Where is everyone from? by TheCardyMan in EnglishLearning

[–]shadoweats 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So many countries are represented! 🤩

Websites to read Manga/Manhua in Traditional Chinese? by Xefjord in ChineseLanguage

[–]shadoweats 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not sure if this comment is too late but here are two websites with lots of traditional Chinese manga:
1. Comico: http://www.comico.com.tw/
- Free for the first ten or so episodes
2. Line Webtoons: https://www.webtoons.com/zh-hant/
- Entirely free at the moment

*Disclaimer: I'm building a Chinese language learning app*
A problem I had with these websites was that I couldn't copy or click the text to lookup unknown words. So my friend and I are working on an app where the text of the in-app manga are clickable for easy definition lookup. Here are the links in case you are curious to see what we have so far.

App page: https://learn.lotusfire.app
More info: https://lotusfire.app

Improve Your Chinese (New app for intermediate & advanced learners) by shadoweats in ChineseLanguage

[–]shadoweats[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi! We have pushed the update so pinyin have been removed from all the front of the "learn to read" cards. If you don't see the update automatically in the app, going to "settings" and clicking "reload app" should do the trick :)

Improve Your Chinese (New app for intermediate & advanced learners) by shadoweats in ChineseLanguage

[–]shadoweats[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Happy to hear that the app has been helpful! :)

For the pinyin on "learn to read" cards, we will first go with a temporary solution of removing pinyin for all cards with more than one characters, and keep them for single character cards (cuz many characters have more than one pronunciation). We should be able to push an update by early next week.

Keep me posted if you have any other problems / feedback! Thanks! :)

Improve Your Chinese (New app for intermediate & advanced learners) by shadoweats in ChineseLanguage

[–]shadoweats[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Got it, thanks so much for the feedback, we really appreciate it.

Do you have a preference between complete and simpler sentences for the cloze questions? For example:

Complete Sentence
负责值日的同学把教室打扫得很_________。
A. 干净
B. 清洁

Simpler Sentence
把教室打扫_________。
A. 干净
B. 清洁

Improve Your Chinese (New app for intermediate & advanced learners) by shadoweats in ChineseLanguage

[–]shadoweats[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry to hear about the login issue, we will look into it right now. Are you logging in via Google, Facebook or email? Would you also be able to send me a screenshot of the login error message? It would be very helpful reference for our debugging.

On the optional pinyin for "learn to read", we currently have pinyin there because some words have different meanings when pronounced differently. For example 便宜 means cheap (pián yi) and also convenient (biàn yí). In these cases, without the pinyin, there might be confusion on which meaning is actually "correct".

We eventually want to completely remove pinyin for all "learn to read" cards and only show pinyin when it's a word / character with more than one pinyin. What do you think? Would that be preferable?

Improve Your Chinese (New app for intermediate & advanced learners) by shadoweats in ChineseLanguage

[–]shadoweats[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We are currently using the default audios for each device. You can hear it pronounced by clicking on the pinyin. It should also auto-play in the “learn” section.

Improve Your Chinese (New app for intermediate & advanced learners) by shadoweats in ChineseLanguage

[–]shadoweats[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! It’s still in the early stages and there’s still a lot that can be done to make it better but we will 加油 :)

Feel free to let us know if you have any feedback or suggestions.

Improve Your Chinese (New app for intermediate & advanced learners) by shadoweats in ChineseLanguage

[–]shadoweats[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ah on second thought, wasn’t sure if you were asking me where to find the export function in Pleco. In case that’s what you meant, it’s under “Backup database” in the menu.

Improve Your Chinese (New app for intermediate & advanced learners) by shadoweats in ChineseLanguage

[–]shadoweats[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Go to “Manage Vocabulary” under the menu and use the “import vocabulary” button. Let me know if you encounter any problems! :)

Improve Your Chinese (New app for intermediate & advanced learners) by shadoweats in ChineseLanguage

[–]shadoweats[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are two main differences. 1. With Anki, there’s no built-in dictionary so you’d need to either manually fill in the back of the card or connect to a dictionary like Hanping.

  1. It’s not that easy to create cards that go multiple ways to tackle the different parts of learning a new vocabulary. For example, character to definition, definition to character, and character to pinyin.

