Good News Brochure Pinyin Web Material For All of Lesson 2 Added

Good News brochure Pinyin web material covering up to the end of Lesson 2 has been added to:

• Good News Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web, Scriptures)
• Good News Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web, Scriptures, Night Theme)
   (black background, gray text)
• (Short link: tiandi.info/fg)

Note that:

• The URLs (Internet addresses) of the above resources have recently been changed. Please make sure you update any bookmarks, etc. Also, for your convenience, a short link is now available for the above resources.
• The full text in Pinyin of all the cited scriptures is included in the above resources.
• The above resources are mobile-friendly.
• Turning mobile devices to landscape orientation causes the text in the above resources to become large-print text.

Also, the introductions explain why it’s good to use Pinyin as a writing system on its own.

See the below post for an introduction to the above resources:

• New Resources: Good News Brochure (Pinyin, Web, Scriptures) Pages

Going forward, I plan to focus primarily on producing Pinyin web pages such as the above, because I can produce such material faster than I can produce corresponding new 3-line PDF material. I am also working on eventually making available some Pinyin-English web material.

New Resources: tiandi.info-Based Short Links

Besides being now redirected to an apostate site by a former fellow worker who has turned against us, I have gotten feedback that www.chinesetools.net (which was named by that former fellow worker) was kind of, well, long and unwieldy to remember, and to type or write out manually. And while it has the virtues of being available to me and of not leading to an apostate site, troubadourworks.com/tiandi is, if anything, even more long and unwieldy.

So, taking advantage of another site that is available to me, and that has the added virtue of having a short name that is fitting for the Chinese field, I have come up with a new set of apostasy-free, human-friendly resources: tiandi.info-based short links.

These links are simply composed like this:

tiandi.info/x

The x in the above example can be all kinds of short strings that I may think of or that some of you may suggest, so that the link will point to a certain referral page with a link or set of links.

(The tiandi.info-based short links pages themselves will generally only be referral pages, since the Squarespace service which hosts tiandi.info does not allow FTP access for uploading files. Since troubadourworks.com/tiandi does allow FTP access, making file uploading much more convenient, it will continue to be used to actually host the resources for which I need to upload files.)

Examples

This link will serve as a “base” for exploring the other available tiandi.info-based short links:

tiandi.info/links

It started out as the Links page for tiandi.info, but it has been updated so that it will no longer need a login to access, and so that it will be more suited to its new purpose.

The official code for an official publication is used to compose a short link that leads to a referral page listing resources related to that publication, e.g.:

tiandi.info/jl - Jehovah’s Will Brochure Links

tiandi.info/fg - Good News Brochure Links

tiandi.info/lv - “God’s Love” Book Links

etc.

Here are some other examples of short links that will be available:

tiandi.info/pubs - Publications

tiandi.info/brochures - Brochures

tiandi.info/rte - Referenced Theocratic Expressions (RTE) Links

tiandi.info/pdf - PDF Format Features

tiandi.info/mobile - Mobile Devices

tiandi.info/courses - Courses

etc.

On applicable short link pages, there is a path indicator on the top of the page, like a trail of “bread crumbs” showing where one is in the hierarchy of the short link pages. E.g., this is on the top of the tiandi.info/fg (Good News Brochure Links) page:

Links ▶ Publications ▶ Brochures ▶

Each of the items in the path is a live link that will take one to the indicated short link page.

As time goes on, and as we leave www.chinesetools.net behind us, we will be rebuilding and enhancing previous resources, and we will also go on to build brand new resources. So, as time goes on, more short links will be created, and existing short link referral pages will get populated with more and more links to goodies for faithful ones who are working hard in the Chinese field.

Since these new tiandi.info-based short links are so easy to remember and so easy to type or write out, I think many will find that they make it really easy to access and to refer others to the helpful web-based Chinese field resources that many have worked hard, and that many will continue to work hard, to make available.

