Mandarin Scholarship Taiwan » learning resources 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 Resources for Beginners Test Of Proficiency-Huayu http://mandarinscholarship.com/2008/10/20/resources-for-beginners-test-of-proficiency-huayu/ http://mandarinscholarship.com/2008/10/20/resources-for-beginners-test-of-proficiency-huayu/#comments Mon, 20 Oct 2008 02:20:13 +0000 kang-wei http://mandarinscholarship.wordpress.com/?p=261 Mandarin Scholarship students who have taken the Test Of Proficiency-Huayu (TOP) would know that resources are very limited.

For the Beginner level, introduced in 2007, there is only one Mock Test booklet (2007) and a list of 800 words for beginners (2008, PDF 280kb).

In Taipei, the Mock Test booklet can be purchased at Lucky Bookstore(師大書苑).

A very good friend of mine, has used the beginners word list to write three short paragraphs similar to TOP for Beginners Reading Comprehension Part 3. If you want the answers leave a comment!

Here is the first one:

1. 今天我去___1___，看見一隻的大象，它的鼻子很___2___，眼睛又大又亮。當我摸著它___3___皮膚時，它安靜地看著我，真是可愛的___4___。

１．(A) 動物園 (B) 海邊 (C) 電影院 (D) 博物館

２．(A) 扁 (B) 圓 (C) 短 (D) 長

３．(A) 白色 (B) 黑色 (C) 灰色 (D) 棕色

４．(A) 植物 (B) 寵物 (C) 動物 (D) 玩具

The one above and two others can be downloaded here: TOP_for_Beginners_Part3 [PDF 107kb)

For more information about TOP: Test Of Proficiency-Huayu registration period starts today

]]> http://mandarinscholarship.com/2008/10/20/resources-for-beginners-test-of-proficiency-huayu/feed/ 93 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.

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