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Chinese is not only about written language. Actually there are two grammar system, written and spoken language. One can learn how to read through novels but not how to speak.
I studied Chinese for 2 years, and I've been searching for something like this for a while. However I think that this novel (Ah Q) is too difficult for a beginner. I installed the "Zhongwen Chinese Popup Dictionary" extension for Chrome. It kind of works -- as you hover over characters it shows the definition. But I don't have any good content! I can't find any good beginner level Chinese stories online!
I had a similar problem. While in China, I bought some Chinese books for kids that had pinyin. Even then, the Chinese is filled with colloquialisms or archaic language. Stuff that is the equivalent of "once upon a time" was very hard for me to understand. There is probably a big market now for books with Chinese and English that will help ease foreigners into the language.
I've been studying Arabic since April and have native instructors, and at this point I can easily pick up a children's book and read it. I can make out most of the news as well.
I've done my own manual version of this kind of service to learn Chinese. Would definitely pay for something like this! The biggest problem for me is the availability of Chinese audio books (specifically, non-abridged versions - anyone have recommended sources?) When your reading level is high enough to read novels, the English translation is no longer that important - if I could just get the Chinese audio and text I…
There appear to be some freely available online recordings of the public domain text as well. https://librivox.org/author/1097?primary_key=1097&search_cat...
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This looks like a great tool. I have two questions: 1. Can it translate characters to pinyin? I can speak more Mandarin than I can read, so being able to see phonetics would be really useful to me. 2. Do you know of any online stores that sell DRM-free Mandarin ebooks that could be used with your tool?
1) No, and partly on purpose. It's impossible to get 100% accuracy with automatic character->pinyin converters, and is very easy to get incorrect values even for common words and I believe this is a danger for new learners and so for the moment have not implemented this. At some point I hope to start creating curated content with the tool and that will be able to provide the full, correct pinyin. In the meantime, it…
Chinese is not only about written language. Actually there are two grammar system, written and spoken language. One can learn how to read through novels but not how to speak.
This is true for all languages, not just chinese.
Chinese novels are not easy for beginners, my suggestion is to go with novels that're translated into Chinese from English, like Sherlock Holmes. The translator uses good Chinese, and the stories are familiar, therefore you will have an easy time understanding the texts. After all, it's the language you are interested.
To be able to appreciate Chinese novels like a native, especially classic ones, you'll need years of study, starting from Chinese history, classic literature, ...
I've done my own manual version of this kind of service to learn Chinese. Would definitely pay for something like this! The biggest problem for me is the availability of Chinese audio books (specifically, non-abridged versions - anyone have recommended sources?) When your reading level is high enough to read novels, the English translation is no longer that important - if I could just get the Chinese audio and text I…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a similar problem. While in China, I bought some Chinese books for kids that had pinyin. Even then, the Chinese is filled with colloquialisms or archaic language. Stuff that is the equivalent of "once upon a time" was very hard for me to understand. There is probably a big market now for books with Chinese and English that will help ease foreigners into the language.
Honestly you've got to get a tutor if you want to learn a language with any sort of speed, preferably a native speaker. With a native speaker you could shred through those books fairly quickly. I've been studying Arabic since April and have native instructors, and at this point I can easily pick up a children's book and read it. I can make out most of the news as well.