
Show HN: Learn Chinese Through Novels - BettingFlame
https://www.getchicory.com
======
alexgolive
I studied Chinese for 2 years, and I've been searching for something like this
for a while. However I think that this novel (Ah Q) is too difficult for a
beginner.

I installed the "Zhongwen Chinese Popup Dictionary" extension for Chrome. It
kind of works -- as you hover over characters it shows the definition. But I
don't have any good content! I can't find any good beginner level Chinese
stories online!

~~~
laowushi
对，鲁迅的文章不适合初学者。推荐一篇散文：《背影》，作者朱自清。这是文章链接：
[http://www.ccview.net/htm/xiandai/zzq/zzqsw003.htm](http://www.ccview.net/htm/xiandai/zzq/zzqsw003.htm)

~~~
postmeta
Kinda works with [http://popjisyo.com](http://popjisyo.com) :
[http://www.popjisyo.com/WebHint/AddHint.aspx?d=8&e=GB2312&r=...](http://www.popjisyo.com/WebHint/AddHint.aspx?d=8&e=GB2312&r=e&s=0&u=http%253a%252f%252fwww.ccview.net%252fhtm%252fxiandai%252fzzq%252fzzqsw003.htm)

~~~
laowushi
是的。酷。

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sh33mp
For people with intermediate proficiency in Chinese, I want to point out that
Project Syndicate ([http://www.project-syndicate.org/](http://www.project-
syndicate.org/)), a website which is basically a bunch of Op-eds from a host
of famous individuals, has its articles translated into Chinese.

For example:

English: [http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ruble-
collapse-c...](http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ruble-collapse-
corporate-debt-by-sergei-guriev-2014-12/)

Chinese: [http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ruble-
collapse-c...](http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ruble-collapse-
corporate-debt-by-sergei-guriev-2014-12/chinese)

Not a bad way to pick up extra vocabulary, if you read them side-by-side!

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imron
If anyone is looking for a similar tool that works with any Chinese content
you like, and is performant even for long texts, you might be interested in my
Chinese Text Analyser:
[http://www.chinesetextanalyser.com/](http://www.chinesetextanalyser.com/)

It also remembers words you know and don't know and can give you an
approximation of how well you'll know a given piece of text before you start
reading it (once it has a fair idea of your vocabulary).

Currently Windows only, but it runs under Wine on Linux and an OSX version
will be ready soon.

~~~
mojoe
This looks like a great tool. I have two questions:

1\. Can it translate characters to pinyin? I can speak more Mandarin than I
can read, so being able to see phonetics would be really useful to me.

2\. Do you know of any online stores that sell DRM-free Mandarin ebooks that
could be used with your tool?

~~~
imron
1) No, and partly on purpose. It's impossible to get 100% accuracy with
automatic character->pinyin converters, and is very easy to get incorrect
values even for common words and I believe this is a danger for new learners
and so for the moment have not implemented this. At some point I hope to start
creating curated content with the tool and that will be able to provide the
full, correct pinyin.

In the meantime, it does have the ability to show pinyin definitions for
individual words (rather than bulk conversion), and it can export tab-
separated lists of all unknown/looked up words, including with pinyin,
definition, sentences containing the word (with or without cloze deletion) and
more, which can then be imported in a flashcard program such as Pleco or Anki.

2) I'm not sure off the top of my head of any Mandarin ebook stores, but this
thread on Chinese-Forums has a few suggestions (some of which may now be out
of date so check towards the end for more recent sources):

[http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/34090-best-
so...](http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/34090-best-source-for-
chinese-ebooks/)

~~~
mojoe
Cool, thanks for creating this tool!

------
xiaoma
I've spent a huge portion of my life learning how humans learn languages and
how to teach them better. I spent my early adulthood in Taiwan where I became
fluent speaker and pretty comfortable reader, too. The approach this site uses
is _far_ superior to the flashcard vocab word-driven approach taken by
duolingo, memrise and so many others.

In my experience, at the beginner level the most important thing is getting a
good grasp on phonics and learning some vocabulary. But once a student is even
lower intermediate it's a way better to spend time doing Extensive Reading
instead of vocab drills. Extensive Reading—reading that is easy enough no
dictionary is needed—is still great for building vocabulary, and it teaches
colocations, grammar and the target language's culture, too. As ER builds up
vocabulary, more and more radio and podcasts become comprehensible. In the
long run, lots and lots of input (both reading and listening) and
opportunities to use the language extemporaneously in real life is pretty much
assured to lead to full bilingual proficiency.

The interesting thing about this app, is it just might allow students to
transition from more formal study and into Extensive Reading at an earlier
point than they otherwise would. The risk is that students would continue
choosing books with a lot of words they don't understand and rob themselves of
actually "reading" in its natural sense.

------
jliechti1
I've done my own manual version of this kind of service to learn Chinese.
Would definitely pay for something like this!

