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Parallel Texts


FinalFan18

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I'm looking for parallel english-chinese texts. I've been using www.project-syndicate.org for Chinese and English articles to get a feel for the syntax of chinese. Any other good sources for online parallel texts?

Also, I've been using Mandarinspot.com to annotate chinese texts but when working with Project Syndicate articles, sometimes the advertisements end up covering half the text once it has been run through MandarinSpot. Any better annotation devices online? I'm looking for something where I can just highlight a word/character and get the pinyin and translation, preferrably a free or cheap program too. any ideas?

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I am not sure the Bible gives a good feel for (even) standard English syntax.

Are you looking for something like the Njstarword processing tool. This programm provides translation of each word and I think pinyin as you move the cursor over it plus other features. It is available on trial and cost around 50-80 dollars last time I looked. I hope Iunderstood your question.

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I am not sure the Bible gives a good feel for (even) standard English syntax.

You are right that neither of the English Bible versions on that site give a good feel for modern standard English syntax. The King James Version is 400 years old. It is not suitable for English learners. But it is suitable for many English native speakers for use as a parallel text because as the most popular English Bible, it is a familiar text. The Bible in Basic English is a version made specifically for speakers of English as a second language. Besides having only a 1000 word vocabulary, it appears to avoid complicated syntax. But I believe this is an advantage for beginning learners of English. More advanced learners could look for another modern English translation; there are many.

One nice thing about using the Bible for language learning is that when you get ready to study a more obscure language you may find audio for a portion of scripture. Audio for the entire New Testament or even the entire Bible can be found online for the most popular languages such as Mandarin Chinese.

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when working with Project Syndicate articles, sometimes the advertisements end up covering half the text once it has been run through MandarinSpot. Any better annotation devices online?

That MandarinSpot looks pretty cool. Maybe you just need an ad blocker for the Project Syndicate site. Although I didn't try that because I didn't find any Chinese articles there...when I have more time I'll look harder.

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I use a series of books from the "foreign language teaching and research press" (外语教学与研究出版社) (fltrp.com)

The series is called "书虫 牛津英语双语读物" (Bookworm - Oxford english bilingual reading material)

They are intended for Chinese students studying English but work the other way round, too. There are various levels available, simple stories such as Robinson Crusoe etc.

Available in major bookstores in Mainland China.

Cheers

Aijidan

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Using the Bible to study like that is great if you're a Christian, I suppose. I tried to read the Bible once, but I am afraid it's just a terribly dull book, punctuated by bits of JHVE sanctioned genocide. Ironically, reading the Bible actually turned me off Christianity.

Now, I'm not a Communist either, but I picked up Mao's little red book (mandarin and English) for 10 kuai. Can't beat that price, and at least the material is still sort-of relevant considering that 毛泽东思想 is ostensibly still party doctrine.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 years later...

I'm reading that book right now! It may be above my level, it took me one whole week to read the first story, 哦,香雪, and I had to search and learn many new words, but once you've acquired the new vocabulary, it's easy to read, sentence structure is not too complicated. As soon as I bought that book I thought it would be interesting to use those short stories for the Story of the Month project...

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When I first did the search it was from google.com, <chinese-forums.com Balcom> -- I failed to prefix with "site:". I've never got the google search from within chinese-forums to work in the past and just checking now it still doesn't work for me.

Anyway I should have done the non-google search because that brings up the result (and this page too now).

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That does bring up the page, albeit quite far down the page (although Google serves up very different results for the same query these days). 

Right, now to message you and figure out why Google search isn't working for you...

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