In the _"Sing Out Joyfully" (sjj)_ _Pīnyīn_ Plus / _Pīnyīn_+ web resource, proofread musical notation 🎼 with _Pīnyīn_ lyrics is now available for song 164, which was recently added to the songbook. troubadourworks.com/tiandi/sj...
— tiandi, Links News (@tiandilinksnews.bsky.social) October 23, 2026 at 3:43 PM
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The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
For Mandarin field language learners, why is it better to follow basic principles of linguistics than it is to just follow Chinese cultural traditions regarding Chinese characters?
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The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
Why are almost all names from other languages translated into Mandarin by sound and not by meaning? What can we say to Mandarin-speaking people about El Niño?
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In the _"Sing Out Joyfully" (sjj)_ _Pīnyīn_ Plus / _Pīnyīn_+ web resource, proofread _Pīnyīn_+ lyrics are now available for song 164, which was recently added to the songbook. troubadourworks.com/tiandi/sj...
— tiandi, Links News (@tiandilinksnews.bsky.social) October 11, 2026 at 12:36 PM
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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 Lasting Peace (pc) brochure is an unusual, perhaps even unique official theocratic publication in that it was written specifically for Chinese people, and it was first written in Chinese. Here is a quote from the 1996 Yearbook about this brochure:
At the Chinese convention in New York, a new brochure entitled Lasting Peace and Happiness—How to Find Them was released. It was made available in both traditional and simplified Chinese. This brochure is designed for the Chinese field and will be given extensive distribution wherever possible. It is not at present scheduled for translation into English.
Eventually, this brochure was translated into English, Spanish, French, Italian, etc., greatly helping Chinese field language learners in many lands to be able to make good use of this brochure in their local Chinese fields.
To help us Mandarin field language learners to be prepared language-wise to make good use of this brochure without being unnecessarily hindered by the Great Wall of Chinese characters that’s mandated by mere human tradition and cultural pride, the following unofficial Pīnyīn+ web material resource is being made available:
In the above resource, material matching both the current 2009 Printing of the Mandarin Lasting Peace brochure and the current 2026 Study Edition (nwtsty) of the Mandarin NWT Bible is now available that covers the following:
Material with a grey background has been partially proofread.
Older Pīnyīn 3-line PDF material covering the first part of the Lasting Peace brochure can be found at:
More current-generation Pīnyīn+ web material based on the current printing of the Mandarin Lasting Peace brochure will be made available in the above-mentioned Pīnyīn+ 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:
What can we say to Mandarin-speaking people about the cleansing effects of the earth’s natural cycles?
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The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
Why is the Mandarin word for “hundred” in the Mandarin word for “lily”?
This week’s MEotW in the unofficial Pīnyīn Plus / Pīnyīn+ resource “Sing Out Joyfully” Bk. (Pīnyīn+Music, Pīnyīn Plus / Pīnyīn+, Web)
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The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
How does the Mandarin expression meaning “interactive” work to express this meaning?
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The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
Many believe the Ideographic Myth about Chinese characters, but are Mandarin versions of names from other languages generally based on meaning or sound?
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The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
As we offer the Enjoy Life Forever! brochure to Mandarin-speaking people, what can we say to them about the Bible study course that’s available?
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Available for the Mandarin Bible Reading for the week of 2026-09-07 (next week!) (Jer.32:6–18): Proofread _Pīnyīn+_ material (mobile-friendly, adjustable text size, integrated flashcards, human-translated English, Simp. & Trad. Ch. …) troubadourworks.com/tiandi/nw...
— tiandi, Links News (@tiandilinksnews.bsky.social) September 6, 2026 at 7:37 PM
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The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
What truths do we know about Mandarin and learning Mandarin? If we know some of these truths, what are we going to do about it?
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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.]
Thankfully, an official Pīnyīn PDF file for the current songbook “Sing Out Joyfully” to Jehovah (sjj) is available for download from jw.org. (The short link for the current songbook, tiandi.info/sjj, has the link and additional information.) Note, however, that the currently available official Pīnyīn PDF file (2020 Nián 3 Yuè Printing) only contains lyrics—it does not contain musical notation 🎼. Also, it does not contain songs 152 to 163, which are available in the Mandarin 2026 Nián 3 Yuè Printing of the current songbook.
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. (This relegation of Pīnyīn to being ruby text reflects the traditional/orthodox but erroneous and unjust view that Pīnyīn can only be a pronunciation aid, when it really qualifies as and works well as a full writing system.)
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) material that is now available in the JW Library app (iOS/iPadOS; Android; Windows) and on jw.org and the WOL does much to address 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.
Unofficial language-learning materials for all the songs for Mandarin 2026–2027 circuit assemblies, in the forms of proofread musical notation 🎼 with Pīnyīn lyrics and proofread Pīnyīn web material (more correct than computer-generated Pīnyīn like that displayed by apps like Equipd, and more mobile-friendly than PDFs) or better, have been posted to this resource that seeks to help with the above-mentioned challenges:
Screenshots of the above web resource on iPhone and on iPad 📱. (It can also be used offline with apps like GoodReader, Documents, etc.) Tap/click on a screenshot to see it full-size.
Note that the above resource now fully matches the current 2026-03 Printing of the “Sing Out Joyfully” book.
