Bearing Witness Bk. A4/Letter Size 3-Line Material for Ch. 11 & 12 Posted

A4/letter size 3-line material for Chapters 11 & 12 of the Bearing Witness book is now available for download from the 3lines.org site. Simplified and Traditional Chinese Mandarin pinyin and Traditional Chinese Cantonese Jyutping, Sidney Lau, and Yale material is available.

Additionally, the Simplified (CHS) Mandarin pinyin files are also available in “black” versions, which only use black to render the material rather than using blue and red for some of it like the regular files.

At the 3lines.org home page, just answer the Witness-testing questions (no commas), click on the bs (Book Study) graphic, and click through to your desired type of file.

Referenced Theo. Expressions Pleco Instructions File Updated

The Pleco instructions file, linked to from the Referenced Theo. Expressions (Chinese + Pinyin + English) Downloads page, has been updated with instructions on how to install the pre-compiled .pqb Pleco dictionary files to the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad version of Pleco (the version released on 2010-04-28 or a later one). The pre-compiled .pqb files are much faster to set up than the .txt Pleco files, because the .txt files take quite a while to compile.

Thanks to the one who provides the pre-compiled Pleco files, and who prodded me to finally figure out how to install them. :-)

Referenced Theo. Expressions Updated to 2011-09-04 Version

The Referenced Theo. Expressions files available for download have been updated. They are available for download from the Referenced Theo. Expressions (Chinese + Pinyin + English) Downloads and Referenced Theo. Expressions (Chinese + Cantonese Romanisation + English) Downloads pages. These files are meant to be relatively extensive lists of theo. expressions as they have been found to be rendered in the Chinese publications. Versions sorted by English and versions sorted by romanization are both available.

The current version is now dated 2011-09-04. It contains 13,183 entries (+5064 alternate headings), compared to the 10,882 entries (+4646 alternate headings) that were in the previous version. For the Mandarin RTE data, Pleco, Wenlin, ChinaScribe, DICT, StarDict (for ColorDict, etc.), and iSilo data files are now available in addition to the PDF files. (We have not been able to make the StarDict data files work with the StarDict program itself, but they may work with ColorDict and other programs that read the StarDict format.)

Re this update, the one who produces the RTE said:

We're up to 13,183 entries, and an average of nearly 500 pages for each of the 4 PDF files.

...

This version has again improved the Cantonese romanization. Plus it adds a bunch more names and words from publications, which I hope will help brothers' software to handle Watchtower Library's text better, and/or help interpreters of talks when the speaker has not been able to provide enough material in advance (which tends to be a situation when I'm called on to translate some obscure name or concept he found in an old publication, but I don't have time to look, so it's handy to have lots of them in the dictionary).

The old Submitting New Expressions subheading of both the Mandarin and the Cantonese download pages has been changed to the below in order to encourage more submissions and requests:

Submitting or Requesting New Expressions

If you come across a Chinese theo. expression that is not yet listed in the RTE material and you would like to submit or request it for inclusion in future versions of the RTE material, please email me about it and include as many of these pieces of information as you are reasonably able to:

• Chinese characters (Simplified, Traditional, or both)


• pinyin (zhèyàng or zhe4yang4 are both okay) [Mandarin page]


• romanization, including type (e.g. Yale, Sidney Lau, etc.) [Cantonese page]


• English equivalent


• source (which theo. publication, page, paragraph)

Bookmarks have been added to the PDF files, and PDF annotation has been enabled on them, so “LN-A” (“Link Navigation-Annotation”) is included in their filenames. See the PDF Link Navigation page and the PDF Annotation (Notes & Highlighting) page for more information.

Note that the current version of Pleco for iPhone / iPod Touch / iPad now supports flashcards and user-created dictionaries. So, the RTE Pleco Instructions file now contains instructions for installing the RTE Pleco files in Pleco running on these devices.

