After a long period during which I have just been microblogging on Twitter (@TiandiLinksNews), something happened that I concluded merited a new full tiandi.info blog post:
(If you need login information for the parts of tiandi.info that require it, request it by email, and include information on who referred you and/or what group/cong. you are in.)
(NOTE: While the organization expresses valid general concerns here about posting copies of official publications to the Internet, there are good legal and spiritual reasons for concluding that those concerns do not apply to this particular material, since such material should not be considered to be infringing on copyright, and since such material is specifically designed to be, not spiritual food, but rather, material for language learning. See this disclaimer for more information.)
Thankfully, an official Pīnyīn PDF file for the current songbook “Sing Out Joyfully” to Jehovah (sjj) is now available for download from jw.org. (The short link for the new songbook, tiandi.info/sjj, has been updated accordingly.) Note, however, that the currently available official Pīnyīn PDF file only contains lyrics—it does not contain musical notation 🎼.
While we greatly appreciate the official Pīnyīn songbook PDF file that is available, the PDF format itself was conceived of in a world dominated by paper. Unfortunately, that means that PDF files are often not optimal for reading on the mobile devices that are now so prevalent among Mandarin field publishers.
Also, having to share limited display real estate with Chinese characters (and, in the past, musical notation 🎼) can in certain situations force the Pīnyīn text to be rendered in small type that can be difficult to read, especially for older people.
Another difficulty that is encountered, especially when one needs to quickly find the song that is about to be sung at a meeting, is that the official meeting schedules only list the numbers of the songs to be used, and the brothers announcing what song is about to be sung often only mention the song number, but in the current official Pīnyīn songbook PDF file, there is no listing of song links in song number order.
The official Pīnyīn “Sing Out Joyfully” to Jehovah (sjj) web material that is now available on the WOL addresses some of the above challenges, but it still does not put musical notation 🎼 together with Pīnyīn, and it still gives prime display real estate to Chinese characters, at the expense of the Pīnyīn.
Partially proofread Pīnyīn web material (more correct than computer-generated Pīnyīn like that displayed by apps like Equipd, and more mobile-friendly than PDFs) or more for all the songs scheduled and named for Mandarin 2019 regional conventions has been posted to this resource that seeks to help with the above-mentioned challenges:
Screenshots of the above resource being used offline on an iPhone 📱, using the app GoodReader. (Other similar apps can also be used, e.g. Documents.)
Scheduling notes:
The Pīnyīn songbook material in the above unofficial resource has been designed to be mobile-first, so it works well on mobile devices of various shapes and sizes, including tablets and smartphones 📱. Some of the ways in which it does so are:
The introduction for the above resource explains why it’s good to use Pīnyīn as a writing system on its own.
In the material with musical notation 🎼 in the above resource, the Pīnyīn lyrics do not have Pīnyīn Plus “flashcard” functionality because they need to stay aligned with the musical notation 🎼. As time allows, links will be added to Pīnyīn lyrics in the material with musical notation 🎼, each of which will cause a dialogue box to appear that shows the English translations, Chinese characters, etc. that a corresponding Pīnyīn Plus “flashcard” would show.
While the original intention re the above resource was to prioritize production of material with musical notation 🎼 and leave off production of Pīnyīn Plus lyrics-only material indefinitely, further analysis has led to the realization that since proofread Pīnyīn lyrics must be produced in some form for the musical notation 🎼 material anyway, and since Pīnyīn Plus technology is a time-effective way to record proofread Pīnyīn text, it would be efficient to first produce proofread Pīnyīn lyrics in Pīnyīn Plus format for a particular song, and then to use those proofread Pīnyīn lyrics to speed up the production of musical notation 🎼 material for that song. So, that will be the production workflow going forward for the above resource.
Previously, musical notation 🎼 in the above resource was taken from screenshots of an official PDF file. Note (and make it a musical note ♪, at that 😄), though, that the musical notation 🎼 for song 77 marked the debut in the above resource of musical notation 🎼 produced “from scratch” to be mobile-first in design. This should provide for better and more consistent user experiences going forward, especially on smaller mobile devices like smartphones 📱.
(NOTE: While the organization expresses valid general concerns here about posting copies of official publications to the Internet, there are good legal and spiritual reasons for concluding that those concerns do not apply to this particular material, since such material should not be considered to be infringing on copyright, and since such material is specifically designed to be, not spiritual food, but rather, material for language learning. See this disclaimer for more information.)
