#reader tool

So in this app, it shows book statistics. Which I'm always fascinated by. Here's my current stats for Guardian:

It shows how fast I'm reading in words per minute, how often I'm looking up words (caveat here that I keep clicking some words I know reading wise for pinyin pronunciation), shows my progress (4% is pathetic but also impressive considering I restarted today and the book is over 100 chapters). It shows how long I have read total and I'm happy to say the timer does NOT count when you minimize the app or switch to other apps with it still open, making the time read quite accurate (and really calling out my ADHD for taking a break from reading every 5-20 minutes ToT). And it shows estimated time to finish the book. Which is a feature I love in any reading app. And I have to say, personally? I am VERY motivated to see the estimated time go DOWN. So when I see it, it motivates me to kick up my reading speed, and remember fucking words so I don't slow down to look them up again. I like motivation, so I love the estimated reading time. And a fun fact about Guardian, the audiobook is around 55 hours if I remember correctly. So the closer I get to seeing that estimated remaining time go down to 55 hours, the closer I'm getting to spoken reading speed! I've already improved a lot as when I started reading it estimated 98 hours, now after a bit of reading its estimating 72 hours. Huge improvement. (And yes, if you load a Chinese novel in this app you'll be hit by the reality a fuck ton of Chinese web novels are from 20 hours for SHORT SHORT ones to 100+ hours to read... for a fast reader). For comparison, I'm also reading 坏小孩 which is only 124k words compared to Guardian at 304k words... and 坏孩子 is estimating ill finish reading it in 28 hours (I think it's audiobook is 20 hours so that's at spoken reading speed).

And Guardian word statistics:

This fun word statistics area lists the words by order of how often they appear, so its great for if you want to pre-study vocabulary for a book. Or if you want to review common words in it. Or if you're curious how MANY fucking unique words are in a book. Fun fact, 坏小孩 has around 8000 unique words, compared to Guardian's 16,740 unique words. Despite this, I find 坏小孩 harder cause apparently of my lexicon of Chinese words I know how to read, it's mostly words priest uses. And the 坏小孩 author uses a word I am not familiar with about every 20 words ;-; to be fair, Guardian leans heavier into case investigatkom stories/supernatural which is the bulk of Other novels I've read too. Whereas 坏小孩 has many more every day words for card games, school, building descriptions, orphanages, which I do not read about as much.

This tool is useful for figuring out how difficult a text is compared to something else you’ve read, and it generates word lists! So you have something to study from (if you aren’t using Pleco, want like a Graded Reader experience with intensive reading word lists, etc). You can think of meanU as the “easiness rating” - the higher it is the easier the text is to read. 

**This list gets long below the cut, but will hopefully help serve as a reference. For a rough estimate I’d say anything from 1.9+ seems to be manageable for someone who knows HSK 4 words and is using a click-dictionary (like Pleco, Zhongwen Chrome Extension, Mandarinspot.com Annotator Bookmarklet, eReader dictionary, etc). Some ~1.9 ones are easier or harder depending on genre familiarity. For example I think 论如何错误地套路一个魔教教主 is extremely easy if you’re used to wuxia genre as its very simple for the genre, versus something like 魔道祖师, also if wuxia vocab isn’t an issue for you then priest novels like 天涯客 tend to be easier than 镇魂). For ease’s sake, ones 2+ seem to be the most ‘doable’ for actual extensive reading though. Again, this depends on which genres you’re more familiar with - but in general the ones scored 2+ below are novels I had more success reading without dictionary lookup in general. 

Anything marked *** I would recommend as ‘easier,’ and anything as ** I would recommend as possibly easier depending on your genre familiarity.

Update: I have gone through this list and now most text samples analyzed were generally between 1900-2100 words, so now the scores should be more comparable. While a 1.9 may or may not be easy based on your level, in general if something is scored lower it will still be harder and if scored higher will still be ‘easier’ than a 1.9. Your genre familiarity will also affect things. So when looking for “similar difficulty” material and “slightly” harder or easier, these scores should hopefully be a bit more useful now. 

* Unique unknown is the count of the Chinese words not in the public common word filter, nor in your user known word list * meanU is the average frequency of all words. Here, it is the average of the log(10) frequencies. It is a very rough measure of text difficulty. A value of ~1.9 is somewhat difficult, and ~2.6 is probably easier. (Ref: [http://www.soc.cornell.edu/hayes-lexical-analysis/])

First, novels I’ve heard recommended as ‘easier’ to read:

***小王子

Characters:3196 Word Count:2192 Unique Words:744 (33.9%) Unique unknown*:608 (81.7%) meanU(log10)*:2.004

**So it’s ease rating is 2, fairly easy! That makes sense, at least based on my experience reading it right now. 

***地图 by 倪匡

Characters:3005 Word Count:2094 Unique Words:681 (32.5%) Unique unknown*:551 (80.9%) meanU(log10)*:2.072

**This author was recommended as very approachable on chinese learning forums, sci-fi short stories (around 100 pages per story) for people who know HSK 4+. (Also again shout out to this text analyzer tool because the vocabulary lists it generates are super useful for looking through ahead of a reading to help prepare).

