Frequently used chengyu project

[renzhe]

Wow, that will certainly be useful.

If you send me the sources you used to create it, I can make a Mnemosyne database out of it.

This will be a project for the next year, though. I still have to finish the HSK vocab, and there are a number of other useful vocab I'd like to go through too...

[chrix]

the sourceS? Or do you mean the Excel file I converted into a tabbed database? Can't you just convert from the ANKI format? I thought it's all compatible and so forth.

BTW, if you change the category "jiantizi" to "expression", the deck also works perfectly with the "Chinese example" plug-in Just would there was a way to turn off the nonsensical google-generated English translations...

EDIT: the plugin needs jiantizi to work, and it doesn't work that "perfectly" with it, since many chengyu do not appear in its example database. We need a plugin that directly feeds into jukuu or something...

Edited November 13, 2009 at 05:19 PM by chrix

[renzhe]

Yes, I meant the tab-separated file, or the Excel table. I think that only Anki can load the Anki binary format.

[chrix]

just reply to my private message I sent you yesterday

[renzhe]

Sure, but attaching it here would also be useful to others

[chrix]

Well I thought you'd create the mnemosyne database and post it here

[renzhe]

Sure.

[chrix]

I haven't cross-referenced the data run by phyrex yet, but since muyongshi wanted a simplified version, I thought I'd put this here: the MOE list with over 48,000 entries, cross-referenced with my own chengyu list, with all chengyu in CEDICT and HANDEDICT.

Roddy was so kind as to host the file here on the forums

Note: at this time, 5,364 entries have an English translation. If you want to help me increase this number, please send me a PM

[jbradfor]

Here is the chengyu file in ZDT's "backup" format. [You'll need to remove the .txt extension, then go File -> restore, and select this file.]

In doing the conversion, I found a couple of errors in the original file. I've corrected them in this version.

Invalid pinyin -- see http://www.pinyin.info/rules/where.html for rules

daì

weí

feǐ

weì

feī

loù

spelling error in English def

隨心所欲

大勢所趨

小巫見大巫

扶搖直上

蜀犬吠日

no (English) def -- whoops, just realized I didn't fix these, as I don't know the correct definition

無人問津

玉樹臨風

no pinyin -- and this is what I added

虎口餘生 -- hu3 kou3 yu2 sheng1

有備無患 -- you3 bei4 wu2 huan4

峰巒雄偉 -- feng1 luan2 xiong2 wei3

Edit:

after posting, I found more spelling errors in the defs. These are not fixed in the attached file

鵬程萬裡

天衣無縫

傾國傾城

獨一無二

望梅止渴

多此一舉

frequentchengyu.backup.txt

Edited November 16, 2009 at 07:09 PM by jbradfor

[chrix]

thanks for the feedback!

daì

weí

feǐ

weì

feī

loù

oops, how could that happen. I need to write some validation routines

spelling error in English def

隨心所欲

大勢所趨

小巫見大巫

扶搖直上

蜀犬吠日

I'm curious what the spelling errors were, the only thing I can find are awkward phrasing and slight grammatical mistakes. This is what happens when you get your translations from the internet

no (English) def -- whoops, just realized I didn't fix these, as I don't know the correct definition

無人問津

玉樹臨風

the first one is "no-one shows any interest in.... / nobody cares to ask about ...."

the second one is "great talent at young age"

no pinyin -- and this is what I added

虎口餘生 -- hu3 kou3 yu2 sheng1

有備無患 -- you3 bei4 wu2 huan4

峰巒雄偉 -- feng1 luan2 xiong2 wei3

all d'accord.

Edited November 16, 2009 at 09:13 PM by chrix

[jbradfor]

I'm curious what the spelling errors were, the only thing I can find are awkward phrasing and slight grammatical mistakes. This is what happens when you get your translations from the internet

Errors in things on the internet? Impossible!

