April update (1)

[nnozomi]

你好四月!
We are moving along. Thank you very much, people who have signed up to do some things; please go at your own pace and comment here any time with questions or concerns. Anybody else, please feel free to do so also :)
I have been very slowly applying the HSK beginner-list words to the SW/ZYL script. (Strictly speaking I suppose it's a ZYL/BY script, containing Ye Zun et al. as it does. Ye Zun has quite a lot to say, doesn't he?). Some words fit nicely into immediately memorable lines, while others are not present in the script at all (apparently there are no seasons in Dragon City, and not much in the way of sports or the arts, and also neither Shen Wei or Zhao Yunlan ever takes or refers to public transportation). Compensating with some words that, while not in the beginner-level list, seem useful to have. I'm about half to a third done, and once the word list by episode is done, we can start making practice problems.
・To that end, if you have a favorite line, or a bunch of favorite lines, please comment with them here! Lines not spoken by Shen Wei or Zhao Yunlan also very welcome.
・fan, once I actually have some practice problems in hand I will contact you about Chinese checking. Your patience is appreciated...
・tinny, thank you again for the Anki card. I was a bit out of it this week but have finally managed to download Anki and figure out how to add cards to this deck; what I haven't worked out yet is how to change the appearance, add the pinyin line, etc., but I will try.

Thanks, everyone, for your patience with my very inefficient approach to this so far. 一直努力吧 :)

Comments

[tinny]

Thank you! I can look at the card design again if you like. (I really wanted to change the background, as well, but couldn't figure out how.)

What exactly would you like to be done to the pinyin line?

Thanks, everyone, for your patience

We have all the time! Learning Chinese is a long-haul endeavor. :D Jia you! 加油!

[nnozomi]

I'll keep you posted! No, I like the pinyin line the way you made it, I just wasn't sure how to make new cards that include it. I think I can probably figure it out if I keep poking away.
thanks for the encouragement :) 加油吧！

[tinny]

Hmmm... if you use the right template, it should show up.

Oh, I just checked, and there are actually two fields that contain the Pinyin. One is the "hint" field, the other is the Pinyin field. The "hint" is the one that'll show up when you click on the "Show Pinyin" link. So you have to put the pinyin into that field, too!

I admit that was not very intuitive of me. /o\

ETA: actually, that's not even true... that's just how I've always done it, but now that I tested it (on Windows), putting it into the Pinyin field should be enough. I haven't tested it on Android yet, though. On what OS are you using the app?

[tinny]

Ooookay, I had to sleep a night over it, until it occurred to me that you're not talking about anki in particular at all, but about entering pinyin characters in general, is that it?

There are two ways that I know of - for Windows:

1) if you already know the pinyin (e.g. if you already know the vocab ;DD), then you can type it in using the pinyin input of your choice. I use Windows, and I use this: https://www.pinyintones.com/

It will show up as Japanese (which I find practical, since I also have the normal Windows Chinese installed, and this way it doesn't get confusing. The Chinese input is what comes with Windows, and you can use it to write Chinese characters with it.)

2) If you don't know the pinyin, you paste the Chinese characters into any translator, which will usually give you the pinyin, e.g. google translate. The pinyin transliteration of the characters will show up in grey somewhere on the bottom. You can just copy and paste it from there.


In other OSs there are likely other ways to do it directly, but the google translate method works everywhere.

I hope that was helpful?