Collaborate / Volunteer
Translating
Pictorial Guide translators are needed! New versions of the existing guides are being developed and new ones are being added. You can help review and edit translations through the pictorial wiki. In addition help is needed translating the site interface and complementary vocabulary page - click on the tabs of the pictorial wiki.
The following languages are next in line for new pictorial guides. For now you can help translate the site interface and complementary vocabulary guide pages into these languages.
Register to be notified when work begins on other languages.
Importing Words
As mentioned in the Translating section, the existing guides are being updated. Not all the existing translations could be imported into the new online system, which means they'll have to be entered manually. You can help in this process by taking the data.js file you find in each directory (here for example), pasting it into Komposer, then copying the displayed translations into the online pictorial wikis (see the links in the translating section). Feel free to send an email to Tom if you have any questions or would like to coordinate with him.
Suggesting Words / Phrases
You can suggest words, phrases, sentences and expressions for the complementary vocabulary pages (present in the English and French guide). A wiki is soon to be launched to assist with this process but in the meantime send any suggestions to Tom. The words and sentences are all to be released either under a creative commons licence which will be determined soon. (Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm trying to decide wheather to limit use to only non-commercial use and completely open it up.)
The decision on which words to include will be made through a process of editorial review. The most common words and phrases are certainly needed, but advanced terms can be added as well. One possibility is to have two levels of difficulty with the most common words being on the first page, and then an additional page giving the student a more in-depth exposure to a particular domain.
Contribute your Voice
This fall, Language Guide is going to be in Paris In addition, excursions will be made to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, and Milan. If live in any of those cities and would like to contribute your voice, please contact Tom Blackmon at languageguide.org@gmail.com.
If you have your own recording equipment, you can submit your own recordings. The sound cards on most computers are not sufficient to produce high quality recordings. I recommend either a condenser microphone that connects directly to a USB port, or an audio interface and a condenser microphone. Unless it's built into the microphone, you'll probably also want to use a pop-screen. You can choose to have the audio released under a creative commons license or make it public domain.
Finding Readings
Help is needed in finding and composing interactive readings. The goal is to create readings for all languages in a wide variety of subjects. Add readings to the main wiki under the 'potential readings' headline. If you add a reading for a new language, create a subheading for that language.
The wikipedia and other material released under a creative common or GPL liscense are ideal sources for interactive readings. High quality copyrighted works might also be used if permission has been given - please contact Tom in that case. In creating readings from the wikipedia, I sometimes simplify the language a bit and make it more conversational.
Sound Integration
The interactive readings are being converted into a new format which allows users to see the word that is being read among other improvements. Converting the readings to the new format requires going through a sound-integration process - first a rough draft is created and then it is fine-tuned so that information on the exact location in the sound track where a word begins is recorded. The following readings need fine-tuning. At this time, the sound integration requires Safari because of its outstanding support for Html5 audio. (The best web-site experience is also offered by safari.)
French
Programming / Development
The wiki for developing interactive readings and the scripts to run them have been released under the GPL3 and are hosted on google code - interactive-readings.