Dictation Files — anyone using them?

Is anyone using the Simplified files? Will anyone but me be disappointed if the project isn’t finished?

I’m tempted to restart the project with Anniversary material. It’s online, so with any luck I can use OCR to get the text files. There’s also much more learning material available.

For those who want the Simplified project continued, the hardest step is the typing. If someone sends me the text files, I’ll happily convert them and continue the project. If not, it depends whether I stick to my resolution to actually finish learning Simplified, or give in and switch to Anni.

(by Cricket for
group greggshorthand)


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21 comments Add yours
  1. Cricket – I haven't used your files yet, but Simplified is what I'm starting, so they may well come in handy in the future.

    Depending on my supply of round tuits, I may be able to type up some exercises, too.

    Would you prefer texts from any particular edition of the manual? So far, I have the Second Edition of the Functional Method and of the standard Manual, and I've ordered several more books, among which I think are also a FIrst Edition or two.

  2. To which book? The Simplified Manual?

    If there’s a key for that floating around, I’d be interested in it, too.

    The Functional Method manual I have has a key in the back for most of the exercises (except the review ones towards the end), but the standard manual doesn’t—I didn’t even know there was a key and figured the teacher would have provided one.

  3. McBud:

    No, I don't have a scanned copy of the key to Gregg Simplified Functional, 2nd Edition. I didn't know there was one.

    A scanned copy (assuming clean enough that fixing the conversion to txt is faster than retyping) would be wonderful!

    PhilipNewton:

    If you find a good source of round tuits, please let me know where! (I suspect my habit of spending weeks at a time on low-priority interests might be the real problem.)

    I'm doing Gregg Simplified Functional, 2nd Edition for my own use. A sample is here:
    http://greggshorthand.multiply.com/journal/item/1599/Dictation_Files_Simplified_Chapter_20_40-90_wpm

    As you can see, I include enough information that a user of the same version but different edition can tell if it's the same passage.

    As for other books, I'm willing to convert any text files available. I put all the txt files (one per passage) in a folder, tell the program to run, and 30 minutes later I have a full set of sound files. (Yes, it's useful having a husband who is a programmer.)

  4. Cricket: I dashed off a couple of chapters' worth of assignments and sent them to you – let me know whether you got them. (If not, perhaps let me know your email address.)

    Also if you'd prefer them in a different format, e.g. with blank lines between paragraph breaks rather than "Para."

  5. Philip: Many thanks! They came through fine. I usually use a single carriage return between paragraphs. I'll edit the files you sent. The program leaves a longish break (as for end of sentence), then puts in the word "para".

    I'm currently uploading a full set of sound files for the Progressive Dictation. If I'm lucky, I'll get the sound files up tonight. If not, tomorrow morning.

  6. I only have the standard 2nd edition manual, but if any of the texts from that would be useful, let me know. I've done so much typing of three and four words at a time lately that some continuous typing practice would be useful. : )

  7. Nisew, if you type them I'll covert and upload. I didn't bother with the early chapters since 40wpm can be reached just by copying. (I reached 50 by copying plates, and gained 10wpm just by using sound files.)

    Check the posts of each upload before typing. They have a summary of each passage. The manuals share early passages but slightly different numbering, and there's no sense duplicating when a cross-reference would do.

    A chart cross-referencing chapter and passage across each Simplified manual might be useful, too.

    Cricket

  8. I'll see what I can do. My supply of round tuits is as unreliable as any, but the 'three with one blow' aspect of combining typing practice, transcription practice, and contributing something useful might help.

    Anything I run into by way of cross-referencing, I'll jot down and pass along.

  9. I'd forgotten that experiment. Acrobat converted this PDF well-enough, but early attempts weren't as good. (Insert very quick math.) It's another 12 hours of typing — probably worth a few experiments with our scanner. That will cover to assignment 54. The rest, through 70, isn't in the students book.

  10. Here's a start at the cross-referencing.
    http://www.cricket.onebit.ca/Shorthand/Gs2
    Ignore the links to the sound files — they took too much room on the server so they're now on Multiply.

    The resulting chart looks good, but is a pain to edit.

    Multiply doesn't have tables. Any votes on GoogleDocs, YahooGroups or other site that others can add to? Just for tables and things Multiply doesn't do well. Conversations would stay here.

  11. You can create tables in Multiply. Follow this link. You need to embed html code. Also for the File Name column, I would recommend eliminating that column and just converting the Theory/Passage Column to links that one can click.

    Let me know if you need help with this.

  12. In case anyone doubted my sanity, yesterday I experimented a bit more and found a scanning / conversion path that was (usually) faster than typing. (The free text-to-sound offer is still only for proof-read text, not image files.)

    The rest of gsf2's transcription is now "typed", and I'm 1/10 done proof-reading. Most pages are decent. Some need retyping. This is only to assignment 54, the last one with new theory. I don't have the transcriptions for the rest. The book is still sold new, so I won't post the txt files.

    The plan is to convert them all to sound files at 40-90wpm. Slower can be done through copying plates. Faster is best done after you know all the theory.

    At this point, I'm inclined to ignore phrasing. Yes, the speech sounds unnatural, but the total time for the file works, and students need to learn to think in phrases, not rely on the dictator to do it for them. (The real reason: even though it's theoretically easy to program, the last "easy" change to the program took several hours.)

    If anyone is willing to do the work to convert the program to use other voices, let me know. In theory, it's easy. The programs are in Python 2.7.

    1. I haven't posted those files because they would occupy too much space in the free portion of Google Docs. Another alternative at the present is to make them available through Soundcloud, but Soundcloud is a paid service. For those reasons, I haven't made them available.

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