Chinese Study Resources

ebooks.html - [Contact Details]

panlogic — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:49:18 -0600

Texts

Here are some Chinese texts. They can be used with Pleco 2 software, or any other software with the text versions of the files.

If you came directly to this page, you can go to the main page start to see the table of contents for this wiki.

Notes

All files are encoded using UTF-8. For additional usage notes (if you need them), please click here.

How to Make Text Files

Notes on how to make your own reader files is here.

How to use the Pleco 2 reader software can be found here.

Additional Text links

I've listed the main site in the Chinese Links resource page, but I thought it worth mentioning the Reading links directly:

The Four Great Novels

These are the four great novels of Chinese Literature. For more information, see the Wikipedia entry here.

These were originally converted from HTML as I was interested in having them on my PDA, but with the coming of PlecoDict 2.0 and it's document reader I figured I'd put these out there for those that are interested.

Name	Name	Western	PalmDoc	Text
Simplified	Traditional	Title	Format	Format
红楼梦	紅樓夢	Dream of the Red Chamber	PalmDoc	Text
三国演义	三國演義	Romance of the Three Kingdoms	PalmDoc	Text
水浒传	水滸傳	Outlaws of the Marsh	PalmDoc	Text
西游记	西遊記	Journey to the West	PalmDoc	Text

Lu Xun's Short Stories and Essays

I apologize for not having English translations of the names, but these are not as well known, and I myself am unable to translate them. Please feel free to translate the titles if you are familiar with the work.

Download Links
Name	PalmDoc Format	Text Format	Title
二心集	PalmDoc	Text	title
而已集	PalmDoc	Text	title
坟	PalmDoc	Text	title
古籍序跋集	PalmDoc	Text	title
故事新编	PalmDoc	Text	title
花边文学	PalmDoc	Text	title
华盖集	PalmDoc	Text	title
华盖集续编	PalmDoc	Text	title
华盖集续编的续编	PalmDoc	Text	title
汉文学史纲要	PalmDoc	Text	title
集外集	PalmDoc	Text	title
集外集拾遗	PalmDoc	Text	title
集外集拾遗补编	PalmDoc	Text	title
呐喊	PalmDoc	Text	title
南腔北调集	PalmDoc	Text	title
彷徨	PalmDoc	Text	title
且介亭杂文	PalmDoc	Text	title
且介亭杂文附集	PalmDoc	Text	title
且介亭杂文末编	PalmDoc	Text	title
热风	PalmDoc	Text	title
三闲集	PalmDoc	Text	title
文序跋集	PalmDoc	Text	title
伪自由书	PalmDoc	Text	title
野草	PalmDoc	Text	title
准风月谈	PalmDoc	Text	title
中国小说史略	PalmDoc	Text	title
朝花夕拾	PalmDoc	Text	title

NPCR Flashcards

I've gone through and created flashcard lists for the vocab in each chapter of the NPCR books (currently from books 1 to 3), including supplementary words, and including traditional characters. These are intended to be used with PlecoDict, and are formatted as such.

Installation

Pleco 2.0

There's a new method for Pleco 2.0, and should be much easier to use. Simply download this XML file, copy it to your SD Card, and tell Pleco to import a UTF-8 XML File. It might take a while, but it will eventually work. I would not advise anything past chapter 50 at the moment, as they're not complete and are missing, for example, their traditional headwords. I may put up a file for Book 5 at some point, but I can't make any guarantees about it.

I have also categorized the cards according to chapter and book, so no more duplicate flashcards! If you see an error, please tell me. I've fixed the ones I can remember, but there are surely more.

The difference between the two master files is that the first is something Pleco can import on its own, if you really need it to. The second master file is designed to be used with the application I've provided below, which allows for easier creation of deeply-layered categories. It's not something that you need to worry about, by and large.

