Free Pinyin Games Website Review (It's Somewhat Fun!)

[chairman_tap]

On my blog I started writing some simple reviews of different language learning resources I come across. I take some video screenshots and write what I like about the tools. I try to find tools which I think are pretty handy and different than the rest of the stuff out there. One of those tools is a website by Quickmandarin that has a pinyin flash based quiz game, a really useful pinyin audio board, and a tone game which tests your ability to identify tones. The cool thing is everything is free.

Website Name: Quick Mandarin’s Pinyin Tools

The Good: The interactive audio board makes for a good reference while the games and quizzes can help with your listening skills. The games are simple and easy to play.

The Bad: The layout of the website is a little confusing at first (there are a lot of sections on the website). Some of the names of the game could be a little more descriptive (Pinyin Blue Quiz comes to mind). The Pinyin Blue Quiz was a little buggy as well.

You can check out the full review here before you decide if it's worth your time. Let me know what you guys think!

Ben

[chairman_tap]

I found a free Chinese text to speech engine/website online through a company called Sinovoice that I thought you guys might be interested in. The mandarin is pretty decent. If you use the Chinese version of the tool it does cantonese too!

Website Name: Beijing Infoquick Sinovoice Speech Technology Corp. (aka Sinovoice)

Web Address: www.sinovoice.com.cn/e-voice.asp (English version)

www.sinovoice.com.cn/2-e-1.asp (Chinese version)

Summary: A free tool to convert up to 600 characters from text to speech, both English and Mandarin.

The Good: English version does Chinese (Mandarin) really well, you can control pitch, speed, and tone of speaking. Also does other languages too! Chinese version has different Mandarin voices (male/female) and even Cantonese.

The Bad: English text to speech quality is not good. Only works in Internet Explorer, doesn’t work in Firefox, Safari, or other popular browsers. Chinese version of tool is all in Chinese.

Here's the full review I did of it on my blog.

Check it out and see if it's useful or not...

[chairman_tap]

I wanted to post up this review of 2 websites I looked at for learning Chinese through pop music. The websites have the audio (sometimes video), pinyin, and sometimes translation. You can read my review here.

The two websites are:

Learn Chinese through Music

Chinese MP3

Hopefully you guys find this useful/helpful...