The biggest problem for me is the availability of Chinese audio books
(specifically, non-abridged versions - anyone have recommended sources?) When
your reading level is high enough to read novels, the English translation is
no longer that important - if I could just get the Chinese audio and text I
would be really happy. It looks like this is targeted at beginners. Not sure
how helpful it will be for them, but I see a lot of potential for more
intermediate/advanced learners. There's always that gap in language learning
between text books and real texts that has to be overcome. I think this kind
of service could be great for that.

Right now I'm reading Tian Long Ba Bu (天龍八部), and have gone through the first
200 pages like this (simultaneous reading/listening), and it's been really
helpful.

Also, a feature request: give an option to display the text in Traditional or
Simplified Chinese. There are browser extension to use this, but it'd me more
convenient to not have to use it on every page.

~~~
PakG1
Only a few people in the HN crowd would be interested, but I imagine that
Chinese translations of the Bible are a perfect match for this. Everything's
already marked down into chapters and verses for easy organization, and the
text is in the public domain too for older translations.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Union_Version](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Union_Version)

There appear to be some freely available online recordings of the public
domain text as well.
[https://librivox.org/author/1097?primary_key=1097&search_cat...](https://librivox.org/author/1097?primary_key=1097&search_category=author&search_page=1&search_form=get_results)

------
halfelf
Chinese is not only about written language. Actually there are two grammar
system, written and spoken language. One can learn how to read through novels
but not how to speak.

~~~
stealthfound3r
I'll just leave this here:
[http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html](http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html)
(Why Chinese is so damn hard)

~~~
laowushi
象形文字的构词法和拼音文字是不一样的，不能想当然哦。汉字的构词法一般有六种，称为“六书”，即指事、象形、形声、会意、转注、假借。有兴趣进一步了解，可以看这里：[http://baike.baidu.com/subview/633/5734721.htm](http://baike.baidu.com/subview/633/5734721.htm)

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kevinqi
I'm really interested in learning chinese, and the interface here is
fantastic, well done. But a project like this really lives and dies on the
quality of the content, I think - it needs a good set of interesting novels to
really get people engaged, and I don't think "The True Story of Ah Q" quite
cuts it. Having some popular novels would be amazing. If the framework allows
that to be done easily, I'm sure it'll just be a matter of time.

Nice work!

------
SimpleMinds
I agree with other commenters, this is genius idea but all depends on the
available content. Looking at the story, it's not interesting to me, so it'll
not keep me occupied and willing to learn.

I'm searching for something like this but frankly there's nothing as far as I
know. The best so far is Chinese Breeze series - example book

[http://www.amazon.com/Whom-Chinese-Breeze-300-word-
Level/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Whom-Chinese-Breeze-300-word-
Level/dp/7301141556)

with stories a little, little better than usual. They, though, require that
you know at least ~100 basic hanzis to be able to comfortably read. I have 3
or 4 books, I don't remember, and they are fine (just please, a little better
story!) Each is around 20-40 pages so not much but kindle versions are also
really cheap.

The way I worked with it, was to convert mobi to html and put on local server.
That way I could use Zhongwen (mentioned by alexgolive) plugin to help me with
words I didn't know.

If anyone knows something similar, please share! I love to read Hanzi, it's
super fun when all the spiders :) suddenly start making sense

------
mojoe
About a month ago I posted about a great science fiction book that was
recently translated from Mandarin to English
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8607914](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8607914)).
It would be amazing if this tool could incorporate content like "The Three-
Body Problem." I realize that international publishing rights is a complex
subject to tackle, which is probably why "the True Story of Ah Q" was chosen
for this initial release (it's in the public domain, or at least it looks like
the english version is: [https://www.marxists.org/archive/lu-
xun/1921/12/ah-q/](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lu-xun/1921/12/ah-q/)).
However, as many others have commented, this great tool will probably not be
used much without great content.

------
colordrops
I've been using Pleco with the text reader plugin on my mobile with great
success. You can load any text file and read and bookmark like a regular book
reading app. You can tap on any word to see the meaning and pronunciation, and
add an unknown word to a flashcard deck.

With regard to content, I think the Hacker News crowd would most appreciate
the San Ti (三体) trilogy (Three Body Problem trilogy). It's the first highly
successful Chinese hard SciFi, and every self respecting Chinese nerd has read
it. It's a fascinating story, and has a lot of Chinese culture and history
mixed in as well.

------
trevelyan
Worth mentioning that Popup Chinese has an extensive archive of short stories,
with full contextualized (i.e. not dictionary) definitions and accompanying
audio recordings:

[http://popupchinese.com/lessons/short-
stories](http://popupchinese.com/lessons/short-stories)

Selections cover a range of material including classical texts like Dream of
the Red Chamber, as well as more contemporary and foreign fiction in
translation. Materials can be access without signing up, but creating a free
account enables click-to-add vocab lists, SRS study tools, and more.

------
chj
The novel used in the sample is a very bad choice. The author has his special
style, hopelessly outdated.

Chinese novels are not easy for beginners, my suggestion is to go with novels
that're translated into Chinese from English, like Sherlock Holmes. The
translator uses good Chinese, and the stories are familiar, therefore you will
have an easy time understanding the texts. After all, it's the language you
are interested.

To be able to appreciate Chinese novels like a native, especially classic
ones, you'll need years of study, starting from Chinese history, classic
literature, ...