The XML file contains all the cards from lessons 1 - 53 (51+ aren't finished). Each word has been assigned a category related to the chapter it's in, and the text it appears in. That is, you'll see many words with categories like NPCR/NPCR Book 1/NPCR Chapter 1/NPCR Text One. What that means is that it appears in the NPCR series, in Book 1 Chapter 1, and in the first text. Books 1 - 4 have 3 texts: Text One, Text Two and Supplementary Words. I've also 'tagged' each flashcard with one of NPCR Text One, NPCR Text Two or NPCR Supplementary Words, depending on which of those it has appeared in. Note that many words will have two or three of these tags. The general idea I had for using them was that you would study, say, chapters 10 - 12 quickly, and you might not need to learn the supplementary words, so you would say “All words except those which are in the category NPCR Supplementary Words”. You can remove the categories if you prefer - all the flashcards are in other categories, so you won't loose anything by removing them.

Name	Download Format
Master File - Lessons 1 - 53	Text
Master File - Lessons 1 - 53 (Custom Categories)	Text
Converted Master File	XML
Transformation App	tar.gz
Transformation App Source Code	tar.gz

The two tar.gz files contain the program that I used to convert from the second Master File (with custom categories) to the XML file. They're not really intended for public use, as they're not well documented and are command-line only. The first archive contains everything you need to run the project, the second contains everything you need to build the project.

Pleco 1.0.3

There's a few choices here. The first, and the one that I use, is to do the following:

Synch the file NPCR.pdb to your PDA. Internal or External doesn't matter. It should show up in PlecoDict as NPCR, under C→E. If it doesn't, make sure you're using the correct version (currently 1.3), and if that doesn't work, then email me. Contact details below.
Put the stripped (NPCRStrip) files relating to the book(s) you want onto your SD card. It doesn't matter where, but I'd recommend some place very close to the bottom, like /[file] or /flashcards/[file]. These files are lacking definition, and use only traditional characters. They still show up as simplified in the testing though, don't worry!
Open up PlecoDict and CHANGE TO THE NPCR DICT. This is quite important, otherwise it will not work as expected.
Open the menu, select 'Manage Flashcards' and 'Import'. Enter the location of your flashcards (like /flashcards/[file], where you should replace [file] with the filename for the cards. Make sure the encoding is set as UTF-8.
Congratulations! You should now have all the flashcards you wanted. Be aware that there are some duplicates…
Note: While I prefer this way, it does mean that the flashcards can't be updated. If I make changes to the database you'll have to delete then re-import your flashcards, likely losing statistics in the process :(. Hopefully this will change when Pleco 2.0 arrives.

The other method is to not use the stripped file, but rather to grab one with the definitions already in it. I dislike this approach as it fills up your user-created DB with a huge number of flashcards, and has even more duplicates than the above method (and makes them harder to tell apart…)

Downloads

Name	Download Format

Master File (Chapters 1 through 41, full definitions, still a work in progress)	Text File
Dictionary File	PDB File
Stripped File for Lessons 1 to 38 (inclusive)	Text File
Stripped File for Book 1 (Lessons 1 to 14)	Text File
Stripped File for Book 2 (Lessons 15 to 26)	Text File
Stripped File for Book 3 (Lessons 27 to 38)	Text File
Merged File for Lessons 1 to 38 (inclusive)	Text File
Merged File for Book 1 (Lessons 1 to 14)	Text File
Merged File for Book 2 (Lessons 15 to 26)	Text File
Merged File for Book 3 (Lessons 27 to 38)	Text File

Classical Chinese Function Words

Flashcards: Text File

See the Pleco Forums Thread for more information.

Contact Details

First, the editor and supplier of almost all the files on this page is known as “ipsi” off of the Pleco forums (and most other forums, to be honest). I did this purely because I figured it'd be cool to wander around with these on my PDA. And I figured someone else might find them useful. I can be contacted at Temporarily unavailable for contact.

Also, the original Pleco thread about this stuff can be found here.

People interested in the UniAdso dictionary for Pocket PC can go here. NOTE This page has not been migrated into the wiki yet, but will be, so please don't bookmark that page.

vocabulary - [FSI] Updated description, updated file

panlogic — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 10:07:09 -0600

Vocabulary

This page contains word lists which can be used as with Pleco, Zdt or other Chinese-English programs that takes text files.

