Mandarin Scholarship Taiwan » Chinese English dictionary http://mandarinscholarship.com Studying Chinese in Taipei, Taiwan Sun, 03 Jan 2010 07:56:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Web based handwriting recognition tool at NICKU.com http://mandarinscholarship.com/2008/10/12/web-based-handwriting-recognition-tool-at-nickucom/ http://mandarinscholarship.com/2008/10/12/web-based-handwriting-recognition-tool-at-nickucom/#comments Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:33:10 +0000 kang-wei http://mandarinscholarship.wordpress.com/?p=217

Nciku is basically an online Chinese-English dictionary and is a great tool for Mandarin scholarship students. I had a look at it a while ago and came to the conclusion that it was a social networking dictionary. You can sign up and interact with others in the nciku community, as you look up new vocabulary. It didn’t appeal to me, as I thought the concept was odd and had been happily using mdbg.net.

That said, the Handwrite Characters function, or handwriting recognition tool, is brilliant! Pinyin.info recently highlighted this feature which I have used several times.

What is the handwriting recognition tool? The handwriting tool allows you to find characters by drawing them. Simply write the character, with your mouse, in the box and select the desired one from the list that appears.

If you’ve ever tried to translate a character, you will know that if you don’t know the radical it can take a very long time to work out. This tool makes short work of that problem.

How does it work?

The tool searches our character database based on the appearance of what you draw, the stroke order you use, and other factors. Even if you are unsure how exactly to write a character, the character you are looking for will most likely be included in results for you to recognize and choose from.
Does stroke order matter?
Stroke order does not matter. We will find your character even if you don’t write it perfectly.

The handwriting recognition tool has been around for many years. My Chinese teacher introduced me to it a few months ago. It was part of his Chinese language Windows OS or MS word suite. Unfortunately, I run an English language version of XP and that tool is not included.

This tool/software can also be put on a PDA. A mobile handwriting recognition tool! Just the thing for long bus journeys.

]]> http://mandarinscholarship.com/2008/10/12/web-based-handwriting-recognition-tool-at-nickucom/feed/ 1049 MDBG free online Chinese-English dictionary http://mandarinscholarship.com/2008/05/04/mdbg-free-online-chinese-english-dictionary/ http://mandarinscholarship.com/2008/05/04/mdbg-free-online-chinese-english-dictionary/#comments Sun, 04 May 2008 05:00:20 +0000 kang-wei http://mandarinscholarship.wordpress.com/?p=12 xuezhongwen.net Chinese English dictionary

The creators of MDBG free online Chinese-English dictionary say it’s “the no. 1 Chinese study aid!”

I completely agree with that statement. I’ve been using it for about 3 months and now find it indispensable. You can search effortlessly with Chinese, Pinyin or English.

“This website offers more than just a dictionary, it offers various tools such as: flashcards, quizzes, text annotation, Chinese text input and more. The MDBG dictionary is used in many schools and universities all over the world…”

A Hong Kong based mirror has just been added for users located in Asia.

http://hk.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php

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