Better Chinese in the dragon year
The fireworks are kicking off in Tianjin and I'm enjoying mgx's photos from Chengdu. I might also post some photos if I take any nice ones over the next few days.
One of my wishes for the upcoming dragon year is to improve my Chinese skills. I know that it ultimately comes down to practice - so I made an app to hopefully increase the chance of practice occurring. (I know, I really ought to "just" speak more instead of making apps, but such is life…)
Here's the premise: When I want to write something in Chinese, I'm often missing a key piece of vocab/grammar. One of two things happens next:
- If I'm in a hurry, I write fully in English and use a translation app
- If I'm not in a hurry, I write in Chinese as best as I can, then use a dictionary to figure out the missing parts
Ideally there'd be a way to get the best of both worlds - the speed of a translation app + the self-improvement benefits of attempting to write in Chinese first.
There might already be a good way to achieve this. If you know of one, please let me know! What I came up with is a system that uses AI to interpret my best-effort Chinese, then recommends a proper Chinese expression.
You can try it at unscrambler.dpw.me
If you find the app helpful or have any other feedback, I'd love to know! You can drop me a message here.
That's all for today. Time to stop blogging and start speaking. 龙年大吉，新年快乐！