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.

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 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.

It is a comprehensive system that can transcribe all the possible sounds in Mandarin. The alphabet consists of 37 letters, each representing a single or a group of sounds: 21 for consonants and 16 for vowels and vowel clusters.

[Visit this blog for Zhuyin audio.]

If you are learning Chinese in Taiwan you will most likely have to learn Zhuyin. Personally, I have found that Zhuyin enables me to pronounce words much more accurately than pinyin. Another advantage of Zhuyin is the availability of Chinese learning materials. Every child in Taiwan learns Zhuyin/BoPoMoFo, as a result materials are cheap and available everywhere.

If you are studying in Taiwan and need a fast way (without software) to convert traditional Chinese characters into Zhuyin, I highly recommend http://tw.dictionary.yahoo.com/online dictionary.

You can paste in some characters and instantly get Zhuyin and English translation. It also provides a rudimentary Romanization without tone marks. I make flashcards and this has been by far the easiest way to get Zhuyin translations.

Here’s an example:

部落格

ㄅㄨˋ ㄌㄨㄛˋ ㄍㄜˊ

bu luo ge

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Using Yahoo Taiwan’s online dictionary, MDBG free online Chinese-English dictionary, Babel Fish Translation and Google Pinyin certainly makes studying Chinese much easier.