What hints do you guys choose to translate the words, when doing this lesson?
I put the pinyin in front and then the translation, because otherwise I couldn’t learn the pronunciation: e.g. Nǐhǎo or ni3 hao3: hello
Sometimes I save words first and then the whole sentence or a part of a sentence, e.g. xu1 yao4 bang1 mang2 ma: Can I help you? (Do you want me to help you?)
If a sentence doesn’t make sense to me, I look it up in the English version and use that as a hint, hoping that I will understand it better when I see the pattern again.
How do you slow down the conversation? Also, can you have the pinyin and English showing together?
To slow down the audio:
- Download the mp3.
- Load it into Audacity
- Mark the whole Audio (ctrl+A)
- Then from the Effects menu select “Change Speed”
- Now listen.
- You may save the audio by exporting it to MP3.
To see pinyin and english together you may use one of the Chinese text annotators, like the one at
Just copy and paste the chinese charcters and GO.
You can also make your LingQs from that.
About the speed: I’ve started making lingqs of whole sentences. You can play back just that sentence like you would with a single word. It is read slower than the actual conversation.
Just to add:
when slowing down the audio, I have found that it is better to slow down the Tempo (not the Speed) because then the Pitch isn’t altered. If you slow the file via “Change Speed” the voices can sound somewhat wonky!
M