大勢所趨 -- irresistable -> irresistible

小巫見大巫 -- dwarved -> dwarfed

扶搖直上 -- offical's -> official's

蜀犬吠日 -- Sichan -> Sichuan

鵬程萬裡 -- roc -> rock(?)

天衣無縫 -- flawloess -> flawless(?)

傾國傾城 -- gorgious -> gorgeous

獨一無二 -- unrivalled -> unrivaled

望梅止渴 -- onself -> oneself

多此一舉 -- guilding -> gilding

I also found some more errors in my conversion, so I'll post an updated version later after I have more time to catch more errors. If someone else could take a look at it as well that would be good.

[chrix]

thanks. irresistable is even spelt wrong in my trusted 二十一世紀漢英大辭...

unrivalled is British spelling (which I follow, or rather Australian), and roc is indeed the mythical giant bird called 大鵬 in Chinese. The others I've corrected in my database.

Please let me know of any mistakes you run across, I really appreciate it!

[renzhe]

Interestingly, Merriam-Webster lists "irresistable" as a valid variant, but Collins Compact doesn't.

[jbradfor]

Interesting. I was afraid some of the "errors" were actually British spellings. [i noticed the file used mostly British spelling; it took all the self-control I had to not mark then as wrong as well ] I thought I knew most of the differences (e.g. the superfluous 'u', the z->s), but I guess I learn new things everyday!

[chrix]

Yeah, I'm just a bit strange... in Chinese, I prefer traditional script, in English, I prefer Australian spelling, and in German, the old orthography from before the reform

[chrix]

Also, as far as the chengyu themselves are concerned, I've noticed a couple of quite uncommon ones, such as 女媧補天, which is due to some of my lists not being subcategorised properly. For instance, the group of chengyu from 神話寓言 hasn't been classified according to frequency of use yet, so all of them are together, including some rather obscure ones. Once this is fixed I'll update the list, but I can't promise you by when. But the number should be rather small, I think it's 50 chengyu at the very most.

[chrix]

I'm using the chengyu from the frequent chengyu set to set up a "daily chengyu" tweet at http://www.twitter.com/chinesischblog , and phyrex is so kind as to help me make it update itself automatically . Please have a look! (it uses jiantizi, so don't worry )

Also, while setting this up, I noticed some other mistakes:

- 蚕食鲸吞, for some reason my "accented pinyin" field was all messed up, it should be cán shí jīng tūn

- 瓜田李下: "pulling on one's shoe in a melon patch / adjusting one's cup under a plum tree / to be in suspicious circumstances" should be "pulling on one's shoe in a melon patch, or adjusting one's cap under a plum tree / to be in suspicious circumstances" The first bit is a literal summary of the 典故 behind the chengyu.

- 殺雞取卵 shā jī qǔ luǎn

- 櫛風沐雨: "trabel all t he time" should be "travel all the time"

- 如履薄冰: for some reason the jiantizi field was "如履薄冰如履薄冰"

- 董狐之比: should be 董狐之筆 (the jiantizi version was correct)

- 晴天霹靂: the Japanese reading seiten no hekireki erroneously ended up in the Source field

- 數一數二: should read shǔ yī shǔ èr

- 雙管齊下: a copy and paste error in CEDICT in the English field: It should be something along the lines of "paint a picture with two brushes at the same time - work along both lines, do two things at the same time"

Edited November 26, 2009 at 09:58 PM by chrix

[numble]

How about the idea of creating a public Google Doc for people to contribute translations?

[chrix]

well, unfortunately they have size limitations for their spreadsheet, so this doesn't work. But it would be great if more people looked at the chengyu translations, because some of them (from some publicly available dictionaries) just are not very good... I think ultimately what has to happen is to supplement each entry with a Chinese explanation, because Chinese chengyu dictionaries tend to be more accurate and give you a better understanding what the chengyu is about...

[numble]

The Google Doc spreadsheet limit:

"Each spreadsheet can be up to 256 columns, or up to 200,000 cells, or up to 100 sheets -- whichever limit is reached first. There's no limit on number of rows."