The first step to being a Chineseblast contributor is registering for a user account. Follow the instructions in the email to validate your account, and you are ready to begin.
Once you've set up your account, you're ready to start a new project or edit existing ones. Keep in mind the following suggestions:
Stick to the formatting guidelines described below.
Keep the length of the content manageable, i.e. 1-2 minutes of audio or video.
Content should generally be appropriate for most visitors, i.e. PG-13 or less. If in doubt, please ask before posting.
Remember to specify the Project's Status and Category, or it won't get added to the directory.
Use keywords! They make it easy to organize and find related projects.
Save your work often for two reasons:
If someone else submits an edit to a page while you are also editing, your edit will not be accepted. (See FAQ for more details.)
if your browser or computer crashes, any unsubmitted work will be lost!
Other than that, use your imagination! We want to keep this site as open-ended as possible, and invite you to try out any new learning ideas that you might have.
Embedding Media into your project
For details on including videos, audio, or images in your project, click the type of media you want to embed:
Formatting Guidelines
In order maintain the highest level of readability throughout the entire site, we ask that you observe the following simple guidelines when building your project page:
Any media in your project should be placed at the very top of the page.
The translation itself should be broken up into sentence nones:
Chinese text should be "bulleted" .
The pinyin and translation text should be indented (this automatically creates the outlined box).
Set pinyin text to bold.
If you include a literal word-for-word translation, use italics.
Any materials you are unsure of should be highlighed in red so that other users can easily spot project areas that need work.
Additional notes of interest should be highlighted in blue.
We are in the process of developing a system on Chineseblast where you can set your preference between traditional and simplified characters once, after which every page will be translated automatically.
Until then, there is a solution - the TongWenTang (同文堂) extension for Firefox.With one click, you can convert an entire web page from simplified to traditional, and back.This is an essential plug-in for any student of Chinese, as you can use it for browsing anysite regardless of the original character type.
First, if you don’t already use Firefox (an alternative to Internet Explorer), you’ll need to download it here. (An added benefit of Firefox is its immunity from most of the spyware and virus traps Internet Explorer remains vulnerable to.)
Go to “View|Toolbars|Customize” in the firefox menu and drag the TongWenTang button (look for 同文) to a convenient location (i.e. to the right of the address bar)
Click the new button on any Chinese page and watch the magic happen.
Chineseblast projects must all use the Hanyu Pinyin system, as this is the most widely recognized Romanization method, and frankly makes a lot more sense than the others.
The editor software is great in that it offers a very accurate visual representation of what the final page will look like. Unfortunately it also has its quirks.
If you want to jump to a new line, you should use "shift-enter". If you are in "box mode" for pinyin/translation text and you want to be in "bullet mode" for chinese text, simply press the left indent button, then press the bullet button .
No, not at all – we are open to any type of learning project you have in mind. For instance, maybe there’s a point of grammar which has always confused you, for instance 被. You could create a project effort to clearly explain the grammar rules behind 被, including example sentences, common misconceptions, links to other projects on Chineseblast where 被 is used, etc.
No, you can use any flash-video upload site as long as it allows you to embed the video on any Web page. Google video also provides this service, among other smaller companies. We recommend Youtube.com and/or Google as they have the best chances of not “going under”.
Okay, so nobody ever explicitly asked this question – but it’s important nonetheless. There are many ways to use Chineseblast, but for pure language learning purposes nothing beats mastering projects one at a time.
Read that again: Mastering projects one at a time. Every project represents a concrete, concise none of learnable material. By focusing your efforts on one project appropriate for your ability level, you will eventually attain 100% comprehension in every aspect of that project. When you reach this point, the language in that project begins to transform from “words in another language” to a stream of thoughts that you can actually process in real time and, eventually, on a subconscious level. This is what we want to strive for. This is how language is truly learned (along with speaking practice).And here is how it’s done:
Listen, Listen and Read, Read, Repeat!
Listen and/or watch the video/audio in the project. Follow along to the best of your ability, imagining the meanings of each word and sentence as they are spoken. Don’t pay attention to any subtitles in this step, focus on your listening.
Next, listen to the media again but this time read the transcription at the same time. Whether you are reading the Chinese characters or the pinyin is your choice and depends on which you are studying.
Now comes the “workhorse” step. Read slowly through the text, reviewing word pronunciations and meanings as you go.
Repeat those steps as many times as is necessary until you start to feel like you comprehend the video or audio in real time, as it is being played. When you reach that point, you’re ready to move on to a new project. Of course it’s best to come back and review the project from time to time to keep it fresh in your memory.
Definitely not – open any project you like, and complete as much of it as you can.If you’re only 50% sure of anything, write it in and highlight the text in red to indicate that you are unsure of that portion. Or just write a series of question marks if you have no idea (???).
Creating a project is an excellent way to learn in and of itself. When you transcribe a project you are testing yourself on each character’s reading and meaning, and overall sentence level translation at the same time. The first two can be “self-graded” when you look up characters you aren’t sure of. (Hint: Use the dictionary linked below the editor window). Your sentence level translations will be review by peers and changed/finished if necessary.
During this process you are asking your brain what it knows at every step, a pre-test if you will. Knowing what you don’t know is very helpful in the learning process. And just as importantly, you are going to hammer away at that silly voice in all of us that says “don’t embarrass yourself, you’re Chinese isn’t good enough for this!”.
To drive home the point: Dr. Insano himself would use this website for his own purposes even if nobody else ever saw this site. The advantage of having an organized collection of my past study material, always on hand for review, is huge. The fact that we can all benefit from each other’s work is icing on the cake. Your project could be contributing to someone learning Chinese 20 years from now!(In the new Virtual Reality version of Chineseblast, of course.)
Bob opens the same project for editing shortly thereafter.
Bob makes a quick change, and saves the project.
Note that at this point Alice is still editing the page, but her page is no longer the newest revision – it doesn’t contain Bob’s new change.
Alice finishes her changes and attempts to save the project. Chineseblast informs her that changes have been made since she started editing and the page cannot be saved.
At this point, at the website will advise, Alice should copy all of her changes, reload the page to reflect the most recent revision, and paste in her content. If any of Alice’s content overlaps with additions Bob made, she will have to keep one and delete the other.
This is another reason why saving a project often during the editing process is important and can save headaches. Luckily these situations rarely occur with our level of traffic.
A scrolling container, as seen here,allows you to read through multiple pages of text while watching a video – without having to scroll down the entire page, losing the video in the process. If you aren’t sure how to follow these steps, you can ask someone to do so by adding a comment on that project requesting help.
Warning: Do not implement this into your project until it is complete, as it can cause some strange issues with the editing process.
Click the HTML button below the project editor window.
You will need to place a snippet of code at the beginning of the text, and at the end of the text.
At the beginning of your text, paste this code: <div class=”scrollable_text”>
Note that if there is a video at the beginning of the page, you will want to paste the first snippet after </object> and before <ul><li>.
At the end of your text, paste: </div>
Click submit and your translated text should be self-contained!
.
(this automatically creates the outlined box). 
What if a project is translated in traditional characters and I’m learning simplified?(Or the other way around?)