The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
How can we tell if we’re doing well as language-learners in the Mandarin field?
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[NOTE: For spiritual food (which is for you yourself to learn spiritual things from, and which ideally should be in your own mother tongue), please go to jw.org.
The supplementary language-learning material mentioned in this post is for helping you to learn about how the Mandarin language is used in an official publication, so that you will be better able to help others in the Mandarin language field.]
The most recent official version of the Mandarin Good News brochure is now the 2019-08 (2019 Nián 8 Yuè) version. It uses significantly revised wording compared to the previous 2018-03 version, similarly to how the recent nwt version of the Mandarin NWT Bible uses significantly revised wording compared to the previous major version of that publication.
The Pīnyīn Plus resources based on the Mandarin Good News brochure are in the process of being revised to match the most recent 2019-08 version, with notes indicating where any material remains that is still based on the older 2018-03 version:
can be used offline in supporting browsers, icon can be added to the home screenIn the above resources, material matching both the current 2019-08 Printing of the Mandarin Good News brochure and the current 2020 Printing (nwt) of the Mandarin NWT Bible is now available that covers the following:
More such revised Pīnyīn Plus material will be made available as time allows.
The above-mentioned resources also contain previously prepared material based on the previous 2018-03 Printing of the Mandarin Good News brochure, some of which has been updated as indicated above:
(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.)
[NOTE: For spiritual food (which is for you yourself to learn spiritual things from, and which ideally should be in your own mother tongue), please go to jw.org.
The supplementary language-learning material mentioned in this post is for helping you to learn about how the Mandarin language is used in an official publication, so that you will be better able to help others in the Mandarin language field.]
The Jehovah’s Will (jl) brochure has been used on Bible studies for a long time, and it is now part of the Teaching Toolbox in the JW Library app. Unofficial previous-generation Pīnyīn and Pīnyīn-English material for it have been available for years, which material was based on an older version of the Jehovah’s Will brochure. Now, the following current-generation Pīnyīn Plus web material resource, based on the most recent 2016-11 Printing of the Mandarin Jehovah’s Will brochure, is available:
can be used offline in supporting browsers, icon can be added to the home screenIn the above resource, material matching both the current 2016-11 Printing of the Mandarin Jehovah’s Will brochure and the current 2020 Printing (nwt) of the Mandarin NWT Bible is now available that covers the following:
Note that the following material matching the current 2016-11 Printing of the Mandarin Jehovah’s Will brochure is available, in which the text of the 2016-11 Printing is different from the text of the previous printing:
Material with a grey background has been partially proofread. Pīnyīn material with a golden-hued background has been proofread, but not all of its “flashcards” have been added and proofread.
More current-generation Pīnyīn and Pīnyīn Plus material matching the current 2016-11 Printing of the Mandarin Jehovah’s Will brochure will be made available in the above resource as time allows.
(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.)
The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
Should we be giving Mandarin-speaking people the same old “promises”?
Comments are enabled on this blog, so if you are so inclined, comment away!
A news feed for this blog is available here.
[NOTE: For spiritual food (which is for you yourself to learn spiritual things from, and which ideally should be in your own mother tongue), please go to jw.org.
The supplementary language-learning material mentioned in this post is for helping you to learn about how the Mandarin language is used in an official publication, so that you will be better able to help others in the Mandarin language field.]
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 Lesson 51 of the Learn From the Bible book has been added to the following resource:
can be used offline in supporting browsers,In the above resource, the following web material is now available for the Mandarin Learn From the Bible book:
Note that like most of the other Pīnyīn Plus web material resources, the above resource can be used offline in supporting browsers.
[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.]
The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
What order should your Mandarin “curse” words be in?
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A news feed for this blog is available here.
The Pīnyīn Typist iOS/iPadOS app has been updated with support for the latest iPhones and iPads. Check it out!
[Full disclosure: I am the developer of this app. That said, I sincerely believe it is one of the best ways, perhaps even the very best way, to quickly and easily type exactly the Pīnyīn you want on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, especially if you want to type a lot of Pīnyīn, e.g., for a talk. For us language learners and teachers in the Mandarin field, this is a valuable capability to have.]
NOTE: Progressing Apple technologies required the code for saving snippets to be rewritten. Everything has been working perfectly in testing, but if you have many snippets saved in Pīnyīn Typist, you may want to back some or all of them up elsewhere before installing this update of Pīnyīn Typist.
THIS APP IS NOT AN ALTERNATIVE WAY TO TYPE CHINESE CHARACTERS—it supports the standard iOS/iPadOS ways of typing characters.
There have long been built-in ways to type Chinese characters on iOS, Windows, macOS, etc., but when the iPhone and iPad were introduced, there was no way to type Pīnyīn with tone marks on them. The Pinyin Typist app was developed as the first app to provide this capability that is important and useful to Mandarin language learners and teachers.
