Pinyin news

Newly designed computers for the visually impaired have been tested recently by students, who gave the thumbs up Monday to the ” talking computers, ” according to the Ministry of Education which finances the program.

Chen Kuo-shih (陳國詩 [Chén Guóshī]), who recently received his Ph.D. in English from National Sun Yat-sen University and the author of a Braille English-Chinese dictionary, recalled that more than 20 of his classmates would take turns reciting English books for him every week when he was still an undergraduate. To complete his Ph.D. thesis, Chen “read” voraciously by hiring some of his classmates to read aloud his textbooks for him, at a cost of over NT$50,000.

Chen noted that a computer reading machine, which caters to the needs of blind people, would be a great help to visually impaired students of literature or history.

Elementary school student Wang Shih-ming received training in using a special computer for blind people and had a much easier life at school. Aside from being a straight-A student, he also used the Internet to collect information, book train tickets, or even arrange his travel itinerary online.

The new computers for the blind were designed by Tamkang University under the sponsorship of the education ministry. Compatible with Windows operating systems, these computers also have Chinese interfaces and can read aloud every word in a document or on a Web page. The education ministry hopes visually impaired students can utilize the new machines for studying and to enjoy the benefits of the Internet.

From Taiwan’s Central News Agency on August 31.

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Gary Feng’s blog, Shadow, has a number of posts of interest to readers of Pinyin.info. Recent posts include 汉字简化，得不偿失 (Hànzì jiǎnhuà，débùchángshī), Japanese Kanji that are not Chinese, 汉语拼音教学的历史与现状 (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn jiàoxué de lìshǐ yǔ xiànzhuàng), and Teaching Pinyin and word parsing in Chinese.

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Singapore Encourages Learning Of A Third Language

SINGAPORE, Aug 27 (Bernama) — Bilingual Singapore is gearing up towards “trilingualism” among its population by encouraging students to learn a third language, apart from English and their own mother tongue, even if it is only for conversational purposes.

“The ability to speak a third language is useful, and will help young Singaporeans of all races operate effectively in the region and beyond,” Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said Saturday.

Proficiency in non-native mother-tongue languages would also help nurture increased interaction among the ethnic communities, friendships between students and ties between neighbours, across race and religion, Tharman said at the inaugural Mother Tongue News Writing Competition jointly organised by Innova Junior College and Berita Harian.

“We have to find every way to interest our children in our various races and cultures, give them as many opportunities as possible to interact in school, and give them confidence to talk to people of other races outside the school,” he said….

More than 40 schools, both primary and secondary, and junior colleges, have started to conduct conversational Malay as enrichment classes, with more than 200 other schools having expressed interest in starting similar programmes.

The ministry recently distributed a “Guide to Conversational Malay” to all schools to help them introduce such programmes.

“The Ministry of Education is currently developing a resource booklet for conversational Mandarin to help schools implement the enrichment programme for non-Chinese students,” Tharman said.

English is the medium of instruction in Singapore schools but it is also compulsory for students to take up a mother tongue language — either Chinese, Malay or Tamil.

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With apologies to Magritte:

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New on my site: the Pinyin alphabet song. I’ve made a sound file as well.

One thing I’m wondering about: What’s that v doing in there?

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I’ll be on WWRN, a Taiwan-based Internet radio station, from 2 to 3 this afternoon (GMT +8).

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Professor Victor H. Mair of the University of Pennsylvania has just released an interesting piece analyzing the somewhat odd choice of wording for the slogan for the 2008 Olympics in China:
Remarks on the slogan for the Beijing Olympics.

Mair is also editor of Sino-Platonic Papers.

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Red-faced typo tyros up for prize over Kanji clangers

Will the winner be the blunder that turned an “easy victory after five seasons” into “cockroach extermination,” or perhaps the gaffe that transformed a “regional athletic gathering” into a “tip-off meeting?”

Thanks to the quirks of the Japanese language, a single misplaced keystroke can totally transform the way a sentence reads depending on the kanji characters the writer selects.

And now, the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation is holding a poll where competitors can vote for their favorite mistaken phrase that results from a mistyped sentence, with the winner to take home the Annual Typo Award.

Typing Japanese involves inputting simple hiragana characters and converting them into kanji. More people are now using computers to write and, unless watching the conversion closely, there is a possibility of the sentence coming out drastically different from the intended result.

Since July last year, the foundation has been seeking public submissions of wacky sentences created by conversion typos, awarding a monthly prize and a blunder prize from the 5,946 entries received.

The foundation has selected what it considers the best 22 entries — including the one that turned an “easy victory after five seasons” into “cockroach extermination” (both can be read gokiburi kaisho) — and has asked for votes from members of the general public on the entry they like best.

Voting is carried out on the foundation’s contest site until Aug. 31. Winners will be announced on the contest page on Sept. 15.

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年間変漢ミスコン：「チクリ苦情大会？」愉快な変換ミス

　チクリ苦情大会を開き、ゴキブリ解消しました－－？？　実はこれ、「地区陸上大会」と「５季ぶり快勝」の漢字変換ミス。日本漢字能力検定協会は、愉快な変換ミス作品の中から大賞の「年間変漢賞」を選ぶコンテストの投票を受け付けている。あなたも選んでみませんか。

　このコンテストは、パソコンで文章を書く人が増える中、漢字を正しく使うことの大切さを改めて確認するのが狙い。

　昨年７月から公募し、計５９４６作品が集まった。毎月、月間賞と次点を決めてきたが、今回は、その２２作品から最もおもしろいと思うものをオンライン投票で選ぶ。投票は３１日まで。

　投票には登録が必要。９月１５日に大賞が決まり、ホームページで発表される。

source

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