Recreated Resources: Jeremiah Bk. and “God’s Love” Bk. Pages

The following resources that used to be on www.chinesetools.net have been recreated on troubadourworks.com/tiandi:

• Jeremiah Book
   (3-Line, XLP-iPhone-A5, LN-A)
• “God’s Love” Book
   (Chinese + Pinyin + English)
• “God’s Love” Book
   (Chinese + Cantonese Rom. + English)

The links to the above resources at 3lines.org have been updated accordingly.

Work on recreating Chinese field resources at troubadourworks.com/tiandi is continuing, so check back here regularly for updates.

All Links to www.chinesetools.net on 3lines.org Have Been Changed

Since the one who owns www.chinesetools.net has set it to redirect to an apostate site, the Chinese field resources that used to be there are gradually being recreated on troubadourworks.com/tiandi, and links to www.chinesetools.net are being updated to point to troubadourworks.com/tiandi instead.

As a part of this process, we have gone through and updated all the links on 3lines.org that used to point to www.chinesetools.net so that they point to troubadourworks.com/tiandi instead. Some of the resources pointed to on troubadourworks.com/tiandi have not yet been recreated, but the resulting error pages are vastly preferable to an apostate page, and the resources will gradually get put into place.

If any of you find any Chinese field link on 3lines.org that is still pointing to somewhere it shouldn’t, email me to let me know.

Next up: Updating the Links file, and also this Links News blog and the tiandi.info blog.

Recreated Resources: Jehovah’s Will Br. and Good News Br. Pages, Info Pages

The following resources that used to be on www.chinesetools.net have been recreated on troubadourworks.com/tiandi:

• Jehovah’s Will Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web, Scriptures)
• Jehovah’s Will Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web, Scriptures, Night Theme)
   (black background, gray text)
• Jehovah’s Will Brochure
   (Chinese-Pinyin-English,
   iPad-Letter-A4, LN-A PDFs)
• Jehovah’s Will Brochure
   (Chinese-Pinyin-English,
   XLP-iPhone-A5, LN-A PDFs)
• Good News Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web, Scriptures)
• Good News Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web, Scriptures, Night Theme)
   (black background, gray text)
• 3-Line Material on the iPhone and the iPod touch
• 3-Line Material on the iPad
• Printing Extra Large Print 3-Line Material
• PDF Link Navigation
• PDF Annotation (Notes & Highlighting)

Also, the links to the above resources at 3lines.org have been updated accordingly.

Work on recreating Chinese field resources at troubadourworks.com/tiandi is continuing, so stay tuned.

WARNING: www.chinesetools.net Pages Have Been Hijacked by an Apostate Site

WARNING: As of this writing, trying to load any page on www.chinesetools.net, where many of the existing Chinese field resources were located, now results in getting redirected to an apostate website.

I am working to resolve this unfortunate situation, and I will post updates as they become available.

UPDATE (2013-05-26): Sadly, I have received confirmation that the one who owns the www.chinesetools.net domain has turned apostate, and that he is the one who redirected the site.

Going forward, I will be recreating at http://troubadourworks.com/tiandi (which I personally own) the resources that used to be at www.chinesetools.net. (It’s a good thing I kept backups!) I will also have to update all the links that used to point to there, including those on 3lines.org. That will be a lot of work, but doable. I already did much of that work before I had to go to sleep last night, and now I know that I need to finish it. I will post updates on this blog re the progress of that work.

Meanwhile, for any who have the technical knowledge to do so, until there are new links, they will be able to reach the recreated resources, when they become available, by replacing

www.chinesetools.net

in their old links with

http://troubadourworks.com/tiandi

UPDATE (2013-07-06): I think the worst is over. Much of the cleanup (including that of all the links on 3lines.org) has been done, although some still remains to be done, including on some old entries on this blog and on the tiandi.info blog, which I will get to as time allows. I hope to eventually get out an update to the Links file too, with cleaned up links.

There are some links that I just don’t have access to clean up, though, such as those in Links files, in emails, etc. that I have sent out to people in the past. So, all you users out there are just going to have to continue to be careful to avoid any old links that lead to www.chinesetools.net. (Mousing over or tapping and holding on a link will show you its destination without you actually having to go to it. Note that on PC/Mac, etc. browsers, you may have to manually set the status bar to be visible first.)

