Language game question ideas?

Question

Recently I noticed our sister site Spanish SE has come up with a translation-golf game-type question.

There's a introduction/explanation for their translation-golf game on their meta site, which, in part, reads:

In a recent question in Spanish Language, and based on the Code Golf stack, I came up with the idea of creating a game-like type of questions in which the goal is to translate a text from another language into Spanish, using the least possible number of characters while respecting the original meaning of the sentence.

There are also a list of rules here.

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This is an idea.

Based on character count it would pose quite a challenge, especially for Chinese.

Any ideas or opinions?

Other ideas? Concepts?

Answer 1

One factor that you could use in scoring an entry is how simple the vocabulary is. Translating with a basic vocabulary would be good for new learners, and a larger vocabulary would be good for advanced learners. Either score higher for simpler vocabulary, or score in multiple categories.

I built a simple tool for highlighting the vocabulary level of Chinese text while you're editing it. I called it Pinyincushion, because naming things is hard. It's based on XKCD's Simple Writer.

Answer 2

may i suggest "文言句讀"

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000096985

in the past, before punctuation marks were introduced, text in chinese books were not interrupted by comma, full stop, or paragraph. students need to do the pause & stop by themselves (with helps from their teacher). it's one of the important methods to master the literary chinese.

here's an example:

question: how to 句讀 the following text, mark it

盛而命生以披世
　燎是泰迪舊道
　奄盼烏後帙如
　奄幽乎蓋以斯
　之幽人天承孰
　文之事道前不
　運星既往奮太
　應火盡還筆息
　際待歟否遵惟
　復時聽極古勤

the possible answer would be:

際而盼﹒往筆惟世
復燎﹒人還遵勤道
盛﹒幽事﹒古披如
　奄幽既否以舊斯
　奄之盡極迪帙﹒
　之星歟生後以孰
　文火﹒泰﹒承不
　運﹒聽﹒蓋前太
　﹒待命烏天﹒息
　應時是乎道奮﹒

i prefer text in vertical layout, cause, one must understand the meaning of the text, in order to "play" the game.

further, we may set up another question to ask about particular word's meaning.

have fun :)

Answer 3

Translation practice.

(Similar to translation golf, but hopefully less competitive and more about learning than minimizing characters.)

一。 Question: Take an interesting, relatively simple (jargonless) paragraph. Here's one from George Orwell's 1984:

He sat back. A sense of complete helplessness had descended upon him. To begin with, he did not know with any certainty that this was 1984. It must be round about that date, since he was fairly sure that his age was thirty-nine, and he believed that he had been born in 1944 or 1945; but it was never possible nowadays to pin down any date within a year or two.

Find an official Chinese translation (in spoiler space):

他身子往后一靠。一阵束手无策的感觉袭击了他。首先是，他一点也没有把握，今年是不是1984年。大致是这个日期，因为他相当有把握地知道，自已的年龄是三十九岁，而且他相信他是在1944年或1945年生的。但是，要把任何日期确定下来，误差不出一两年，在当今的时世里，是永远办不到的。

Together, these form the question.

二。 Answers contain two things:

1. The answerer provides their own translation of the original snippet written without help from the official translation, nor any other answers. We trust them not to cheat.

2. An answerer writes their own translation in spoiler space (without looking at the translation) and gives a self-critique after looking at the translations (what did you learn?), e.g.:

   • explain your decisions [word and grammar choices; writing style; whether you were faithful to the text or chose less-faithful but more frequently used Chinese terminology, etc.],
   • explain what you feel you did well, perhaps better than the official translation (and other answers),
   • explain what you feel you did poorly.

三。 Votes: We upvote answers which uncover important lessons (particularly those useful to future readers).

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I haven't completely thought this idea through, but I think I would enjoy participating, and I feel like I would learn from seeing other people's answers: they're facing the same challenge. It might also help identify hidden weaknesses.

Answer 4

Reading club

Another potentially fun activity is a kind of "reading club", where we pick some text, topic, author, etc., and read the material together over a month or two, say.

This is comparable to Literature.SE which has a topic challenge...

• The community votes on which topic to pursue: Suggest your Lit.SE reading challenges here!
• The current challenge is here: Announcing the January–February 2020 topic challenge: Lin Yutang (林语堂), which coincidentally includes Chinese texts.

For Chinese.SE, I'd suggest something like a short story [maybe just a few pages], to ensure most people can participate. Something without too much "uneducational language" (obscure idioms, grammar constructs, transliterated names, etc.).