As a reminder, note that the Referenced Theo. Expressions (Chinese + Pinyin + English) Web Lookup and Referenced Theo. Expressions (Chinese + Cantonese Romanization + English) Web Lookup pages are now available as well. Rather than containing download links to the RTE data files, they each contain a web form that can be used to look up RTE information.

Thanks go out to the ones who helped to produce this set of resources.

Coolies and Quarterbacks

...is the title of a new post at tiandi.info. Here’s the text from the news feed:

Was Jesus a “coolie” or was he a “quarterback”? Yes.

To obtain the login information for tiandi.info, request e-mail notification of news regarding available resources, or if you have any questions or comments, you may e-mail me at waynerj@shaw.ca, providing information such as what group or congregation you’re with, who referred you to this site, etc.

Bearing Witness Bk. XLP-iPhone-A5 Size LN-A 3-Line Material for Ch. 10 Posted

3-line pinyin and Sidney Lau XLP-iPhone-A5 size files with LN-A (LinkNav and annotation (notes & highlighting)) for Chapter 10 of the Bearing Witness book are now available for download from the Bearing Witness Book (3-Line, XLP-iPhone-A5, LN-A) page.

To further explain how the XLP-iPhone-A5 files may work well on a variety of mobile devices, the following paragraphs are now included on the Bearing Witness 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 below.) Some may prefer to use these files on larger mobile devices like the Kindle DX or the iPad as well.

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

Related links:

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


• Printing Extra Large Print 3-Line Material


• PDF Link Navigation


• PDF Annotation (Notes & Highlighting)

Bearing Witness Bk. A4/Letter Size 3-Line Material for Ch. 10 Posted

A4/letter size 3-line material for Chapter 10 of the Bearing Witness book is now available for download from the 3lines.org site. Simplified and Traditional Chinese Mandarin pinyin and Traditional Chinese Cantonese Jyutping, Sidney Lau, and Yale material is available.

Additionally, the Simplified (CHS) Mandarin pinyin files are also available in “black” versions, which only use black to render the material rather than using blue and red for some of it like the regular files.

At the 3lines.org home page, just answer the Witness-testing questions (no commas), click on the bs (Book Study) graphic, and click through to your desired type of file.

3lines.org Links Page Updated

The links page at 3lines.org has been updated.

Updated link:

• The Tools: PinYin Publ.—The URL (Internet address) for this link has been updated. A while ago the brother who operated the old page sent me the files that used to be posted there, and I set up the Publications (Mandarin) page for those files, as well as other ones.

Newly added links:

• Tools: Chinese Links File—This is the download page for the Theo. Chinese Links file that I produce. Yes, the version available for download there is quite old now—I am working on an update, which should soon be ready as a beta or prototype (mostly working, but unfinished) version that I can share with any who want to try it out. Email me if you wish to receive this next beta version and help test it when it’s ready.


• Tools: Tiandi Info—This Links News blog (news feed) that you are now reading is for news regarding things listed in the Links file. You may also find it interesting to check out the tiandi.info blog (news feed), which is about other things related to the Chinese field. (Email me if you need login information, and include information on who referred you and/or what group/cong. you are in.)


• Tools: China Scribe - (Prev. CWPS)—ChinaScribe is a Chinese dictionary program for Windows that can be used to create professional-looking Chinese documents using Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org. The creator of this program is the brother who created CWPS. I believe most of the 3-line material now being produced is being produced with the help of either CWPS or ChinaScribe.


• Tools:PinYin Typist—On an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, Pinyin Typist is the quickest and easiest way to write down how Mandarin expressions should be pronounced, using real pinyin text with tone marks. It turns typing pinyin from a pain into a pleasure. And since your iOS mobile device is probably usually with you or close by, with Pinyin Typist installed on it you’ll be able to quickly and easily type pinyin just about anytime the need arises or inspiration strikes. [Full disclosure: I am the creator of this app.]