User talk:Hongtran0507

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! 14:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Hello

Hello. I recently came across your translation of Vietnamese poetry, which I see you've done a great deal of work on. Thanks. (I also took a peek at the disappointingly bureaucratic peer review.) Perhaps you've moved on by now, but I'm interested in improving this article. I've already made a small addition, and a few notes on the talk page (and some on paper). But as I note there, I don't know any Vietnamese (well, I know "pho tai" but I pronounce it as badly as I spell it). I do however have a good understanding of technical issues of versification. If you would like to help me out, please let me know. Oh, and regarding what to write on your user page... since clearly you know at least 2 languages, I recommend starting with a Wikipedia:Babel template, so other editors can see where you're coming from, linguistically. Phil wink (talk) 04:41, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi there Phil, sorry I totally neglected to check in the past four years. I started this the summer before college and I just graduated now. Thank you for your kind encouragement. I'm heartened you want to improve on this. Let me know if you want to start working together. And yes I'll learn how to put the six languages I know on the Babel template. What are you working on right now? Hongtran0507 (talk) 04:26, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Welcome back. Normally responses on talk pages are indented with an initial colon (as this line is)...

(and subsequent responses with additional colons)

...so that the thread is more clear. Coverage of poetry (in my view) is pretty weak here on Wikipedia and, naturally, as one gets further from topics directly related to majority-English-speaking countries, the worse the coverage tends to get. So topics like Vietnamese poetry are really in need of dedicated editors. So I'm glad you're back. Is verse a special interest of yours, or just an article you somehow got roped into translating?

Right now, I'm kind of in-between projects, so I should have some time to devote to Vietnamese poetry. Recently I created List of English translations of De Rerum Natura, and have put in my 2 cents on a rather technical issue at Talk:Iambic pentameter#Changes to metrical examples. If you care, I have links to most of my other work at the bottom of my user page. I don't do a ton of work on Wikipedia, but I try to be useful.

For starters, I recommend you review the sections I re-wrote and my 2 notes on the talk page to see if 1) I made mistakes, 2) I made improvements that suggest other improvements you could make elsewhere, or 3) you can resolve the few issues in those sections that I've noted as uncertain. Another note is: if memory serves, Vietnamese words are always (or almost always?) 1 syllable. In the discussion of poetic forms, it will make much more sense to English readers if lines are characterized by number of "syllables" rather than number of "words" -- even if this is the same in Vietnamese. This is because in English, lines structured by word count would have no consistent rhythmic character (they would essentially be free verse), whereas lines structured by syllable count are completely familiar. If I'm right about 1 word = 1 syllable, I recommend you note this near the beginning of the technical discussion, then use "syllable" rather than "word" throughout the article when discussing line length and character. I'm happy to discuss other issues, too, but further discussion of Vietnamese poetry in particular should take place on the article's talk page so any future editors can see what's going on. Cheers. Phil wink (talk) 18:42, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Phil, I will reply you with a fuller response, but just a quick question: how do I properly attribute the article to the page "Tho", since this English page is mainly a translation of the Vietnamese content on the page "Tho". Or how do I make use of the interlanguage links to show that the two pages are one and the same? I was trying to do these, but could not get it to work. I'm sorry I'm so technologically challenged. Thank you so much Phil! If you could make the edits directly yourself, that would be greatly appreciated.Hongtran0507 (talk) 17:15, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but back in the day I looked this up because I noticed that instruction on the peer review. At that time I put a notice on the talk page (you can see it floating just below the big boxes at the top of the talk page). So as far as I can tell this is resolved, and you don't have to do anything about it. Don't worry. Everything on Wikipedia is technical, and no one know how to do any of it until they learn. Luckily, most of the documentation is pretty good... but FINDING it in the first place (I think) takes a bit of practice. Phil wink (talk) 18:29, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Phil, thank you for the revisions in the Rhyme section! They're extremely on point. I would not have guessed that it was written by a non-Vietnamese speaker. You seem to have intuited Vietnamese poetry even without speaking the language. Again your expert understanding is hardly surprising, since you have worked tirelessly on other wiki pages about poetry as well. I guess poetic devices are more or less universal. Thank you so much again! I read all of them and am very impressed. I have tried changing most of the "word"s that actually mean "syllable" in the text. Feel free to make such changes. I have also rewritten certain parts. I wrote this five years ago when my English was even more awkward than it is now. It was a personal project; I adore Vietnamese folk poetry and am so grateful to be given such a remarkable literary heritage.Hongtran0507 (talk) 14:52, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome -- but clicking "thank" once is plenty. Please remember to sign your posts on talk pages with ~~~~, and to include a brief description of your edits (to all pages) in the edit summary. I don't mean to be a dick, these little things just give other editors a much better picture of what's going on.