Zdt files are with permission of Chris Fong (ZDT Main Developer).

Full text documents can be found in another section of the wiki: Pleco Documents These texts can be used with Pleco's Document Reader.

Please write up a description of any word list, including what it contains, an estimate of level of difficulty, etc.

I prefer that lists be uploaded as “zip” files and linked here. “Txt” and a couple other file formats are not allowed due to security concerns and by recommendation of the DokuWiki development group. A single ZIP file with all the texts together is more time efficient for people to download as well.

How to Add Files

A quick overview of how to upload files and add a new section.

Adding_Files

FSI

These are the comprehension tapes from Modules 1-6 of FSI's Standard Chinese: A Modular Approach. In addition are the supplemental vocabulary lists for categories like “things in nature” “buildings and institutions” etc. Basically all the pinyin from the student texts was into Characters and all the comprehension 2 tapes from modules 1-6 were transcribed as well. Thanks to “Androgni” on Pleco Forums for this.

FSI Comprehension Transcriptions Updated Aug 24th, 2011

Pimsleur

Here's a complete set of vocabulary words for Pimsleur. When imported into Pleco, it will group them into sections. You can see (or change) the section names in the text file. Section names follow standard Pleco formatting. Thus the first line of the text file: // pimsleur1_1-5 means: Save in group “Pimsleur1_1-5” (group 1, conversations 1 through 5).

Originally from the Pleco vocabulary forum: http://www.plecoforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2648

Pimsleur Word List

ZDT Files

You can use these in Pleco with some minor reformatting. You might want to shorten category names. You might also want to create a “top” category with the main name, and then subcategories with each chapter/unit, etc. The Conversational Chinese 301 below has a version already formatted like this for the Pleco.

Copies of the ZDT word lists are shared from the ZDT main site, courtesy of Chris Fong. Note that the download links are not yet complete. Files can also be downloaded directly from the ZDT site Zdt Wordlist Index

From ZDT site

	Link	Format	Book Author(s)
Beginner’s Chinese	Zip	ZDT	Yong Ho
Bible Books	Zip	ZDT	Chris Simpson
Colloquial Chinese	Zip	ZDT	P.C. T'ung; D.E. Pollard
Integrated Chinese, 1st Edition	Zip	ZDT	Tao-Chung Yao
Integrated Chinese, Expanded 2nd Edition	Zip	ZDT	Tao-chung Yao, Yuehua Liu
Intermediate Chinese	Zip	ZDT	Yong Ho
Kinesiska: Språket i Mittens Rike	Zip	ZDT	Johan Björkstén
New Practical Chinese Reader, Vol 1	Zip	ZDT	Zhang Kai, Liu Shehui, Chen Xi , Zuo Shandan, Shi Jiawei, Liu Xun
Pimsleur Mandarin Unit 1	Zip	ZDT	Pimsleur
Pimsleur Mandarin Unit 2	Zip	ZDT	Pimsleur
Pimsleur Mandarin Unit 3	Zip	ZDT	Pimsleur
Practical Chinese Reader I	Zip	ZDT	ktmatu.com
Schaums’ Outlines Chinese Vocabulary	Zip	ZDT	Yanping Xie and Duan-Duan Li
The most common Chinese characters in order of frequency	Zip	ZDT	Patrick Hassel Zein

Conversational Chinese 301

These flashcards were generated from ZDT. The files are in UTF-8 format. The first download has long category names, and a single level of grouping, suitable for ZDT. The second download has “CC301” as a top category and “01”-“40” as subcategory names and is more suitable for the smaller displays that Pleco runs on.

Submitted by cming in Pleco Forums at Pleco Forum Post

Conversational Chinese 301
Pleco Version of Conversational Chinese 301

Meditation Words

Most of these are gleaned from dictionaries, so are probably incorrect or too specialized for general use.

