Cantonese Mini Stories Significant Issue

CTaylor

United States

Cantonese Mini Stories Significant Issue

February 05 at 21:25

I'm on Cantonese MiniStory 14, and it's become increasingly evident that the writing/kanji and the audio do not match as the stories progress. Probably 10-25% of story 13 basic vocabulary doesn't match up, for example. This is a real detriment to the usefulness of learning with the mini-stories, as there is no one-to-one match between the recorded audio, the characters used, and the vocabulary word recordings, which ends up costing a lot of time and reference to dictionaries and other learning tools to try and sort out. Four years ago, the following post started a relevant thread, but I see no confirmation that all the stories were in fact corrected.

4 years ago

Hey, I was just looking at the Cantonese library to see what new content people have been important and I found the new mini stories:

Unfortunately the mini stories are written in standard written chinese and the narrator is speaking in Cantonese. This means what is being said and whats written down are two completely different things (but with the same meaning).

When I was a beginner this confused me a lot so I really think it would be better to get the stories written in Cantonese, and not standard Chinese.

llearner

United States

February 05 at 22:34

I want to confirm that the text does correspond to Cantonese phonology using traditional characters. However, I want to point out several errors due to missing words.

https://www.lingq.com/en/learn/hk/web/reader/2369092

1）子怡喺餐廳。子怡係唔係喺屋企？唔係，子怡唔喺屋企。佢喺餐廳。 (Missing word in the text)

3）子怡唔識得俊軒，佢係一個朋友嘅朋友。子怡 ~~係唔係~~ 識唔識得俊軒？唔係，子怡唔識得俊軒，但係佢係一個朋友嘅朋友。

The narrator should have included 係唔係 instead of using 識唔識得 because of the answer 唔係.

8）俊軒話子怡笑起嚟好好睇。俊軒係唔係話子怡笑起嚟好好睇？係，俊軒話子怡笑起嚟好好睇。(Missing word in the text)

Is the report button under the dictionary definition the right way to report the errors within the lesson?

bamboozled

Germany

February 05 at 23:07

When you click "report" on a dictionary definition, it will be hidden from other users. This is global and not related to a specific text like the mini stories.

Errors in LingQ's content are best reported to them directly, like done in this thread. Else, you can use the report button (under the three ... ) in the course view.

Are you a Cantonese speaker by any chance? It would be great if a native speaker could proof read / listen these stories, that way learners could have more confidence in the material.

llearner

United States

February 05 at 23:54

It's nice to know that we can report the mistakes from the lessons in the course view. I can help as a fluent speaker of Cantonese. Anyways, there isn't a significant issue with the text that would hinder learners from using it as a reliable resource. The more serious problems lie in the language parser Lingq utilizes for Chinese characters in any dialect and the need for standard definitions for words in context, especially if the character has multiple meanings.

By the way, I have encountered similar mistakes several times in Lingq stories for Korean. I just moved on to other lessons because they did not impact my learning.

zoran

Serbia

February 05 at 21:32

Thanks for reporting, we will investigate that.

CTaylor

United States

February 05 at 21:52

As I'm just about 1/4 through the mini-stories, I'm not sure the issue will for certain persist, but thanks for checking so at least we know what the actual status is.

CTaylor

United States

March 17 at 18:08

Hi -- so I'm circling back after a month. I've confirmed with a native Cantonese speaker that the text and the recordings simply do not match. This is incredibly frustrating for a new learner. Take lesson 11 for example. There are at least 4 different words that the speaker has apparently decided unilaterally not to follow how the text is written. For a new learner, as the mini-stories in Cantonese are riddled with this practice though-out, it's fairly useless, demotivating, and unprofessional, especially given how much Steve Kaufman has actively marketed the mini-stories on his Youtube channel as a great way to start out. Can you imagine the reaction if TeachYourSelf, Assimil, Pimsleur sold their materials such that the text and audio didn't match?

bamboozled

Germany

March 17 at 19:20

Hello, I think we shouldn't be too harsh with LingQ, these stories have been translated and recorded by volunteers, therefore I think comparisons with professional textbook publishers are not really appropriate. Personally I don't really like the mini stories, but am nonetheless grateful for anyone going through the trouble of creating content for the libraries.

Generally I have found LingQ to be very forthcoming when it comes to correcting possible errors, unfortunately you haven't mentioned the exact instances where errors occur, so I'm not sure they'll be able to fix them easily. The best way is probably to send them a corrected transcript via email. Thanks.

Maria2

United Kingdom

March 17 at 21:58

This is where you err bamboozled - regrettably big time :-)

LingQ is a language site selling languages. If you're selling languages, the languages should be correct.

