Ocrat Mirror, Chinese Phonetics, and other Chinese Tools

[skryskalla]

Hello,

I am beginning to put a few projects online that I have developed to help myself learn Chinese. I hope students and other learners can find them useful :]

First, since the Ocrat.com site went offline a while ago I thought it would be nice for the Animated Characters part of the site to be put back online. I just saw that the MDBG dictionary had the same idea, but it is still good to have a copy of the original site. Also, I do not mind if others link to or use the content from the site (zhongwen.com has already started using it). I am also trying to improve some of the content...

• Ocrat Mirror, a part of the Lost-theory Chinese Pages
  

Next, I have a page which lists all of the Mandarin syllables, with each syllable linking to the BPMF spelling as well as the four tones. This is for quickly looking up the sound of some syllable, or to compare how different tones/syllables sound.

• Mandarin Phonetics Table, a part of the Lost-theory Chinese Pages
  

Finally, using the sounds from the previous page I wrote a script to merge the wav files together, so that you can type in a pinyin string and hear it pronounced (very simple at the moment).

• Hear Pinyin String a part of the Lost-theory Chinese Pages
  

I will be hosting and developing more Chinese projects / tools, you can find them collected at the Lost-theory Chinese Pages.

Also, I have a question about the Phonetics table: I am not sure it is ordered correctly (especially the finals across the top, and the vowels/y/w at the bottom). I used this page for the ordering, but the zhuyin doesn't match up with the table in many places (for example, zhi is listed before zha, and ba is listed before bi, but on the table zha/ba must be in the same column). Is there a right (pinyin / zhuyin) way to order them?

If you have any questions or comments or problems with the site please reply or email me. :]

thank you,

Steve

[bogleg]

Hi Steve,

Are there some problems with your server? I was initially able to connect, but now I'm not able to.

Chris

[skryskalla]

Yesterday (the 12th) there was a large scale power outage in California where the server was located. The site was offline for a few hours for that time. I think everything should be fine now. Please reply again if you are still having problems.

Steve

[bogleg]

Yup, works now. I have a question though. Are the sound files that you are using public domain so that anyone can use?

Chris

[skryskalla]

As you can see from the footer on the phonetics page, I am using the sounds from this page at the University of Vermont by Dr. John Jinghua Yin. I tried contacting him a month ago but I didn't get any response. The difference between my page and his is that I split the sound clips apart so that there are the 5 different sound files (bpmf spelling, 1st tone, 2nd tone, 3rd tone, 4th tone); the original sound clips were all in one file. Because I am not selling the sound files or claiming his work as my own I think it is fair use to use them...

[HashiriKata]

Would you be able to modify the program in a way that when a syllable is clicked, it doesn't disappear as the sound comes on?

Otherwise, the syllable chart is great.

Cheers,

[skryskalla]

Are you using Quicktime for playing wav files? I think Quicktime tries to play the sounds within the browser. Either way I changed the script so that sounds open in a new window. Thanks for the reply.

[HashiriKata]

Thank you skryskalla, for taking up my suggestion. I looks much better now.

Are you using Quicktime for playing wav files? I think Quicktime tries to play the sounds within the browser.

Can we choose players at all? I've got all the usual players (QT, WMP, Real).

Cheers,

[skryskalla]

If you're using Firefox you can go to Tools -> Options -> Downloads -> Plug-Ins and uncheck the Quicktime plugin for wavs, then when you try to download again it will ask which program you want to use. For Internet Explorer I am not sure but you may have to change which program associates with wav files (in Explorer -> Tools -> Folder Options -> File Types maybe). I am not sure about other browsers either.

Steve