There is a particular (and some might say peculiar) structure to the raw recordings, which makes it easy for other people preparing the version for Lingopolo:
- record every word/phrase prefixed by the English equivalent (so that someone will know for sure what the foreign word following is)
- then record every word/phrase in the target language (e.g. French) twice (this ensures that the person editing later will be able to have a spare copy if one is not recorded very well)
- a full breakdown of every word in any phrase should be provided (omitting only words known to be already in Lingopolo)
- words with apostrophe need particular care in the breakdown (see http://lingopolo.com/french/where-and-when-to-do-the-breakdown-of-words…)
Always saying the word/phrase in English ensures that for all those non-native speakers, it is possible to easily process recordings. There is then no doubt what a particular word in French is supposed to be. It just makes life a lot easier for someone processing the recording. The English translation does not need to be perfect at this stage, since the English here is only to help the person processing the recording.
Always saying the word in the target language twice ensures that there is always a choice of which is the best recording to use. Sometimes the quality of one will be a bit better than the other. Sometimes one will have some unwanted background noise, or the intonation will sound a bit strange. By always having the word/phrase recording twice, the person doing the processing will be able to always pick the best one.
The breakdown is needed for every phrase, so that every word is also available.
It may sound pretty simple, and ultimately it is, but it's very easy to miss something to begin with, so go for quality before quantity!
Examples:
In the following examples, the English is shown in UPPERCASE and commas are just added for clarity here but of course do not need to be said:
- "MONDAY, lundi, lundi"
- "TUESDAY, mardi, mardi"
- "A DOG, un chien, un chien, A, un un, DOG, chien chien" (notice the breakdown even here. Probably "A" already exists so could be omitted, but it is better to add every word than forget to do one)
- "I THINK HE IS TAKING A TAXI, Je crois qu'il prend un taxi, Je crois qu'il prend un taxi, I, je je, THINK, crois crois, THAT HE, qu'il, qu'il, TAKING, prend, prend, A, un, un, TAXI, taxi, taxi, THAT, que, que, HE, il, il" (notice here that "qu'il" is first recorded as a single word, then broken down itself as que + il)