Luckily, I've got a few brief but useful texts on hand -- in my experience most people can't intuit their own verse traditions, so I would never dare to intuit another's! I'm glad you're enthusiastic about Vietnamese poetry, because the work on this article is just beginning and I hope you'll stick with me. Over the next day or two I hope to put together some major tasks that we can split up. Broadly, I can be responsible for English style and for funky formatting -- you will sometimes have to explain confusing parts of the article, and keep reviewing my edits to make sure I'm not missing important points... and we'll split up the specific tasks as we see fit. Of course, you don't owe Wikipedia anything, but I hope you'll bear with me and stay with the article, because Wikipedia can have excellent coverage of Vietnamese poetry, and just now, you and I are its only hope. See you on the talk page. Phil wink (talk) 06:05, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Works for me! How shall we proceed?Hongtran0507 (talk) 15:29, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I've posted my general plan of attack on the article talk page. If you have good sources available, I'd like you to write the new History section, while I continue to work on the Verse forms section. If you haven't yet, I do encourage you to look at the "Tutorial" link at the top of this page. If you have questions, you can ask me too. I'll just mention -- different people have different methods, but when creating new content, I personally don't like to do it right in the article. I like to work on it off-line (like in a word-processor) and then when I have a clump that I like, paste it in to the article, and start working on the next clump off-line again. But you should do what's comfortable for you. That could be in the article, or on your own sub-page, or off-line, or any combination of these. Phil wink (talk) 04:31, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Will do! I'll start working on History now. Hongtran0507 (talk) 22:28, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Phil, just so you know I'm still waiting for Vietnamese language materials to arrive at a local library,so it will be a couple of days before I can start drafting the section. Hongtran0507 (talk) 15:06, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Great to hear, Hongtran. I'm waiting for some books myself, though I fear they won't be too much help. In case you care, in addition to the sources I've listed in the article, I've just gotten: An Introduction to Vietnamese Literature (Durand & Nguyen, French 1966, English 1985); and Ca Dao Vietnam (Balaban, 1980), neither of which appear very useful as far as verse form is concerned. I've still got coming: A thousand years of Vietnamese poetry (the other major English anthology); and Ca-dao: Vietnamese popular songs (Vo Phan Thanh, 1975). But I fear I'm already reaching the end of what I can do with English sources. So please, if you see things in "my" sections which need to be improved, feel free to jump in. In my opinion, all the content below the main blocks I've been working on still needs to be re-written and better integrated, or deleted. My hope is that you can integrate some of the information currently in Ca dao (folk poetry) and Free poetry movement into the historical sections. There is also the possibility of creating a Genre section, though my sense is that in most other "national poetries" articles this would be folded into History. Finally, I do hope you'll include many inline references (<ref>...</ref>). This greatly increases the value of the article. I've written a brief essay: Notes and references which may be useful. This is NOT Wikipedia policy, but my own views on the best -- of many -- ways to comply. Phil wink (talk) 17:05, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Phil, the books I ordered ended up being rerouted somewhere else just before they arrived at my local library. I might try reordering again, but now I'm just looking for Vietnamese language ebooks on the subject. Thank you for the many tips. I will visit your newly written portion soon.Hongtran0507 (talk) 15:06, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Phil, I looked at your revisions. I love the prosody section and how you frequently reference features of English and Roman poetry to render it more accessible to a Western reader. I'm waiting for two books from Columbia library. By the way, besides the books you listed, you might want to look at "An anthology of Vietnamese poems : from the eleventh through the twentieth centuries" by my alma mater's press. Thank you so much again for your dedicated and excellent work!Hongtran0507 (talk) 16:39, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Glad you approve. Yep, I've got Huỳnh Sanh Thông's anthology; you'll see it's my primary source for luc bat & song that luc bat. It's by far the best English discussion of Vietnamese verse structure I've found (it's actually what got me interested in the first place many years ago!). Phil wink (talk) 20:21, 27 November 2014 (UTC)