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question about the example sentences

Bohan   September 20th, 2010 5:19p.m.

Is there any way to listen to the example sentences? It would be cool if there were a way (if there isn't)

Mandarinboy   September 20th, 2010 6:05p.m.

There are none right now as I know of on skritter. You either have to record it or to use a TTS ( text to speech) engine. That you can test e.g here:

http://ecl.iflytek.com/ListenToThis/#

http://text-to-speech.imtranslator.net/
Cut and paste any Chinese text and it will read it.

I used to program such apps a lot in the early 90:th but now the quality of the voices are actually rather good. Some of the (very expensive) ones do a very good job of actually getting the sentences read and not just each word.

nick   September 20th, 2010 6:39p.m.

nciku has this on their example sentences, too, and theirs works very well. I am not sold on the value of machine-generated audio to the learner.

贺知宝   September 20th, 2010 10:49p.m.

Value of machine-generated audio: Minimal to none

rgwatwormhill   September 21st, 2010 4:34p.m.

How useful it is depends on the way you learn. If your memory works much better with sound than with sight, then it could still be very helpful to have machine-generated audio so that you can take in the individual sounds. You will of course have to relearn how the tones (and stresses) change in real life, but that's another stage. I think it is a bit like the colours for tones: very helpful for some people, not at all for others.
Rachael.

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