The mini stories should be 100% and not riddled with mistakes.

LingQ relies too much on free content provided and recorded by volunteers with very little - if anything? - provided by professionals.

The mini stories should have been translated by professional translators. There are many like you who do not care for the mini stories and that's fine - but the solution is not to be grateful for anyone going to the trouble of creating content but to give the mini stories a big overhaul once and for all.

Maria2

United Kingdom

March 17 at 22:37

As a native German speaker, "bamboozled", you can judge for yourself.

LingQ is a language site promoting language learning, yet unfortunately it exposes learners to mistranslations, errors, and at times - albeit infrequently - unnatural language,

Here's a link to the Update on Hindi 2022 forum where you can read the comments on the mini stories yourself. https://www.lingq.com/en/community/forum/open-forum/update-on-hindi-2022

The post that got 19 likes relates to the German mini stories suggesting translations suffer from being unnatural.

bamboozled

Germany

March 18 at 06:36

Hi Maria, I agree, in an ideal world LingQ would take ownership of at least a subset of content in the libraries and make sure this is of the highest possible quality. I also believe this could help LingQ become more popular and leave the niche it currently occupies; here are some of my thoughts on the topic: https://www.lingq.com/en/community/forum/premium-access-forum/why-isnt-lingq-more-popular?post_id=321933

For better or worse, LingQ doesn't consider itself to be in the content creation business. I believe the only thing they pay for are the LingQ podcasts. So the current situation is that basically the entire content side of the business is carried by unpaid volunteers. I personally don't see this changing any time soon.

Further, while I believe the situation is not ideal, it is fair by LingQ not to charge for library access, i.e. anyone with a free account can access all content. This should prevent anyone from having unreasonable expectations in the content.

Regarding the German mini stories, yes, I'm aware of the situation, I guess the problem originates from using Google Translate, hopefully the next unpaid volunteer will choose DeepL instead.

Coming back to Cantonese, in my opinion the Cantonese mini stories are actually pretty good, yes, occasionally the transcripts contains extraneous words, some have been put in [brackets] etc. I don't know why this is, but I have to say I hardly notice this. I feel these stories are good enough to go from zero to something, but then (after one or two weeks) you have look for something else anyways. So, I'm willing to tolerate a certain amount of ambiguity, perfection is elusive.

Maria2

United Kingdom

March 18 at 14:26

bamboozled, I agree with you too.

LingQ pays content providers in the form of points which invariably get retuned to LingQ as it's impossible for small content providers to cash them out and ultimately ends up being work provided for free. Having said that, larger content providers i.e. Veral, evgueny40 et al get points each month that they can convert to cash. Librarians and lesson editors provide their work for free as they are volunteering and not providing content.

In case you hadn't realised, non-premium members are not permitted access to premium forum threads https://www.lingq.com/en/community/forum/premium-access-forum/why-isnt-lingq-more-popular?post_id=321933 so I cannot read what you've written in this thread.

I'm glad you're happy with the Cantonese mini stories :-)

CTaylor

United States

March 20 at 19:03

So it is I -- as a beginner Cantonese learner, paying for the service (for something like 10 years now I believe (so if I recall, given past rates, that's thousands of dollars) -- should be compiling a list of discrepancies and providing them to LingQ to correct? Exactly how am I supposed to do that when I'm just beginning and most of the language looks and sounds like jibberish at this early stage? Or should I ask my Cantonese friend -- who doesn't even use LingQ-- spend their own hours going through and compiling the list to hand to LingQ? Or is it that I should I go out and actually hire someone to do it professionally? This all seems unreasonable to me.

Steve pushes these very mini-stories as a great way to start out with a new language, in further marketing the idea that LingQ is the best language learning platform in the world: you really don't see any inconsistency with these claims and what a beginner, paying language learner can expect when working their way through this material?

llearner

United States

March 18 at 21:55

I made the revision suggestions for the first ten lessons, which still need to be updated. Sometimes, the texts are natural and grammatically correct, even with different word choices and missing or extra words. I saw minimum mistakes unless another native speaker with keen eyes spotted more errors in the text.

Treating Lingq as a platform for integrating resources is better than expecting it to be an excellent content provider. Sometimes seeing the forest and missing one or a few "negligible" trees could be a better choice.

CTaylor

United States

March 20 at 19:07

It's not that the Cantonese "transcripts contain some errors" -- it's that there is a mismatch between the audio and the transcripts. The written material should be modified to match the audio. The core idea behind LingQ is reading and listening, including at the same time, So the marketed, especially beginner, materials ought to enable one to do that at the very minimum.

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