as I have said so many times, the transcriber learns most. it isn't just that having transcripts helps other learners), I hope more of us will be encouraged to try. I will be happy to help as long as my schedule allows.

Tal's not my exclusive rep or anything but it would be nice I think if you joined our group and shared the finished product through it.
And it would be appreciated also if you could let us know which lessons are being worked on, to avoid multiple separate efforts being made on the same lesson (there are over 230 Intermediate lessons after all).

Let me know!  Cheers

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go_manly
December 16, 2009, 08:40 AM

zhenlijiang

I'm working on the most recent Intermediate lesson - Voucher Promotion at the Mall. I've got about a minute left, but I have the feeling it will be the longest minute of the Podcast for me.

I've only got Pinyin at the moment, and I'm assuming you want the characters, so that will take a little more time.

I was hoping someone could take the time to review my attempt before I make it public. There are some words I just cannot make out.

Also, has anyone come up with a file-sharing site that is accessible in China. My final attempt will be in PDF form.

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Tal
December 16, 2009, 10:49 AM

A transcript all in Pinyin! Err... okaaay.

Well here's a China based file sharing site which would be sure to work for everyone and seems rather good. But... the website is all in Chinese of course! Might be a good learning experience!

Or you could try this one which is in English, and which I've heard is OK for China, but I can't vouch for that personally.

To be honest though, for something like a transcript, I think you might as well just upload it to Google Docs and publish it as a web page, but it's up to you of course.

All are welcome to join and have fun in our transcript group by the way, don't let my 'infamous' name put you off. (You can count on zhenlijiang to make me behave - lol). (Originally the group's name was intended as a kind of personal homage to Poems with Pete, now sadly a thing of the past.) I would be most happy to see the group thrive and grow, put out new branches, maybe go places I didn't even imagine.

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bababardwan
December 16, 2009, 11:38 AM

Well I must put this transcribing [at least once] on my New Years resolution list [does that give me a whole year?].I'm feeling pretty slack right now and lacking in face.

ps sterling effort go_manly.Good on you for sharing with everyone.I think this coming year is going to be a beauty.Jiayou.

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zhenlijiang
December 16, 2009, 04:14 PM

Go_Manly, you could take whatever document file you're working on and upload to Google docs like Tal said, share it with only whomever you wish (myself, for instance) for review and possibly some edits, before you share the link to the "ready" version with us all (or finish and publish as a PDF like you said).
Like I said I'm very happy to help. I'm just a little busy this week and next so may not be able to turn over as quickly as you hope.

, I never agreed to be your governess!!

Baba it is fun (a stoic kind of fun). We can have several people working on bits each of one too!

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go_manly
December 15, 2009, 10:53 AM

rj

I can't promise anything with those transcripts. Two of those three kids aren't all that reliable, so I'm not getting my hopes up. But they say they can type the characters quite quickly - at the rate they are spoken, provided the speech isn't too fast. So they should be able to get through quite a few if they spend even an hour a week during their break.

Perhaps, in a year's time, my listening ability will improve enough to make a contribution to these transcripts. I'm just beginning to make some sense of the Intermediate podcasts, which I couldn't say even a month ago. I guess I must be making some progress considering I was still at the Newbie level 9 months ago.