***他们的故事 by 一根黄瓜丝儿

Characters:3085 Word Count:2172 Unique Words:730 (33.6%) Unique unknown*:613 (84.0%) meanU(log10)*:2.008

**Score of 2 makes sense, it was the first webnovel I was able to read (with the help of Pleco Reader click-definitions). It’s definitely on the easier side. If there’s unknown words in this, a huge portion of them are very common daily life words or simple novel description words so they were worth learning for me. 

***论如何错误地套路一个魔教教主

Characters:2403 Word Count:1766 Unique Words:691 (39.1%) Unique unknown*:565 (81.8%) meanU(log10)*:1.962

**This is The Wrong Way To A Demon Sect Leader and I recommend it hands down as an intro wuxia or bl novel. The reading is actually fairly easy, and if its not then learning any of the words here are pretty basic wuxia genre words you will keep using. (Also its a great listening reading method novel to do since its audiobook matches perfectly to the text, and it’s english translation is pretty literal).

As in tools where you can click for word definitions, for txt documents, webnovels (websites), pdfs? For the computer, or for the phone? Any Reader apps?

I primarily read on my phone or on paper, so I’m mainly looking for apps or web browser tools that will work on a phone web browser. Though I don’t know of ANY japanese reader tools so please if you know of computer ones let me know. (I know of LingQ app but I do not want to use it if possible, since its definitions were iffy for chinese and I imagine the same is true for japanese, also it cost $12 a month).

I know of https://www.japanese.io/ but I have never used it, and I’m not sure how much you can do with the free version. 

I know of Idiom app - but it only works with websites, and its definitions can sometimes be iffy (great alternative to LingQ though since I find the quality of definitions is similar, but this app is free)

I can use imiwa dictionary app to copy/paste in text, and get an annotation of the definition of words below it. That’s not the same as a quick click-definition for just unknown words though.

reddit post: Free Books, TV Channels, and YT Vids W/ Transcripts For Most Languages

youtube videos with transcripts (i went in and there’s a ton of cdramas - its under audio-visual tools):  zerotohero.ca

zerotohero also has some book links with audio (under reading tools you can either paste your own text, or click Library) https://www.zerotohero.ca/en/zh/reader

openlibrary.org -  Internet Archive > Books > Books by Language

specific shows/novels *the tool seems to be the same as using “Learn Languages with Netflix” or using some click-dictionary on your web browser while viewing the youtube show transcript (which you can do in youtube website) so it depends on your preference

The Long Night ep 1 (bai yu): https://www.zerotohero.ca/en/zh/youtube/view/HqODiKTH8a4/

The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty: https://www.zerotohero.ca/en/zh/youtube/view/YkPi-wHM8SY/

The Untamed: https://www.zerotohero.ca/en/zh/youtube/view/BfKhREVFLkQ/

Princess! You have five husbands! https://www.zerotohero.ca/en/zh/youtube/view/qzSGZ4r9qlk/

Ancient Detective: https://www.zerotohero.ca/en/zh/youtube/view/FNigIiQRC0g/

风灵玉秀 (cartoon): https://www.zerotohero.ca/en/zh/youtube/view/1v753JBQNtM/

白鸽岛 (cartoon): https://www.zerotohero.ca/en/zh/youtube/view/dxSOtAORLTM/

I also saw empresses in the palace but i’m not sure if it had all eps

Some books:

https://openlibrary.org/search?q=language%3Achi&has_fulltext=true&mode=ebooks&page=2

pride and prejudice: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL8193418W/Pride_and_Prejudice?edition=aomanyupianjian0000aust_j8j7

I am going to again mention Mandarinspot.com because it is so useful, and free.

I use their Annotation Bookmarklet on my phone - it allows you to click words for definitions when on your phone browser. It is not an installed app, its just a bookmark you save. Then when on a chinese page you want to read, you click the Annotation Bookmarklet bookmark link, and then the tool works on the page and you can start clicking any chinese word for a translation. 

It works on any web browser - any phone, any tablet, any computer. It’s free and its not a download. While I like Pleco Reader more for bookmarking pages/saving words/audio dictation, MandarinSpot’s free Annotation Bookmarklet is great for when I am on a device without Pleco and I don’t want to download something (Zhongwen Chrome Extension also can do click-definitions but requires me to use chrome AND download... and I prefer not to download things when possible).

I just tried the Annotation Bookmarklet on the computer, because I haven’t before. And not only does it still provide click-definitions, it also provides pinyin or zhuyin (you pick) above each word! Which is nice for checking I’m remembering word pronunciations correctly, or for learning the pinyin for new words. On the phone, at least last time I used it, it only showed pinyin when you clicked definitions (which is also fine for learning new words/double checking pronunciation). 

The fact computer version gives full pinyin over everything just means way less steep of a learning curve for beginners who might want to break into reading! 

MandarinSpot also has an on-its-website tool you can copy and paste text into for dictionary annotation with pinyin, if you prefer to copy and paste instead of use a bookmark: https://mandarinspot.com/annotate

Their copy-paste tool has a lot of options. (It’s show chinese only, where you click and it will show definition and pinyin for individual words, is how the mobile Annotation Bookmarklet works)

Mandarinspot also has a LINKS page to other resources (some nice and some out of date): https://mandarinspot.com/links

Notable is Chinese Reading Practice - a site with free reading material graded to various reading levels. It has some story and vocabulary notes, popup dictionary for all words, pinyin can be turned on and off, and english translation can be hidden or viewed next to the chinese. I’ve used this site before and it was great. http://chinesereadingpractice.com/

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