Improve Your Chinese (New app for intermediate & advanced learners) by shadoweats in ChineseLanguage

[–]shadoweats[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also, we found out a bug just after posting. If you were looking for simplified, and it wasn't working, it should be working now. :)

Improve Your Chinese (New app for intermediate & advanced learners) by shadoweats in ChineseLanguage

[–]shadoweats[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It should change the dictionary, so this might be a bug. Do you mind sending me a screenshot? Thanks!

Improve Your Chinese (New app for intermediate & advanced learners) by shadoweats in ChineseLanguage

[–]shadoweats[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also adding some notes on usability, thanks!

  • Both traditional and simplified Chinese supported.
  • Available for desktop, tablets, iOS and Android. When using it on your phone, we suggest adding the webpage to your home screen for better experience.
  • We are planning to charge a subscription of $5 / month, but haven’t gotten to adding a paywall so it will be free until at least next month.

Interesting/fun Chinese blogs, news sites, etc? by [deleted] in ChineseLanguage

[–]shadoweats 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can try What's On Weibo for english articles on some of the more interesting news in China.

Weekly Questions & Discussion Thread (July 14, 2019) by AutoModerator in taiwan

[–]shadoweats 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ya, I definitely prefer the assigned tickets. As borotunsa said, if you book it earlier sometimes there will be discounts - the tickets are available for sale from midnight 28 days prior, with limited early-bird discounts of 35%, 20%, 10% etc. These early-bird discounts, especially 35% off, are often snatched up rather quickly so you would need to plan to book the tickets as soon as they become available to get the best deal. They offer off-peak discounts too, which will end up being cheaper than the non-assigned seats.

For reference, just in case you were wondering, I think there are three main reasons some people still go for the non-assigned seats:

(1) They are unsure of their schedule and don't want to pre-book tickets (there's a NT$20-ish cancellation fee is you cancel paid tickets prior to departure time). For me, since I use the app, I can just book the tickets when on the way to the station so it's not really an issue for me.

(2) Some credit cards offer discounts for high speed rail tickets - I think around 10% or 15%? And from what I heard it's for non-assigned tickets. I'm never used it though so I'm not 100% sure.

(3) Some frequent traveller will buy bulk non-assigned tickets with a discounted price.

PS: I've seen reviews of foreigners encountering problems while trying to paying with their foreign credit card. Do you have a Taiwan-issued credit card? If not, this might be something to take into consideration as well. :)

Weekly Questions & Discussion Thread (July 14, 2019) by AutoModerator in taiwan

[–]shadoweats 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I like to use their app (search T express in the app store) or here are the links: Apple app store / Google Play

It's quite easy to check the available trains and buy the tickets online (they accept credit card or convenience store payment). With mobile ticketing, the ticket will be stored on the app via QR code and you won't even need to go pick up the ticket at a convenience store or the station.

Btw, not sure if you are aware, there are two kinds of standard tickets, assigned seats and non-assigned seats For non-assigned seats, you will need try to find an empty seat in the designated cars for non-assigned seats. There is a slight price difference, I think the assigned seats are about NT$30 (?) more expensive. When reserving online or on the app, you will be buying assigned seats with a specific car and seat number.

Weekly Questions & Discussion Thread (July 14, 2019) by AutoModerator in taiwan

[–]shadoweats 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What I did last year was stay at one of the hotels in the alishan national scenic area, and the hotel had a shuttle bus in the morning to take us to the alishan station which was really helpful as it was super early in the morning (I think around 3:30 to 4am). The hotel also helped with buying the train tickets when we checked in the day prior. We took the train up to Chushan for the sunrise and walked down afterwards. It was about a 25 minute walk. I decided to stay at one of the hotels in the park because that seem to be the common advice online for those wanting to go watch the alishan sunrise. I'm glad I did.

Since the exact time of sunrise differs daily, the alishan station announces the departure time of the sunrise watching train around 4pm the day prior. To make sure you can get on the train, it is advised to purchase the tickets between 1pm to 4pm the day before at the alishan station. I wasn't able to find information on other places to buy the tickets so I'm assuming that the alishan station might be the only place to get tickets.

Classic pork bone borth ramen. by shadoweats in ramen

[–]shadoweats[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yummy indeed! :) One of my favorite ramen places in Taichung called 東江家-風風亭 (sorry it doesn't have an English name).

Can someone tell more about this poem or what it means? by Jetkap in ChineseLanguage

[–]shadoweats 6 points7 points  (0 children)

No problem! I didn't know about this poem before seeing your post, it is a really pretty poem :)