Future Impact

It is easier for English speakers to learn Chinese via letters, easier for Chinese speakers to learn English via characters

Problem:

The Chinese Romanization System used by all students in China only applies to Mandarin Chinese, and the system itself has created additional problems for English learners in China. For instance, the Romanization system does not distinguish between the vowels in /sit/ and /seat/ or between /mug/ and /meg/, among others.

几乎所有的中国学生所使用的汉语拼音系统仅适用于普通话,它给中国人学英语带来了更多的问题,例如拼音系统并不能区分sit和seat以及mug和meg之中的元音。

Solution:

Pinying uses common Chinese characters that have only one standard pronunciation. By using characters instead of ambiguous letters, students always know exactly which sounds to pronounce and in which order. This use of characters also allows students to differentiate between British and American accents, which are often randomly mixed in China. 

“拼英”选择那些只有一个标准发音的汉字。通过使用这些汉字而非那些模棱两可的字母,学生可以清楚知道发什么音以及按什么顺序发音。这种方式也可以让学生区分英式英语和美式英语,之前这两者在中国是混用的。

Problem:

中国最为流行的音韵字母表是国际音标(IPA)。而在西方由于复杂度和符号的任意性以及学习的困难度,这套系统只限于被专业语言学家所使用。在中国,这些符号的教学过程也经常错误百出。

The most common phonetic alphabet in China is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). In the West, the complexity of this system limits its use to professional linguists due to its reliance on arbitrary symbols that are difficult to learn. In China, these symbols are often taught incorrectly. 

Solution:

不用再学习三套互不兼容又易相互混淆的罗马字母拼写系统(拼音,英语拼写以及国际音标),使用“拼英”学英语的学生只需要集中注意力学习用于英文读写的拼写系统,并使用以汉字来学习标准英语的发音。

Rather than learning three confusingly incompatible Romanization systems (Pinyin, English spelling, and IPA), students who use Pinying can simply focus on learning English spelling for reading and writing, and on a Chinese character-based phonetic script to accurately map out standard English pronunciations.

Problem:

The problems most Chinese speakers have learning English are created by the way English and Chinese are taught in Chinese schools.

中文母语者学习英语过程中遇到的绝大部分问题正是在中国课堂的教学过程中所产生的。

Solution:

Forest Path Studio technologies will help children learn to spell with both Chinese and English characters from the beginning to avoid creating the problems that typically hold students back. The Seedling allows children to learn Chinese and English phonetics at the same time through visual, tactile, interactive, and multimodal tools. Blocks can be stacked into words vertically or be entered into the Seedling, which pronounces each block as well as any words the blocks spell. 

道林科技(Forest Path Studio)将帮助中国的孩子们从一开始就学习汉字和英语的正确发音, 从而避免那些阻碍学习的常见问题出现。“Seedling” 学习机让孩子们通过视觉、触觉、互动式和多模型学习工具来同时学习汉语和英语发音。发音积木既可以纵向叠加来组成英语单词,也可以放置在 “Seedling” 学习机上来发出一个完整的单词发音。

Seedling block

Seedling prototype.