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[LongShiKong]

I bought a Wordsmith Tools licence back in 2006 when it was still sold by Oxford University Press and played around with it but it's only been recently where I see applications. I've mostly taught kids at lower levels since then and hadn't had much use for it.

One application is for courseware comparison and script analyses: movie, TV, TED, (speech-recognized) podcasts, etc. I know I may have to ask their sales dept. but given what I'd written on my Vocab Lists - Actual vs Recom'd thread, it would be nice to be able to compare the ratio of B1 (and below) to B2 (and above). Or to extract A1-B1 from a concordanced list that could then be run through (hopefully) an improved version of that multi-definition entry look up tool I mentioned on this thread.

The other is to run email correspondence through it to prove a point (to myself and others) about the nature of certain members discourse.

BTW: I'd post this on the Tech and Linguistics Forums but googling the string reveals no one's ever mentioned the product on this site and this is the most widely read forum so I thought I'd start here.

[LongShiKong]

@Fluffyhamster: You mentioned HSK (Chinese proficiency tests) recently. I'm wondering what corpus (if any:?) HSK vocabulary lists were generated from? Back in a sec....

...I'm back.

Wikipedia doesn't say but it seems whoever developed the HSK tests may not be that proficient in Chinese themselves, that is, if they consider a beginner to be an intermediate and an intermediate to be advanced according to Wikipedia:

Estimates of equivalent CEFR levels[edit]
In 2010, Hanban stated that the HSK's six levels correspond on a one-to-one basis with the six levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR)[6][18][19] This statement has been rejected by both the German and the French association of Chinese language teachers, which argue that HSK level 6 is equivalent to CEFR level B2 or C1.

HSK level Hanban estimate German est. French est.
6 C2 B2 B2-C1
5 C1 B1 B1
4 B2 A2 A2
3 B1 A1 A1-A2
2 A2 A1.1 A1.1
1 A1[22] Below A1 Below A1

Following criticism, the Hanban 2012's edition doesn't contain the former claim of one-to-one relationship between HSK and CEFR levels.

PS: I've copied this post as this thread on the China Off-Topic Forum as I could not locate 'hanban' anywhere on this site.

[fluffyhamster]

So you have just two applications in mind, one of which is to 'run email correspondence through it to prove a point (to myself and others) about the nature of certain members discourse'? You don't think that sounds a bit odd or off? But hey, I hope that it at least confirms that everyone but Japanese learners uses 'the' unfailingly frequently!

[fluffyhamster]

TBH I'm personally not that interested in the HSK, and remarked only the other day to an email buddy about how it was funny that it used to have more levels but then magically reformatted itself to apparently more correspond to the CEF (and I'd been looking at the exact same Wiki page that you have LOL). They've done themselves out of income, I tell ya (but maybe the streamlining will ultimately help rake more in)! And I have a sneaking suspicion that 'blackboard' and 'chopsticks' are in different levels, while at the highest level there is probably vocab like 'nightdress worn in Shang era that doubled as fishing net and crossbow string'. Re. your 'it seems whoever developed the HSK tests may not be that proficient in Chinese themselves...if they consider a beginner to be an intermediate and an intermediate to be advanced', it's developed by that <GASP> Hanban though isn't it? Chinese native speakers and all that (not necessarily always the best teachers tho). Smacks again of hasty shoehorning is all. IIRC I've read similar comments (about the new HSK level 6 being only equivalent to CEFR level B2 or C1 at most) over on Chinese-Forums.

I've played around a bit with a free programme called AntConc, but I haven't checked how it compares functions-wise to Wordsmith.