On a more positive note, there are, and there will be, many good current and future links to focus on instead. Many of the most used previously existing resources have been recreated, although some remain to be recreated, such as the web pages for Chinese courses. New resources will also continue to be developed, such as those referred to here.

Also, be sure to check out the new, convenient short links discussed here.

This situation has reminded me of this quote:

“The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”

This adapted version applies to us faithful Witnesses:

“Jehovah’s Witnesses on the Net interpret apostasy as damage and route around it.”

Good News Brochure Pinyin Web Material Up to Lesson 2, Question 3 Added

Good News brochure Pinyin web material covering up to Lesson 2, Question 3 has been added to:

• Good News Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web, Scriptures)
• Good News Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web, Scriptures, Night Theme)
   (black background, gray text)

Note that:

• The full text in Pinyin of all the cited scriptures is included in the above resources.
• Turning mobile devices to landscape orientation causes the text in the above resources to become large-print text.

Also, the introductions explain why it’s good to use Pinyin as a writing system on its own.

See the below post for an introduction to the above resources:

• New Resources: Good News Brochure (Pinyin, Web, Scriptures) Pages

Going forward, I plan to focus primarily on producing Pinyin web pages such as the above, because I can produce such material faster than I can produce corresponding new 3-line PDF material. I am also working on eventually making available some Pinyin-English web material.

New Resources: Good News Brochure (Pinyin, Web, Scriptures) Pages

While there have been 3-line PDFs for the Good News brochure available on 3lines.org for a while now, these files are Letter/A4 size, and, especially combined with the font sizes chosen for the text in them, this makes them less than ideal for mobile devices like the iPhone. Even on an iPad, many may find the text in these particular files too small to be comfortably readable without inconvenient zooming and panning.

Also, the PDF format is rooted in the print world, and it is not the native format of the web browser you would use to go to a website like 3lines.org. Thus, while PDF files can be downloaded, and often even viewed, with a web browser, they still represent some added complexity.

So, I have come up with a new set of resources for the Good News brochure that should help with the above:

• Good News Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web, Scriptures)
• Good News Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web, Scriptures, Night Theme)
   (black background, gray text)
• [Short link: tiandi.info/fg]

To start with, material is available on these new resources covering from the front cover to the end of Lesson 1 of the Good News brochure. Since Pinyin-only web material is quicker and easier to produce than 3-line PDF material, some of the production and proofreading time saved has been put toward including the full text in Pinyin of the cited scriptures. Thus, one no longer necessarily needs to lug around the beloved but big and heavy Pinyin NWT Bible to be able to confidently read any of the cited scriptures in Mandarin.

More background information can be found in the Introductions of those web pages:

This material contains text from the Chinese Good News brochure, written in Pinyin, and it is in web format. It takes up less space than corresponding 2-line and 3-line material, support for which is incomplete in the web format at this time. Being in web format allows this material to benefit from the advantages of this format, including broad support and easy enlarging and automatic reflowing of the text to accommodate displays of various shapes and sizes, including the displays of many mobile devices. (Tip: Turning mobile devices to landscape orientation causes the text of this material to become large-print text.) Also, once this web page is loaded in a web browser, no further downloading or switching to another app is required.

Taking advantage of the hyperlinking functionality baked into the web format, scripture citations in the material are links to the full text in Pinyin of the cited scriptures. There, links are provided for returning to the referring citations in the main text. Hyperlinks are also provided for “teleporting” from the table of contents to the chapter headings and back.

Another advantage of this Pinyin-only material is that, being less complex than 2-line and 3-line material, it can be prepared more quickly and easily, with simpler, more accessible tools, while still providing in a high-quality way the most important raison d’être (reason for being) of the 2-line and 3-line material.

