(This blog is written by my former student Johnathan)
I used to be very diligent about Chinese practice (mostly thanks to Keren), but life took over, and I haven’t focused on it for the last few years. But last week ChatGPT (the pro version only, I’m afraid) released a new functionality called ChatGPT Tasks, and I thought that this might be a good way to get back to it. In summary, every day I am sent some Chinese practice which I can tune to my level. I’ll talk you through how to do this.
Again, this only works for the $20 a month version, I’m afraid, but if you have this, navigate to ChatGPT and in the top left you can click on the model that you are using, and choose ChatGPT tasks from the dropdown menu:
This is the prompt that I used in ChatGPT to create a Chinese story, but of course you can imagine adapting this in many different ways:
Once you press enter, it gives this:
You can then edit how this works:
Under the edit option you can alter the details:
In the main settings, I choose to have the notification sent via email:
But you can get a push notification on your desktop.
Each day at 9am, I receive an email from OpenAI which gives a link back to the page. When I click through it gives me what I have asked for. The first day was this:
Short Story in Chinese
汉字：一天，小兔子在森林里散步，发现了一朵非常漂亮的花。它想：“这么美丽的花，一定是森林的宝藏。”于是，小兔子每天都来给花浇水，并且陪它说话。一天，大雨把花旁的泥土冲走了，花快要倒下了。小兔子找来了树枝和绳子，把花固定好，终于救了它。从那以后，花开得更鲜艳了，小兔子也交到了更多朋友。
Pin yin Version
拼音：Yī tiān, xiǎo tùzi zài sēnlín lǐ sànbù, fāxiànle yī duǒ fēicháng piàoliang de huā. Tā xiǎng: “Zhème měilì de huā, yīdìng shì sēnlín de bǎozàng.” Yúshì, xiǎo tùzi měitiān dōu lái gěi huā jiāoshuǐ, bìngqiě péi tā shuōhuà. Yītiān, dà yǔ bǎ huā páng de nítǔ chōng zǒule, huā kuàiyào dǎoxià le. Xiǎo tùzi zhǎo lái le shùzhī hé shéngzi, bǎ huā gùdìng hǎo, zhōngyú jiù le tā. Cóng nà yǐhòu, huā kāi de gèng xiānyàn le, xiǎo tùzi yě jiāodào le gèng duō péngyǒu.
English Translation
One day, a little rabbit was walking in the forest and discovered a very beautiful flower. It thought, “Such a beautiful flower must be the treasure of the forest.” So, the little rabbit came every day to water the flower and talk to it. One day, heavy rain washed away the soil around the flower, and the flower was about to fall over. The little rabbit found some branches and rope to secure the flower and finally saved it. From then on, the flower bloomed even more brightly, and the little rabbit made many more friends.
Grammatical Points and Analysis
Verb-Object Phrases:
散步 (sànbù) – to take a walk.
浇水 (jiāoshuǐ) – to water (plants).
Resultative Complements:
发现了 (fāxiànle) – “discovered,” where 了 indicates completion.
冲走了 (chōng zǒule) – “washed away,” combining the action (冲) and result (走).
Modal Verbs and Indication of Intent:
想 (xiǎng) – “to think” or “to want,” expressing intention.
Time Words and Sequence:
一天 (yītiān) – “one day” to mark the start of an event.
从那以后 (cóng nà yǐhòu) – “from then on” to indicate a temporal shift.
Causative Constructions:
把 (bǎ):
把花固定好 (bǎ huā gùdìng hǎo) – Using 把 to indicate that the flower was secured as a result of the rabbit’s action.
Descriptive Complements:
开得更鲜艳了 (kāi de gèng xiānyàn le) – Describes the flower blooming more brightly, with 更 (gèng) emphasizing comparison.
Which, given that I’ve forgotten a lot, is very helpful, but you could think about changing the level, or topic, to whatever you want.
I use this feature of ChatGPT for a few different tasks to practice Chinese, including getting daily AI news that it has found on the web, and recent research papers on the areas of interest that I have at the moment. Overall, this is a great way to get regular input for keeping up with whatever is your passion.
Comments