Answer 5

Contribute to CC-EDICT

(Not really a "game"...)

CC-EDICT is a free English-Chinese dictionary: you can download the whole thing from here. (You've probably seen it used in various places Yabla, Zhongwen Chinese Popup Dictionary, etc.)

Additions and modifications can be submitted by users, and are subsequently reviewed and corrected by editors prior to updating the dictionary. It seems like we could use Q&A here to contribute (create new definitions, and check and improve old ones), although we'd have to improve our answer quality---CC-EDICT has high standards. ("A random person on the Internet said XYZ" is not good enough.)

It was my motivation behind asking this question: Does the chengyu 话不投机 (huà bù tóu jī) mean "uncongenial speech"? I submitted the change, but it's still pending, so I expect there's a bit of a backlog.

Answer 6

Chat room: Chinese-definition bot

Back in the ol' IRC days, I wrote a trivia bot. However, I repurposed for learning biological terminology: it'd post a definition as a question, and whoever answered first "wins".

My bot was different in one important way: it simultaneously ran 3 questions. This way, (a) if there was a question you didn't know the answer to, you didn't have to sit around doing nothing; (b) you had to think quick [it was fast and fun], while there are distractions [not just a pristine learning environment]; and (c) the fastest typers didn't always win.

I feel like this should be possible in chat here. E.g. we could simultaneously run HSK-4, HSK-5, and HSK-6 questions: the "questions" are definitions, and the answers are the words in Chinese.

One downside is that bots are not really supported...

Well, more or less chats are a terrible terrible hack.
_{Journeyman Geek♦}

Answer 7

Textbook paragraphs are boring---let's show them how it's done!

Chinese textbooks are boring. I mean really boring---so much so, I often think to myself "I feel like I could write better than this" (although I could be deluding myself). I'd be interested in reading more imaginative, vivid, and fun paragraphs. How can we do this?

An example challenge:

1. The task is to write one paragraph in Chinese.
2. You must only use HSK4 words. (Or words which are obviously at <=HSK4 levels, but not included in the list.)
3. It must include the new words 大约, 餐厅, 纸袋, 袋子, 互联网, 进行, 错误. (This is the list of 生词 from the book 标准教程HSK4下, chapter 13, snippet 4.)

(Replace the "HSK4" restriction and the list of words as required.)

The challenge is to create more enjoyable and memorable paragraphs than the textbook. I.e., make it funny, give it an actual plot, include surprises, etc. Use your imagination and creativity.

I feel like having multiple alternative paragraphs would be of lasting benefit to future readers who are studying the same book.

Answer 8

"Complete the sentence" challenges

This idea is somewhat like "Cards Against Humanity". We construct a sentence with quirky constraints, and the challenge is to come up with imaginative (and hopefully hilarious) sentences satisfying the unorthodox constraints. Upvotes determines who wins.

As an example of what I have in mind:

It must start with one of...

1. 核武器的扩散是... ("Nuclear proliferation is...")
2. 回家之后我才发现... ("After returning home, I just then found...")
3. 我的光屁股... ("My naked bottom...")
4. 六年以前，张老师和我前男友... ("Six years ago, Teacher Zhang and my ex-boyfriend...")

It must contain one of...

1. 性感 ("sexy")
2. 钢琴家 ("pianist")
3. 诗 ("poetry")
4. 长颈鹿 ("giraffe")

It must end with one of...

1. ...但他还活着! ("...but he's still alive!")
2. ...所以我再也不会喝酒。 ("...therefore I won't drink alcohol again.")
3. ...写完一本书。 ("...finished writing a book.)
4. ...因此我穿上厚衣服。 ("...therefore I'm wearing thick clothes.")

Answer 9

There's a lot of Chinese language-learning crosswords appearing on Reddit at the moment (e.g. HSK4 Crossword)---I tried this one and it was reasonable, although I didn't completely finish it.

We could create our own similar crosswords and post those as questions. Or perhaps the author of these crosswords might be willing to post them.

(The ownership rights remain with the OP.)

Answer 10

I'm wondering if we could collaborate on writing a short story. E.g., we take turns writing a paragraph, and submit it as a question to the main site for writing-critique. (Or use whatever other method.) And we add the paragraphs here on meta to form a short story.

I find the writing-critique posts quite useful, especially for (a) finding answers to questions I hadn't thought to ask [or are not easily asked about], (b) identifying personal weaknesses I'm unaware of, (c) being able to compare opinions, and (d) learning about better word choices and phrasings.