Pinyin is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own

Reading just Pinyin may take some getting used to if you’re accustomed to reading (or trying to read) Hànzì (Chinese characters), but going by first principles of linguistics (the scientific study of language) rather than mere human traditions, it should be more than worth the effort. You should at least give yourself a chance to get used to it.

“One of the basic assumptions of modern linguistics...is that speech is primary and writing is secondary”. Yes, speech is the foundation on which writing must be built, not vice-versa. (That is just a natural result of the way Jehovah made us—he gave our bodies the built-in ability to produce speech, but writing requires external aids such as pens and paper, keyboards and screens, etc.) Thus, it is very good that Pinyin represents Mandarin speech so straightforwardly and easily, and that it enables us to focus on speech. Yes, while Chinese characters, as beautiful and traditional as they are, demand distractingly large commitments of precious time and energy just for themselves, Pinyin frees and empowers us to focus on communicating the good news.

Also, as many in the Mandarin field have found, by investing the minimal time and effort needed to learn and get used to the Pinyin system, you will be equipped to always be able to read anything in Mandarin that is written in Pinyin. In contrast, even those who are fairly familiar with Chinese characters will at times come across unfamiliar or forgotten characters whose meanings and pronunciations they can only guess at.

(By the way, since the Pinyin system was developed in China by Chinese people, it is a product of Chinese culture, and it is a part of Chinese culture. So, using Pinyin is not an imposition of Western culture—it is an application of Chinese culture! In fact, the Chinese developers of Pinyin of their own free will purposely chose to base it on the international Latin alphabet so that users of Pinyin would benefit from its familiarity. Experience has shown that they were right to do so, and that’s what should be most important to us—not mere human cultures or traditions, but what works best for Jehovah’s work.)

For a discussion about how linguistically, Pinyin is actually a valid, workable writing system for Mandarin in its own right and not just a pronunciation aid for the characters, see the tiandi.info blog post “Pinyin Was Plan A”. Here is a quote from it:

“That there are so many different words in modern Mandarin that sound the same is not a good reason not to use Pinyin, any more than it is a good reason not to speak Mandarin.”

(Email me if you need login information, and include information on who referred you and/or what group/cong. you are in.)

...

Proofreading

The material has been carefully rendered and proofread. However, it may of course still contain errors. If you find any, please email me at waynerj@shaw.ca to let me know.

Offline Viewing

This HTML (web) file is self-contained, so to view it offline, simply save or download it, copy it to the desired location in your desktop or laptop, mobile device, app (such as GoodReader for iPad/iPhone), etc., and open it there.

Of course, this file may also be printed out from your web browser.

Jeremiah Bk. XLP-iPhone-A5 Size LN-A 3-Line Material for Ch. 11 Posted

3-line XLP-iPhone-A5 size files for Chapter 11 of the Jeremiah book are now available for download from the Jeremiah Book (3-Line, XLP-iPhone-A5, LN-A) page. The files have LN-A (LinkNav and annotation (notes & highlighting)) support, and they are available in Pinyin+Simp. Chinese and Sidney Lau+Trad. Chinese versions.

To help explain how the XLP-iPhone-A5 files may work well on a variety of mobile devices, the following paragraphs are included on the Jeremiah Book (3-Line, XLP-iPhone-A5, LN-A) page:

While the regular files use letter size as the paper size, these files named with “XLP-iPhone-A5” use A5 as the paper size, and are especially suited for use on devices such as the iPhone, the iPod touch, and other devices with similarly sized screens, such as Android phones. (See the 3-Line Material on the iPhone and the iPod touch page for instructions on how to use these files on an iPhone or an iPod touch.)

The XLP-iPhone-A5 files should also be a good fit on 6" (15.2 cm) screen Kindles and other similarly sized devices, as well as on tablets with 7" (17.8 cm) screens, as long as these devices have PDF support. (Note that landscape orientation may work best, as explained on the 3-Line Material on the iPhone and the iPod touch page.) Some may prefer to use these files on larger mobile devices like the Kindle DX or the iPad as well. (See the 3-Line Material on the iPad page for instructions on how to use these files on an iPad.)

