Name of your website?Clavis Sinica: Chinese Reading and Reference Software
Your name?
David Porter
Your Location (city, etc)
Ann Arbor
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Our website provides software and other learning resources for students of the Chinese language. We primarily target adult students who are interested in learning to read Chinese. Our software helps students to read texts on topics that interest them and to unlock the meaning and structure of the Chinese characters they contain.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I struggled for many years to learn Chinese using textbooks, newspapers, dictionaries, and notebooks. I finally realized that a computer program tailored to my learning methods would make my task a lot easier, so I wrote one. I launched the website to make the program available to other learners of the language.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
I launched the Clavis Sinica website in 2002.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
Clavis Sinica means "Key to the Chinese Language" in Latin. The name is borrowed from the writings of a 17th-century German philologist who claimed to have discovered a key to Chinese that would make it possible for any European to learn the language in a matter of weeks.
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
The Clavis dictionary uses very concise definitions, allowing groups of related words to be displayed in tabular form with their definitions, so users can develop a sense of the relationships among them. It also provides structural analyses of individual characters, so students can understand why characters are written the way they are.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
I run the site as a hobby, and hope to continue building and promoting it so as to make the tools I've developed available to as many people as possible.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Reasonably well, for a hobby! I couldn't live off of the income from my site, but it brings in enough to enable me to continue improving the software and the site without spending my own money.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I would add many more Chinese language texts and study materials for beginner and early intermediate students.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Not without some hired help!
What has been your biggest challenge?
Learning how to write effectively for the web medium. I am a university professor in my other life, and tend to have a rather long-winded and academic writing style. I've learned that this can be off-putting to web users, and I've been trying to learn to write my web pages in a more concise, accessible way.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Creating and publicizing free learning resources for students of Chinese. People seem especially to like the Chinese Character Test applet on the site.
Why is the project of running this site important to you?
I'm a great believer in the importance of foreign language education, and I think China is a country and culture that people in other parts of the world can really benefit from learning a lot more about. The Chinese language is a crucial window to understanding Chinese culture and history, which will be increasingly relevant in all sorts of ways in the 21st century.
What is your website address?
Clavis Sinica: Chinese Reading and Reference Software
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