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 📱 running iOS, iPadOS, Android, etc. 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, expressions in the Pīnyīn lyrics do not trigger a Pīnyīn Plus / Pīnyīn+ “flashcard” to appear next to them as usual, because the lyrics 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 these links will cause a Pīnyīn+ “flashcard” to appear near the top of the display.
Also, going forward, more and more material with musical notation 🎼 will be added that’s in SVG format. This format allows for the above-mentioned links that reveal Pīnyīn Plus / Pīnyīn+ “flashcards”, and it also allows for the material with musical notation 🎼 to stay sharp and not get fuzzy, no matter how large a display it is viewed on.
[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 can we tell Mandarin-speaking people in the field about the tiny machines inside our cells?
A computer-animated visualization of how tiny molecular machines inside our cells copy DNA
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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 Enjoy Life Forever! (lffi) brochure is now officially recommended for use on Bible studies, and it is now part of the Teaching Toolbox in the JW Library app. Also, next month (September 2026), there will be a worldwide campaign featuring the Enjoy Life Forever! brochure. To help us Mandarin field language learners to be prepared language-wise to make good use of this brochure without being unnecessarily hindered by the Great Wall of Chinese characters that’s mandated by mere human tradition and cultural pride, the following unofficial Pīnyīn+ web material resource has been made available:
can be used offline in supporting browsers, icon can be added to the home screenVideos are used extensively in the Enjoy Life Forever! brochure, and a noteworthy feature of the above resource is Pīnyīn+ video transcripts. These should help us Mandarin field language learners to analyze and understand the Mandarin speech used in the videos referenced in the Mandarin Enjoy Life Forever! brochure. This in turn should help us make more effective use of these videos while participating in Mandarin Bible discussions using this brochure.
Also, using the Pīnyīn+ video transcripts while watching and listening to the corresponding Mandarin videos gives us good practice at listening to Mandarin speech, with help when needed so that we can actually follow along and understand it, and learn to use it ourselves in the future.
(Tapping/clicking on the above image will take you to the web page represented.)
In the above resource, material is now available covering the entire Enjoy Life Forever! brochure. This material matches both the current 2021-07 Printing of the Mandarin Enjoy Life Forever! brochure and the current 2026 Study Edition (nwtsty) of the Mandarin NWT Bible.
(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:
How has the worldly nation of China long viewed itself?
The earliest known appearance of “Zhōngguó (中國)”, inscribed on the Western Zhōu bronze vessel Hé Zūn
“To Jehovah, for whom ‘a thousand years is as one day’, Chinese civilization has only been around for a few days.…
— tiandi, Links News (@TiandiLinksNews) June 9, 2024
“…we should boast in Jehovah, not in needlessly and self-indulgently complex knowledge relating to a mere worldly human culture” https://t.co/emXNAng9W2#MEotW pic.twitter.com/xEjlDPAkud
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The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
What do the morphemes in the Mandarin expression meaning “Gospel” actually mean?
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.]
Thankfully, an official Pīnyīn PDF file for the current songbook “Sing Out Joyfully” to Jehovah (sjj) is available for download from jw.org. (The short link for the current songbook, tiandi.info/sjj, has the link and additional information.) Note, however, that the currently available official Pīnyīn PDF file (2020 Nián 3 Yuè Printing) only contains lyrics—it does not contain musical notation 🎼. Also, it does not contain songs 152 to 163, which are available in the Mandarin 2026 Nián 3 Yuè Printing of the current songbook.
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. (This relegation of Pīnyīn to being ruby text reflects the traditional/orthodox but erroneous and unjust view that Pīnyīn can only be a pronunciation aid, when it really qualifies as and works well as a full writing system.)
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) material that is now available in the JW Library app (iOS/iPadOS; Android; Windows) and on jw.org and the WOL does much to address 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.
Unofficial language-learning materials for all the songs for Mandarin 2026 conventions, in the forms of proofread musical notation 🎼 with Pīnyīn lyrics and proofread Pīnyīn web material (more correct than computer-generated Pīnyīn like that displayed by apps like Equipd, and more mobile-friendly than PDFs) or better, have been posted to this resource that seeks to help with the above-mentioned challenges:
Screenshots of the above web resource on iPhone and on iPad 📱. (It can also be used offline with apps like GoodReader, Documents, etc.) Tap/click on a screenshot to see it full-size.
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 📱 running iOS, iPadOS, Android, etc. 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, expressions in the Pīnyīn lyrics do not trigger a Pīnyīn Plus / Pīnyīn+ “flashcard” to appear next to them as usual, because the lyrics 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 these links will cause a Pīnyīn+ “flashcard” to appear near the top of the display.
Also, going forward, more and more material with musical notation 🎼 will be added that’s in SVG format. This format allows for the above-mentioned links that reveal Pīnyīn Plus / Pīnyīn+ “flashcards”, and it also allows for the material with musical notation 🎼 to stay sharp and not get fuzzy, no matter how large a display it is viewed on.
[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:
In contrast to the haphazardly evolved Chinese characters, how is Pīnyīn well-designed, neat, and orderly, like the manufacturing processes inside our cells?
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The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
How can we ask rhetorical questions in Mandarin?
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