Using the Forum to share/work on transcribing and translating song lyrics?

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Continuing the discussion from Help transcribing (and translating) "Mogoya" by Oumou Sangaré?:

Perhaps this Forum would be a good place to share/work on translations of lyrics? We could create a special category for it if we got enough traction?

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I think perhaps it would! :blush: Are you and I not enough traction? I have the Bambara/English text from my other videos that we could use to start that special category.

I actually have more Bambara/English text for songs that I haven’t posted yet… need help that is not readily accessible to me at the moment. If I continue to do the ground work and produce the rough drafts will you polish them for me?

I guess we would have to do that privately so that no one would take our work initially and it’d tremendously help me do what I enjoy doing on my YouTube channel and also give you more exposure…

What do you think about us partnering together on the music translation aspect of Bambara? Let me know!

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I ni ce, Christy!

The short answer is that yes it could be fun to partner on the music translation aspect! :slight_smile:

I’ve got two questions and I’ll start with the big one:

1) What’s the output that we want to shoot for?

In addition to any YouTube videos that you make (assuming that’s what you want to keep doing), do we want there to be a text version of the transcription and translation that lives in the internet as a webpage?

If so, where should it live? One idea that comes to mind is that we could do something like the following:

  • a YouTube video with transcription/translation like you’ve been doing on your channel
  • a webpage/blogpost on the An ka taa site that has an embed of your YouTube video followed by the finalized text version
  • a section of AKT website / category of the AKT blog that would link to all the individual songs with their transcription/translation and your videos

(A less polished alternative would be to just post the lyrics and their translations in this Forum.)

2) Where should we do the work?

At first, I was thinking that we could do things in this Forum like this:

  • Someone posts a draft set of lyrics as a forum topic in the special lyrics category
  • Others post feedback/edits/improvements in the same topic
  • At the end, we’d have a single (likely, messy) topic documenting all the work done and any open questions and doubts about a particular song’s lyrics

We can still use the Forum this way even if we have a more polished output like the webpage example I outlined above (in fact, we could have a link between the polished page and the Forum topic in case people wanna go back or ask more questions), but another option would be something like this:

  • You share a draft set of lyrics with the Forum/me as a GoogleDoc
  • We work behind the scenes to get the transcription and translation as accurate as possible
  • At the end, we share the lyrics as a YouTube video on your channel and a webpage on the AKT site (or in the Forum as a locked post or something)

Ok, that’s a lot. Let me know what you think! If it’s better, we can move this to email or even set up a time to discuss on a call if it’s easier. The biggest hurdle for me is time and so knowing that we would be working towards something that would become a resource for students and speakers of Manding is important! :slight_smile:

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Great! We would, most definitely, be working towards something that would become a resource for students and speakers of Manding!

Music is a fun way to incorporate learning! Reading, writing, listening, and speaking (vocabulary list, slang, idioms, grammar, pronunciation, homonyms, context, etc.).

When I get the opportunity, I’m going to do street side karaoke on my YouTube channel. Lol! The platform is being prepared! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Fun! Fun! Fun!:dancer:t5:

To answer your questions:

  • Maybe one or two per month? I’m still working on my listening skills. :wink:

  • Yes @ a text version of the transcription and translation that lives in the internet as a webpage.

  • A section of AKT website / category of the AKT blog that would link to all the individual songs with their transcription/translation and my videos.

  • I share a draft set of lyrics with you. We work behind the scenes to get the transcription and translation as accurate as possible.

  • At the end, we share the lyrics as a YouTube video on my channel and a webpage on the AKT site.

Love it! Let me know what you think. Oh! And, email would be better for me.

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Awesome! Sounds like a plan. You can email me at coleman at ankataa (you know the rest!) – maybe start by sending me one song that you are currently working on as a GoogleDoc (with a link to the music ideally)?

Excited by the idea of it becoming a little library of videos and text lyrics for people! :slight_smile:

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2 posts were split to a new topic: Adding words from lyrics to the dictionary?

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3 posts were merged into an existing topic: Help transcribing (and translating) “Mogoya” by Oumou Sangaré?

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So, I have an idea but please tell me if it doesn’t make sense. I am working with a faculty member in Bamako, Welore Tamboura. She has several university students who are eager to improve their English. I can ask her if they would be interested in the music translation project. What do you think?

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Hi Steve! Thanks for chiming in with a cool idea :slightly_smiling_face:

We never really updated this discussion in the Forum, but basically Christy and I’s back and forth here turned into the Manding Language Lyrics Library.

In the end, we haven’t been using the Forum for the purposes of the figuring out the lyrics because it is a little messy and our edits and guesses along the way aren’t the kind of thing that other people need to find or see before the final version of a song if completed and posted as a YouTube video and webpage.

Sometimes we do have specific sections or lines that we have trouble with though and in that case, it would be great to be able to post in the Forum and get responses from others.

In that sense, it would be great to have people that are speakers of Manding and English join the Forum to help build knowledge about the language via discussion of translation, word usage, terminology equivalency, etc! :nerd_face:

So I’d say that you could mention the Forum to students that you or Dr. Tamboura know, with the caveat that it isn’t a place to learn English, but that some of the discussions within it could be helpful and that they themselves might have questions about how to translate an English turn of phrase into Bambara.

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A post was split to a new topic: Connecting with Bambara-speaking students on HelloTalk?

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a ni tile, everyone,

also would be great if any forum member could add songs to the library and update / edit, just like wikipedia.

for me, right now, 3 songs fill my days and nights :slight_smile:

habib koite - batoumambe
oumou sangare - sabu
bassekou kouyate - kanto kelena

and would love to the add these to the library.

so excited to learn bambara through songs!!!

so grateful for coleman’s historical (yes!) initiative :slight_smile: endless energy and attention for every detail :pray:

may you all be healthy,
greetings from hungary,

k’an ben,
boka

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I’ve created a “Lyrics Staging” category with wiki topics, so that you can share what you are working on and edit it here!

I think that the Lyrics Library itself will continue to live separately at Manding Language Lyrics Library — An ka taa and that Christy and I will keep using private GoogleDocs to work on what we are adding to it (at least for now), but if you want to share your own work there, go ahead and maybe people can join in or we will draw on your work for future Lyrics Library additions! :slight_smile: Just an idea; let’s see how it goes! If need be, we’ll modify, archive or close the category down the road!

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