Also, instructions are included re how to download the files on an iPhone or an iPod touch using GoodReader for iPhone, and how to download the files on an iPad using GoodReader for iPad.

The relevant folders at the 3lines.org site contain an HTML file (web page) with a link to the Jeremiah Book (3-Line, XLP-iPhone-A5, LN-A) page.

Related links:

• 3-Line Material on the iPhone and the iPod touch


• 3-Line Material on the iPad


• Printing Extra Large Print 3-Line Material


• PDF Link Navigation


• PDF Annotation (Notes & Highlighting)

Jehovah’s Will Brochure Pinyin Web Material Completed!

Jehovah’s Will brochure Pinyin web material has been completed:

• Jehovah’s Will Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web, Scriptures)
• Jehovah’s Will Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web, Scriptures, Night Theme)
   (black background, gray text)

The above resources now have the Pinyin for the entire Jehovah’s Will brochure. Note that the full text in Pinyin of all the cited scriptures is included in the above resources.

Also, the introductions explain why it’s good to use Pinyin as a writing system on its own.

See the below post for an introduction to the above resources:

• New Resources: Jehovah’s Will Brochure (Pinyin, Web) Pages

Jehovah’s Will Brochure Pinyin Web Material for Lesson 28 Added

Jehovah’s Will brochure Pinyin web material for Lesson 28 has been added to:

• Jehovah’s Will Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web)
• Jehovah’s Will Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web, Night Theme)
   (black background, gray text)

The above resources now have the Pinyin for the front cover to Lesson 28 of the Jehovah’s Will brochure. Note that the full text in Pinyin of all the cited scriptures is included in the above resources.

Also, the introductions explain why it’s good to use Pinyin as a writing system on its own.

See the below post for an introduction to the above resources:

• New Resources: Jehovah’s Will Brochure (Pinyin, Web) Pages

I plan to put out new material for the Jehovah’s Will brochure first on these new Pinyin web pages, because I can do that faster than I can make corresponding new 3-line material.

The Pinyin web material for the Jehovah’s Will brochure is almost finished! Only the back cover left to go...

Jehovah’s Will Brochure Pinyin Web Material for Lesson 27 Added

Jehovah’s Will brochure Pinyin web material for Lesson 27 has been added to:

• Jehovah’s Will Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web)
• Jehovah’s Will Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web, Night Theme)
   (black background, gray text)

The above resources now have the Pinyin for the front cover to Lesson 27 of the Jehovah’s Will brochure. Note that the full text in Pinyin of all the cited scriptures is included in the above resources.

Also, the introductions explain why it’s good to use Pinyin as a writing system on its own.

See the below post for an introduction to the above resources:

• New Resources: Jehovah’s Will Brochure (Pinyin, Web) Pages

I plan to put out new material for the Jehovah’s Will brochure first on these new Pinyin web pages, because I can do that faster than I can make corresponding new 3-line material.

The Pinyin web material for the Jehovah’s Will brochure is almost finished! Only one more Lesson and the back cover to go...

Jehovah’s Will Brochure Pinyin Web Material for Lesson 26 Added

Jehovah’s Will brochure Pinyin web material for Lesson 26 has been added to:

• Jehovah’s Will Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web)
• Jehovah’s Will Brochure
   (Pinyin, Web, Night Theme)
   (black background, gray text)

The above resources now have the Pinyin for the front cover to Lesson 26 of the Jehovah’s Will brochure. Note that the full text in Pinyin of all the cited scriptures is included in the above resources.

Also, the introductions have been rewritten to more fully explain why it’s good to use Pinyin as a writing system on its own.

See the below post for an introduction to the above resources:

• New Resources: Jehovah’s Will Brochure (Pinyin, Web) Pages

I plan to put out new material for the Jehovah’s Will brochure first on these new Pinyin web pages, because I can do that faster than I can make corresponding new 3-line material.

It seems like I should be able to put out at least one new Lesson on the Jehovah’s Will brochure Pinyin web pages before every Monday.