谢忱	xièchén	gratitude
冥想	míngxiǎng	meditation
ānchán	安禅[-禪]	<Budd.> v. reach peace and calm through meditation n. contemplative state (of the School of Dhyana, Zen)
cānchán	参禅[參禪]	v.o. 〈Budd.〉 practice meditation
chán	禅[禪]	b.f. 〈Budd.〉 (Sanskrit : dhyana); meditation; abstraction; trance
chándì	禅地[禪-]	p.w. meditation place
chándìng	禅定[禪-] n.	〈Budd.〉 tranquillity and concentration of meditation
chánfáng*	禅房[禪-]	p.w. 〈Budd.〉 ①monastic room ②hermitage; monastery ③meditation abode
chángōng	禅功[禪-]	n. meditation
chánguān	禅关[禪關]	n. meditation abode; room
chánhézǐ	禅和子[禪–]	n. sb. who practices meditation
chánkè	禅客[禪-]	n. monk who practices meditation M:²wèi
chánnuó	禅那[禪-]	n. 〈Budd.〉 dhyana; deep meditation
chánsī	禅思[禪-]	n. meditation ◆v. meditate
chántáng	禅堂[禪-]	p.w. 〈Budd.〉 meditation room M:¹jiān
chánwèi*	禅味[禪-]	n. 〈Budd.〉 pleasant effect of meditation
chányǐ	禅椅[禪-]	n. 〈Budd.〉 seat for meditation M:¹bǎ
dǎchán	打禅[-禪]	v.o. sit in meditation
dǎzuò	打坐	v.o.〈Budd./Dao.〉 sit in meditation
fǎjièdìng	法界定	n. 〈Budd.〉 Skt. dharmadhatu-dhyana; meditation
jièdìnghuì	戒定慧	n. 〈Budd.〉 discipline, meditation, wisdom
jìngdìng	静定[靜-]	v. keep still and calm; sit in meditation
kūchán	枯禅[-禪]	n. 〈Budd.〉 sit in meditation
miànbìgōngshēn	面壁功深	f.e. profound wisdom obtained from lengthy meditation/concentration
sānmèi	三昧	n. ①〈Budd.〉 samadhi (deep meditation) ②secret; knack
tánsī	覃思	n. 〈wr.〉 deep/profound thought; meditation
táochán	逃禅[-禪]	v.o. ①refuse to practice Buddhist meditation ②become a Buddhist in order to avoid worldly affairs
xídìng	习定[習-]	r.v. 〈wr.〉 enter into meditation and get rid of desires
xiūxīnyǎngxìng	修心养性[–養-]	f.e. ①cultivate oneself through meditation
zǐwǔmǎoyǒu	子午卯酉	f.e. ①from midnight to noon and from sunrise to sunset ②from beginning to end; from start to finish ③reason; argument ④result; achievement ⑤〈Dao.〉 four optimum times for meditation
坐禅	zuòchán	sit in meditation
zuòchánwùdào	坐禅悟道[-禪–]	f.e. sit in meditation and gain enlightenment
zuògōng	坐功	v.o. 〈Dao.〉 mastery of meditation
zuòjìng*	坐静[-靜]	v.p. sit quietly for meditation

Create a User Dictionary

You can create your own dictionary entries from vocabulary files by checking the “add to user dicionary” option on the import screen.

To import words, you can use “txt”, “xml”, or other formats. Go to the “Open Flashcards” menu selection and you see this screen:

Next, click on the “Import” button and you see this screen:

Check the checkbox at the bottom labeled: “Store imported defns in user dict”

chinese_links - created

panlogic — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:55:40 -0600

Links and Resources

In addition to the very good Pleco forum, here are some other links:

http://learningchineseonline.net/ (Click the “Reading” link on left side, for many additional book resources)

audio_video_resources - Consolidated video link content from another of my wikis

panlogic — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:36:16 -0600

Audio Resources

Links to good quality websites for audio resources. Many of these links are from personal bookmark collections. Will be adding some downloads here also.

Popup Chinese A great set of audio, transcriptions, notes, newsletter, etc.