~~~
sdrothrock
> my suggestion is to go with novels that're translated into Chinese from
> English, like Sherlock Holmes. The translator uses good Chinese, and the
> stories are familiar, therefore you will have an easy time understanding the
> texts

Really? This seems counterintuitive unless China has a really, really good
translation industry. In my experience with Japanese translations, you're as
likely to get a good translation as you are to get a horrible one (see Harry
Potter).

~~~
chj
of course good translation is rare. The reason I recommended Sherlock is that
it was translated back in 1980s, golden age of translation industry in China.
after that, things went down quickly as those masters passed away.

~~~
laowushi
是的。

------
soroushjp
This is amazing, although it looks too advanced without at least intermediate
proficiency in Chinese. Would love a few different difficulty levels.

Does anyone know a Spanish learning tool similar to this?

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manish_gill
Ha! Coincidentally, I was watching a great TED talk the other day on learning
the building blocks of Chinese letters! The talk is short but great and
inspired me to look into the language:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/shaolan_learn_to_read_chinese_with_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/shaolan_learn_to_read_chinese_with_ease?language=en)

Here is the link for the website: [http://chineasy.org](http://chineasy.org)

------
n3on_net
Nice app. I would also suggest [http://lingq.com](http://lingq.com), it is
similar but with a huge amount of content for every level. It has text for
something like 10 languages, chinese included.

Other similar sites (but not so much content like lingq.com):
[http://readlang.com/](http://readlang.com/)
[http://lingocracy.com/](http://lingocracy.com/)

------
roncohen
Super interesting. I'd love to learn Chinese and be able to do this one day:
[http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/10/22/mark-
zuckerber...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/10/22/mark-zuckerberg-
facebook-chinese-tsinghua-university/17750047/)

Though, I'm not sure reading novels like the website suggests is the right
approach when starting from nothing.

~~~
w1ntermute
Given that "Zuckerberg Speaks Mandarin Like a Seven-Year-Old"[0], that's not
aiming very high.

0: [http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/10/22/mark-zuckerberg-
speaks-m...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/10/22/mark-zuckerberg-speaks-
mandarin-like-a-seven-year-old/)

~~~
coupdejarnac
It would be more accurate to say he speaks like a seven year old foreigner.
His tones are all wrong. I think the Chinese audience is enthralled that he is
attempting to speak to them in Mandarin and are humoring him- I doubt they
understand what he is saying too well. That said, good for him for learning
Chinese.

------
edwinyzh
"Ah Q"? It's by Lu Xun, you know what? Even native Chinese high school
students fear writings by Lu Xun, mostly due to the difficulty level.

------
sdrothrock
Just curious, but why is the symbol for this a Japanese katakana チ (chi)? I
assume it goes with "chicory," but it's Japanese...

------
tabrischen
This is a really great concept. I hope you'll be adding a whole range of other
books in the future for learners of all level.

------
aquarin
Seems to be like: [http://www.lingq.com/](http://www.lingq.com/)

------
laowushi
看起来不错。有一个小问题：favicon不是一个正式的汉字，只是一个偏旁部首。

~~~
erjiang
I don't know what the creators' intentions were regarding the favicon. It is,
however, the katakana "chi" (チ), which corresponds to the name "Chicory".
Seems bizarre, but that's the connection I saw.

~~~
vorg
Katakata, like zhuyin, is "hanzi/kanji written small", just as hiragana is
"hanzi written quickly". I see hanzi/kanji, katakana, and zhuyin (but not
hiragana) as all part of the same "alphabet" used to build up hanzi
recursively. Many katakana are components of hanzi.

~~~
erjiang
Maybe, but this is rather like using a Cyrillic letter in a Spanish-teaching
website. "What language are you teaching anyways?"

------
simonebrunozzi
Is there anything like this for Japanese? Just Googled but didn't find
anything interesting.

~~~
n3on_net
Check out [http://lingq.com](http://lingq.com) , it has a lot of chinese,
japanese and 10 or so more languages

------
nathanathan
Nice work! I'm thinking about buying the novel but I would like to be able to
use Paypal.

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pencilcheck
Come on, where is the option to choose traditional chinese? :P

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haosdent
I think you need a Chinese friend. Haha...

