Using Ni Hao Personal Language Lab
This programme is designed to let students practice all spoken aspects of the Ni Hao series and is presented lesson by lesson with all conversations, drills and vocabulary easily accessible.
Before you begin It is important that your microphone, speakers/headphones are correctly connected to your computer.
The choice of microphone is particularly important and the purchase of a good quality electret type is recommended. A Mic/Headphones combo should be considered if using this software in a noisy environment or where other people can be disturbed. Should your computer support USB then a suitable adapter for use with a microphone is recommended rather than using the computers sound card as many new PCs exhibit poor quality recording at microphone level.
Ensure that your computer is correctly configured to record audio from the microphone. Please consult your systems manual for information.
The textbook
This software requires the Ni Hao textbook. After the programme is launched and a lesson has been selected, the lesson and page information at the top right of the screen refers to the lesson and page number in the textbook. As the textbook layout is "portrait" and the software layout is "landscape" there may be two or more screen pages referring to the one textbook page.
To start
Insert the CD into your computers CD drive. Locate the application and double click its icon to launch the programme. The programme will launch and the lesson selection will be displayed.
To quit
Choose File > Quit for Macintosh or File > Exit for Windows
Running the programme
Generally, text in blue is clickable.
After the programme has loaded and a lesson has been chosen, the first dialog for that lesson will appear on screen. You can begin by clicking one of the blue text buttons located on the left of screen.
If you click on a sentence within the dialog, the sentence will be framed in blue and said by a native speaker.
If you click on the persons name to the left of a sentence, roleplay mode will be initiated. See below for further information.
Controlling the programme
On screen buttons located at the left of the application window control the operation of the programme.
Lessons To go back to the lessons menu.
Previous Page To go to the previous page
Next Page To go to the next page
Stop To stop the current action.
Play To hear the native speaker say each sentence. Each sentence is framed in blue when said by the native speaker.
Repeat After Me Each sentence will be framed by a blue rectangle as it is said by the native speaker. After each sentence, the frame will change to red and this is your cue to say the sentence. Wait for the red frame before saying the sentence.
After all the sentences have been done each sentence will be replayed first with the native speaker framed in blue then your recording framed in green.
Roleplay To initiate Roleplay click on the persons name to the left of a line of text.
Every line of text which has a vertical red line on the left is preset to record. When the Roleplay button is clicked the line of text without the red line will be said by the native speaker. The text with the red line will blank and automatically go to record with the red frame as your cue to repeat that line of text. This will continue to the end of the passage. To cancel Roleplay click the persons name again.
Review For each sentence, the native speaker audio is played and is framed in blue followed by your recording framed in green.
Replay For each sentence, your recording is played and is framed in green.
(The programme will skip over those sentences that you did not record.)
Control Key with mouse click. Recording begins immediately then replayed. On Windows computers, and Macintosh computers with a two button mouse, click the right mouse button.
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