Chinese (Mandarin)/Contributor's Guide

Ways to Contribute

Internationalization

Keep the Simplified/Traditional Versions in Sync

The Chinese Wikibook has two identical versions; Simplified and Traditional. This is done to unclutter the textbook and to meet the needs of people either interested in the characters used in China or used in Taiwan. However, whenever a change is made in one version, it is not automatically carried over, so periodic checks must be made to ensure that the two remain in sync. This sometimes involves translating from one script to the other, but often only involves copying formatting changes.

Saint Jerome, the patron saint of translators.

Translate Pages

Currently, the English version is the most developed of the Chinese Wikibooks. If you know another language, please check if a Chinese book is started in that language and compare it to this one. You can make changes to their content based on ideas gained here, or do a wholesale translation of this textbook into the target language. Since the Chinese can stay the same across languages, a lot of work can be saved in this way. Translation efforts have been started in the following languages:

• Italiano
• Polski
• Español

Even if a translation has been done at one time, it may have been incomplete or not been updated to reflect recent changes on the English site. Please work to keep them current. If you can only do a partial translation, leave a note to later contributors linking back to your source (a good candidate for using Templates).

Add InterWiki Links

If you can't translate pages, but know enough of a language to locate the corresponding Chinese Wikibook, you can make Interwiki links. You can see them on the Wikibooks Sidebar listed under "in other languages" when available. They are typically placed at the very end of a page using a simple format. Here is the list used for the Chinese TOC page:

[[it:Corso di cinese/Indice]]
[[pl:Chiński]]
[[es:Chino]]
<!-- 在以上的课程里中文是一样的，
在以下的课程里中文是不同的 -->
[[fr:Enseignement du chinois]]
[[de:Chinesisch]]
[[ja:中国語]]
[[nl:Mandarijn]]

The ones listed above the divider are translations of this book. The ones below are of their own design. In addition to the main page, Lesson pages, Stroke Order pages and anything else can be interwikied as long as the content is the same.

Stroke Order Images

Black to red fade

Gif animations

There is a project on Wikicommons to upload images and animations of the stroke order for characters. There are directions on how to contribute. It's easy with the use of some free programs and can be done even with only a basic understanding of Chinese. Please contribute so that we'll have a standardized reference for our Wikibook users.

Have a look at the stroke order pages for each lesson to see what our immediate needs are:

Lesson 1 — Lesson 2 — Lesson 3

Sound Samples

With a microphone and a read through the recording guidelines for the Spoken Wikipedia you can contribute audio examples. Sound samples are particularly important for beginners, especially ones who are studying alone with no teacher or native speaker on hand.

You can see what has been uploaded so far at Category:Chinese pronunciation. Peter Isotalo started, but a native speaker would be best.