Thankfully, an official Pīnyīn PDF file for the current songbook “Sing Out Joyfully” to Jehovah (sjj) is now available for download from jw.org. (The short link for the new songbook, tiandi.info/sjj, has been updated accordingly.) Note, however, that the currently available official Pīnyīn PDF file only contains lyrics—it does not contain musical notation.
While we greatly appreciate the official Pīnyīn songbook PDF file that is available, the PDF format itself was conceived of in a world dominated by paper. Unfortunately, that means that PDF files are often not optimal for reading on the mobile devices that are now so prevalent among Mandarin field publishers.
Also, having to share limited display real estate with Chinese characters (and, in the past, musical notation) can in certain situations force the Pīnyīn text to be rendered in small type that can be difficult to read, especially for older people.
Another difficulty that is encountered, especially when one needs to quickly find the song that is about to be sung at a meeting, is that the official meeting schedules only list the numbers of the songs to be used, and the brothers announcing what song is about to be sung often only mention the song number, but in the current official Pīnyīn songbook PDF file, there is no listing of song links in song number order.
The official Pīnyīn “Sing Out Joyfully” to Jehovah (sjj) web material that is now available on the WOL addresses some of the above challenges, but it still does not put musical notation together with Pīnyīn, and it still gives prime display real estate to Chinese characters, at the expense of the Pīnyīn.
Proofread Pīnyīn web material (more correct than computer-generated Pīnyīn like that displayed by apps like Equipd, and more mobile-friendly than PDFs) and proofread musical notation 🎼 with Pīnyīn for the songs recommended for 2019 Mandarin Memorial meetings have been posted to this resource that seeks to help with the above-mentioned challenges:
Screenshot of the above resource being used offline on an iPhone 📱, using the app GoodReader. (Other similar apps can also be used, e.g. Documents.)
Scheduling notes:
The Pīnyīn songbook material in the above unofficial resource has been designed to be mobile-first, so it works well on mobile devices of various shapes and sizes, including tablets and smartphones 📱. Some of the ways in which it does so are:
The introduction for the above resource explains why it’s good to use Pīnyīn as a writing system on its own.
In the material with musical notation in the above resource, the Pīnyīn lyrics do not have Pīnyīn Plus “flashcard” functionality because they need to stay aligned with the musical notation. As time allows, links will be added to Pīnyīn lyrics in the material with musical notation, each of which will cause a dialogue box to appear that shows the English translations, Chinese characters, etc. that a corresponding Pīnyīn Plus “flashcard” would show.
While the original intention re the above resource was to prioritize production of material with musical notation and leave off production of Pīnyīn Plus lyrics-only material indefinitely, further analysis has led to the realization that since proofread Pīnyīn lyrics must be produced in some form for the musical notation material anyway, and since Pīnyīn Plus technology is a time-effective way to record proofread Pīnyīn text, it would be efficient to first produce proofread Pīnyīn lyrics in Pīnyīn Plus format for a particular song, and then to use those proofread Pīnyīn lyrics to speed up the production of musical notation material for that song. So, that will be the production workflow going forward for the above resource.
Previously, musical notation in the above resource was taken from screenshots of an official PDF file. Note (and make it a musical note ♪, at that 😄), though, that the musical notation for song 77 marked the debut in the above resource of musical notation 🎼 produced “from scratch” to be mobile-first in design. This should provide for better and more consistent user experiences going forward, especially on smaller mobile devices like smartphones 📱.
(NOTE: While the organization expresses valid general concerns here about posting copies of official publications to the Internet, there are good legal and spiritual reasons for concluding that those concerns do not apply to this particular material, since such material should not be considered to be infringing on copyright, and since such material is specifically designed to be, not spiritual food, but rather, material for language learning. See this disclaimer for more information.)
Additional videos have recently been added to official Mandarin Good News brochure material on the web and in the JW Library app. So, corresponding video thumbnail images and links have been added to:
Pīnyīn Plus material pages now default to the 📄 Reveal Advanced mode, which by default reveals the “flashcards” of some of the more advanced expressions. This makes it easier for new users to get a taste of the available information. If they wish, they can then select the 📘 Reveal None mode, which by default displays only Pīnyīn that’s been optimized for readability, so that it’s easy to use to follow along when the text is read aloud or discussed in Mandarin.
For more information about the thinking behind the design of Pīnyīn Plus material, check out:
To expand on the points listed re the above resources, note that:
Also, the introductions explain why it’s good to use Pīnyīn as a writing system on its own.