Chinwa Chinese language resources

Progression:

• HSK 1 : 100% (with audio)
• HSK 2 : 100% (with audio)
• HSK 3 : List: 100%, no audio
• HSK 4 : List: 100%, no audio
• HSK 5 : List: 100%, no audio

Introduction

Chinwa was a website with some Chinese language learning resources: HSK lists in French and English, and some grammar points explained. The website is no longer online.

I earlier got some of their stuff and built learning lists with sound in different format: xml, json and csv.

These lists can easily be imported in Anki, or another program.

I made an Anki deck with sound: most of the sounds come from the Shtooka project Shtooka project or on my website which maintains a copy of it (I added some missing parts) Yojik Website.

The missing sounds were created by Text To Speech: I tried many flavors of the system and ended using the sounds produced by Google translate. I wrote some script to automaticely download the sounds.

The lists

I extracted the lists from the web pages. I built csv (comma separated value) files from the extraction:

Here is an example:

爱 ài aimer, affection, apprécier

I added some fields: traditional writing, origin, sounds, so I got this:

爱 愛 ài aimer / affection / apprécier love HSK1 [sound:cmn-1cd08e6e.ogg] Chinwa 29233

The transformation program is written in nodejs/javascript: Ididn't know well the language at thi time, so, I decided to deep a bit with real problem solving.

Th program generates 2 other files:

1. a JSON file with the same content as the .csv files.

   { "hanzi": "爱 ", "traditional": "愛 ", "pinyin": "ài", "translation": "aimer / affection / apprécier ", "classifier": "", "lesson": "HSK1", "sound": "[sound:cmn-2d9d12c4.ogg]", "origin": "Chinwa" }

2. a XML file, with the same content.

   爱 愛 ài aimer / affection / apprécier HSK1 [sound:cmn-2d9d12c4.ogg] Chinwa

The Anki decks

The Anki decks are created by importing the .csv files.

I created different notes, to exercise different parts of the language.

There are 7 different ways to learn:

• Normal

  This is like the normal use of Anki, with the Hanzi presented (recto) and the English or French translation presented on the verso face. There is sound associated.

• Inversé

  Exactly the same than Norma deck, but in the other way: English/French displayed, Chinese guessing.

• Sound

  You'll her the sound, and have to guess the translation (English or French.)

• Saisie-Hanzi

  The English/French translation is displayed, and you have to type the Hanzi correspondance.

• Saisie-Pinyin

  The English/French translation is displayed, and you have to type the Pinyin correspondance.

• Son-Saisie-Hanzi

  You'll hear the sound (Chinese) and will have to type the corresponding Hanzi.

• Son-Saisie-Pinyin

  You'll hear the sound (Chinese) and will have to type the corresponding Pinyin.

• Traditional

  This is like the Normal deck, but with traditional writing.

Some screenshots