Chinese Pronunciation Tool Also has other free online tools.

Video Study Resources

Here are links to various videos in Chinese about non-fiction topics. That is, these are not links to popular movies, etc. but rather to non-fictional items. The purpose would be to improve vocabulary within specialized areas by listening in context.

News

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

TV

http://beelinetv.com/chinese_tv/ 27 channels (2009/01/31) of free streaming TV in Chinese. “CCTV-9” is mostly an English Channel broadcast in China.

Daily Living

How to Manage Money
http://so.youku.com/search_video/q_%E9%B2%81%E8%B1%AB%E6%9C%89%E7%BA%A6 Interviews
http://so.youku.com/search_video/q_%E8%AE%BF%E8%B0%88 Interviews
http://so.youku.com/search_video/q_%E6%BC%94%E8%AE%B2/cateid_105 Presentation
http://so.youku.com/search_video/q_%E8%BE%A9%E8%AE%BA/cateid_105 Oral debate
http://so.youku.com/search_video/q_%E6%BC%94%E8%AF%B4/cateid_105 Talk

Animals

http://www.tudou.com/playlist/id/478861/ shows about animals
http://space.tv.cctv.com/act/schedule.jsp?scheduleId=SCHE1213585514597966 Nature
http://space.tv.cctv.com/act/platform/view/page/composePage.jsp?pageId=PAGE1213600890505980 discovery I
http://space.tv.cctv.com/act/schedule.jsp?scheduleId=SCHE1220529331100288 discovery

Geography

http://www.youku.com/playlist_show/id_328280.html shows how to be a great country
http://www.kjy.cn/class.asp?lx=big&anid=79 geography, but you have to create an account to log in

Culture

History

http://so.youku.com/search_video/q_%E5%8E%86%E5%8F%B2/cateid_105 History

Science

Experiments

China News (English)

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/

How to Manage Money

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjEyNzU3NzI=.html

a title

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTc3NzU5NDA=.html

100 shows about animals

http://www.tudou.com/playlist/id/478861/

汉语学习网站

Chinese Study Websites (added English translation for index-ability)

FLV Players

YouTube Downloaders

Direct Link Download Sites

There are several sites that can convert a YouTube video link into a download link for you.

http://freeyoutubedownloader.net/
http://www.youtubecatcher.com/
http://metatuber.com/ Website: Give it your YouTube URL and it will return a download link.
http://www.downloadfromyoutube.com/ Website: Give it a URL, and it returns a download link
http://www.techcrunch.com/get-youtube-movie/
http://keepvid.com/

Articles

MakeUseOf Article on YouTube downloaders with several links and suggestions.
Mashable Article

Sofware

There are also downloadable software packages and plug-ins for Firefox, etc.

http://youtubedownload.altervista.org/ Downloadable software

Video Recovery

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/video_cache_view.html This software is free, and will locate cached (stored in a temporary location) video files that you watch with your web browser. (If the link seems to never finish loading, try viewing the page source and scroll down to the download link in the source. When writing this, the direct download link was http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/videocacheview.zip

Misc

Lifehacker article on getting movies onto hard drive

start

panlogic — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:55:47 -0600

A Chinese Study Resources Wiki

Welcome to this site, and we hope you find it useful. Most content currently is oriented towards using Pleco, but additional content/resources are planned. Much of the Pleco user manual contents are copyright 2008 Pleco company

Main Areas

Pleco 2 User Manual (beta) removed because no longer relevant.
Vocabulary User contributed word lists.
Reader Texts Some texts that can be used with Pleco's Document Reader
Radical Dictionary for use with 2.0
Audio and Video Resources and links which can be used with web browsers or downloaded
Links and Chinese Study Resources
Blog Links Links to interesting (or boring in my case) blogs related to China or studying Chinese.

Guidelines

There is a special area called a ”playground” which you can use to practice editing.

Please feel free to send feedback or register and improve/change it yourself. Links are “no follow”, and we don't index with search engines, so there's no advantage to adding spam to the site.