NEW Short Link:
tiandi.info/qb (QUICKBUILD (QB) Links)
QUICKBUILD (QB) links have also been added to tiandi.info/vocab and tiandi.info/courses.
tiandi.info/courses: Mandarin Course from Budapest and QUICKBUILD (QB) Links links have been added.
tiandi.info/jl: Official audio files info has been added.
tiandi.info/fg: Official audio files info and Cantonese audio files info have been added.
An interesting new resource has recently become available: The QUICKBUILD (QB) theocratic phrase books. These files show equivalent phrases or expressions, not just individual words, in various languages, and they are organized by subject. Many languages are supported, including Mandarin.
Note: The listed folders are named according to the language you are starting from. E.g., if your mother tongue is English, it would be best for you to use the files in the ==ENG folder. However, since the files show equivalent phrases in different languages lined up next to each other, any of the files with Chinese content could be used to learn Chinese, although the files that have Chinese as the starting language just use characters with no Pinyin or other romanization. (In the filenames, CHI-py stands for Pinyin, CHI-s stands for Simplified Chinese characters, and CHI-t stands for Traditional Chinese characters.)
The development of the QUICKBUILD files was led by the same person who developed the well-known and well-regarded Mandarin Course from Budapest. (There is a folder at the QUICKBUILD site for Budapest course files as well.)
Translation work is ongoing, with help currently needed in the following languages: Romanian, Polish, Bulgarian, Yoruba, Swahili, and Lingala. If you would like to volunteer to help with the translating of the QB material, please send an email regarding that to budapestcourses@gmail.com.
UPDATE (2013-08-27): A short link is now available for the QUICKBUILD resources:
The download pages for the Budapest courses have been refreshed, and passwords are no longer required to access the course files.
The affected pages are:
All the Budapest Mandarin course files have been updated to their 2008 versions, except for the grammar course files, which have not changed. Also, all the PDF files have been recreated so that copying and pasting tables of material produces more usable results.
¡Hola! Me complace informarles que las instrucciones para el link de Mandarin Course from Budapest—Spanish que han aparecido en los últimos emails han sido traducidas al español. Esa página aparece ahora completamente en español y se llama Curso Chino de Budapest—Edición en Español.
La edición de Noviembre de 2007 del archivo Curso Chino de Budapest—Edición en Español se encuentra ahora disponible para descargarla desde esta página. Esta versión ha sido revisada y corregida.
In English:
Hello! I am happy to inform you that the instructions on the page linked to from the Mandarin Course from Budapest—Spanish link on recent Links emails have been translated into Spanish. That page is now completely in Spanish, and it is now called Curso Chino de Budapest—Edición en Español.
The November 2007 edition of the Spanish Budapest Mandarin Course file is now available for download from this page. This edition includes several corrections and refinements.
November 2007 editions of the English, Spanish, and Russian Budapest Mandarin Course files are now available for download from their respective web pages. This edition includes several corrections and refinements.
The icon graphics at the top left corner on the English and Spanish Budapest Course pages used to link to the Theo. Chinese Links page that was on the web. Since this Links page is no longer on the web, but is now only being sent by email to those on my mailing list, the icons are now just icons - they don't link to anywhere anymore.
Some trivia: This icon design contains the Chinese character for "field" over a background that was my attempt at representing a golden wheat field, ripe for harvesting. It was originally developed for a PC-based territory database program before finding a home on the web.