Because of the Bing disaster (they changed their URLs yet again and so none of the links to Bing work any more), I've been going through my website, finding Bing links and replacing them with links to (mostly) Baidu's online dictionary. I was going through my article to help students understand accents of non-native speakers, replacing Bing links, and I realized that more links were broken: those for the International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA). IDEA is a great resource with audio recordings of people from all over the world speaking in English, so you can really learn to understand their accents. A while ago they changed their URL and the style & organization of their website. The old links didn't work any more, the screenshots in my article were no longer relevant, and my description of the process of using the site was no longer correct. I have fixed all the links, taken new screenshots of the process and made a new description of the process in my article, so everything should be OK now. If you work with foreign colleagues or speak with foreign clients, I strongly recommend you take advantage of IDEA to understand their accents. It's a great (and free!) resource.
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I used to use the Microsoft Bing (Engkoo) online dictionary a lot: in my classes, I gave Bing dictionary links to words & phrases in the chat window. (I prepare in advance and have the links saved in my class notes, so that I can quickly copy & paste them into the chat window during class.) And in articles on this site, I give Bing dictionary links to words & phrases that I use in the article. In short, I used to find it very useful for teaching English online to my students in China. Some other articles of mine about Bing: But none of those links will work now, because Microsoft/Bing have changed the format of their links (URLs): not only have they introduced a new format for their links, but also they killed the old links, so clicking on one will just take you to the Bing home page. Different URL formats for Bing over time.
This is the 4th time they have done this. Four times before, they've done this; four times before, they have ruined all the links I already have in my class notes; four times before, they have ruined all the links in my articles on this website. Four times before, I have had to fix all the links in my notes (not extremely hard) and twice before I've had to fix all the links in my articles (much harder and much more time-consuming: in fact I'm not sure I've found & corrected all the links in previous formats.). I will not try fixing them all again. And unless I can find some way of automatically updating them (and keeping them automatically updated for all future changes), I will not use Bing online dictionary again. I will not invest more of my time in links for an online dictionary that keeps breaking those links. I can't even complain to them, because their own feedback link on their new-style home page doesn't even work! I'd appreciate any suggestions for alternatives. I already use Jukuu, which provides whole sentences in English, with Chinese translation. (And Jukuu has never changed the format of its links; ones I saved 3-4 years ago still work today.) But can anyone suggest something similar to Bing/Engkoo? An online dictionary, with definitions of words as well as example sentences, preferably also giving a Chinese translation. Also, I apologize to anyone browsing this site who finds lots of broken links to Bing. I will try to find them all and eliminate them (or replace them with links to another online dictionary). Update 2014-04-07: Oxford just changed the links and appearance of their Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary... but 99% of the previous Oxford links still work! The old links are automatically redirected to the new URLs. At least someone at Oxford has enough sense to to make changes in an intelligent way. What a pity I can't say the same for Microsoft. As for English<>Chinese links to give my students, I now use Baidu's dictionary: it doesn't have quite as many features as Bing, but at least the links don't keep changing every few months.
I haven't been updating this blog much, I tend to just do quick posts on my Tencent Weibo, but I will do more here in future, I promise. If I fail to do so, then complain to me :) By the way, an easy way to know if there's been an update on this blog is to use the RSS feed (the little orange button on the right-hand side of the page, or in the address bar of your browser). That way, you will be automatically notified when there's a new post; you don't have to visit the page just to check if there's been a new post or not. Here's a simple video explanation of using RSS feeds (NOT Youtube, so hopefully viewable in China).
On the Verbs page of ESL links, I noticed that some of the links for Phrasal Verbs (e.g. put out, look after, take over) weren't working. So I've fixed some, removed some and added some new ones.
Check them out here (2nd section): ESL Links > Verbs. By the way, if you ever find that any links on my site don't work anymore, please contact me and tell me, I'd appreciate it a lot :) I've been working on a series of articles to help students in understanding English spoken by people with different accents. The next installment will be on using general media (like radio, TV, movies) to get practice listening to English spoken by people from around the world. I want to find and link to a site that contains links for many online radio stations from around the world, but ones that where people speak in English. But sites that list many international online radio stations have problems (at least for my purpose). Many sites can sort by country, but not by language (so you can find stations from a specific country but they might not be in English). Other sites can sort by language, but not by country (so you can find stations in English but you might not be able to find the specific country you need). Many of the links are old and don't work any more. Some link to sites that require special software. I'll continue to investigate. The best so far seems to be WRN, which I'll try out and compare to others. Iif you have any useful links for online radio in English, or any experience with WRN or other sites, please let me know in the comments.
The main reason why there has been such a long time between Part I and Part II of my articles on explaining food is this:
I've used words for different cooking methods all my life without every thinking of the technical differences between them. The more I researched for this article, the more complicated it got. These words involve scientific questions of physics and chemistry, my least favourite subjects at school! But the next part (on baking and roasting) is coming soon, I promise. I've published the next page in the "Help with International Accents" series. It's all about "Map Your Voice". It was a project the British Library organized where anyone in the world could record their voice and upload it. People who want to listen find dots on a map of the world and click on them to hear the recording.
It's especially useful for hearing the variety of accents among native Eng Check it out here: Finished the next page of "Help with International Accents", my series to help students of English who do business with people from all around the world and have trouble understanding their various accents. The new page is about using the Speech Accent Archive, a collection of audio recordings of people from all over the world speaking in English. Let me know what you think in the comments.
Several students have mentioned their difficulties understanding accents from other countries, especially of people who are not native English speakers.
I've given a few tips before but now I've decided to create a full-length article on this issue. It's not fninished yet but I've completed the first four pages. See it here: Please let me know what you think of it in the comments section. What parts are useful? Which are not? What more would you like to see in it? I've long wanted to add a search box to my website so visitors could find things more easily.
But adding a search box to every single page seemed very complicated. Finally I realized there was another way: a specific page just for searching. It's not exactly what I wanted but it's better than nothing. To give it a try, click on "Search" in the menu on the left of the site, or click below: |
G.A.L.E.S.L. / joe3
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