While many in the world–and some in the Mandarin field—only care about characters and look down on Pīnyīn, the truth is that Pīnyīn works well as a simple full writing system for Mandarin, for anyone who can overcome the pressures from mere human traditions that dictate the use of characters, and who can overcome the prejudice with which many unfortunately thus view Pīnyīn.
When Jesus said “you received free, give free”, he was specifically referring to the Kingdom message that we preach. (Matthew 10:8) It would not be appropriate to take these words to mean that Jesus’ followers should expect that their fellow workers must give them general-purpose tools or resources for free—some among Jesus’ followers may decide to do so in certain circumstances, but they are not under any obligation to do so.
For example, it’s true that some general-purpose items like sandals were particularly useful to first-century evangelizers as they carried out their ministry, but that doesn’t mean that Christians who made sandals were obligated to always give their fellow Christians free sandals! Similarly, while some general-purpose things like cars, shoes, and general-purpose apps like Microsoft Word and Pinyin Typist may be particulary useful to us modern-day evangelizers as we carry out our ministry, that doesn’t mean that we should expect fellow Christians who deal in cars, shoes, or general-purpose apps to always give us such things for free. Note that soon after Jesus said regarding the Kingdom message that “you received free, give free”, he cited the general principle that “the worker deserves his food”.—Matthew 10:10.
In my case, as the developer of Pinyin Typist, getting paid for the work I put into Pinyin Typist helps me to pay for the food, etc. that I need in order to keep on maintaining and improving, not only Pinyin Typist, but also the free language-learning resources that I produce for language learners in the Mandarin field. Without sufficient income from Pinyin Typist or other apps that I may develop part-time, I may be forced to take other work that would likely reduce the amount of time and effort I can spend on free language-learning resources for the Mandarin field.
It is unfortunate that the culture of the App Store has become such that many people expect apps to be free, or at most, to only cost $1. Developing apps, especially good apps, actually takes a lot of time and a lot of work, so joining in a culturally mandated “race to the bottom” is simply unsustainable for many app developers. While I am not personally acquainted with the circumstances, one possible example of this is that for a while, a brother had a pretty good free app on the App Store for typing Pīnyīn, called Pure Pinyin. However, this app is no longer available on the App Store.
In contrast to the prevailing culture in the world of people not being willing to pay for apps that could serve them well for years, many publishers, especially in Western lands, customarily regularly take coffee breaks from their preaching work, during which they will uncomplainingly pay several dollars for a coffee or a similar drink that will serve them for a few minutes. Even if coffee or similar drinks and apps are not perfectly comparable, that’s still something to think about.
In recent years, alternative business models such as in-app purchases and subscriptions have become available for paid apps, to hopefully enable more apps to be sustainably developed. For now, Pinyin Typist is available for a one-time purchase price that is less than or about the same as the price of a typical drink at a coffee shop, and it could become a very useful tool for you in the Mandarin field for many years, if you have an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.
The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
A compass needle points which way now in Mandarin?
Chinese compass held at Queensland Museum c. 1938
Comments are enabled on this blog, so if you are so inclined, comment away!
A news feed for this blog is available here.
[NOTE: For spiritual food (which is for you yourself to learn spiritual things from, and which ideally should be in your own mother tongue), please go to jw.org.
The supplementary language-learning material mentioned in this post is for helping you to learn about how the Mandarin language is used in an official publication, so that you will be better able to help others in the Mandarin language field.]
The Jehovah’s Will (jl) brochure has been used on Bible studies for a long time, and it is now part of the Teaching Toolbox in the JW Library app. Unofficial previous-generation Pīnyīn and Pīnyīn-English material for it have been available for years, which material was based on an older version of the Jehovah’s Will brochure. Now, the following current-generation Pīnyīn Plus web material resource, based on the most recent 2016-11 Printing of the Mandarin Jehovah’s Will brochure, is available:
can be used offline in supporting browsers, icon can be added to the home screenIn the above resource, material matching both the current 2016-11 Printing of the Mandarin Jehovah’s Will brochure and the current 2020 Printing (nwt) of the Mandarin NWT Bible is now available that covers the following:
Note that the following material matching the current 2016-11 Printing of the Mandarin Jehovah’s Will brochure is available, in which the text of the 2016-11 Printing is different from the text of the previous printing:
Material with a grey background has been partially proofread. Pīnyīn material with a golden-hued background has been proofread, but not all of its “flashcards” have been added and proofread.
More current-generation Pīnyīn and Pīnyīn Plus material matching the current 2016-11 Printing of the Mandarin Jehovah’s Will brochure will be made available in the above resource as time allows.
(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.)
The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
Do Mandarin words ever change in meaning over time, like words of other languages often do? Are Chinese people human too? 🙋🏻♂️
Comments are enabled on this blog, so if you are so inclined, comment away!
A news feed for this blog is available here.
