Best of Chinese Study Tools, Studying Chinese Online and Off

[doumeizhen]

A "short list" of the best Chinese study resources available to help those new to online/electronic resources to get off the ground.

DictionariesOnline Reading Assistant (instant pinyin and definition while you browse)

• Adsotrans
• New, Improved and Awesome Adsotrans
• Popup Chinese Translator extension for Firefox
• popjisyo.com
• Rikai.com

Online Dictionaries[list][*]

• YellowBridge Chinese English Dictionary
• ChinesePod Dictionary (sentences w/ recordings)
• Dict.cn Dictionary, English/Chinese searchable dictionary with many example sentences in English and Chinese.
• Xiaoma Cidian is a dictionary searchable by English, Character and Pinyin, and also has links to other helpful word lists. [S]
• MDBG Dictionary is an all-around dictionary
• Guoyu Dictionary, commercial-level traditional Chinese-based dictionary maintained by Taiwan Department of Education, with large number of word entries and detailed definitions.
• Classical Chinese Dictionary (A) [T]
• Specialized Chinese Dictionaries [S]
• Zhongwen.com, good radical/stem derivation diagrams fro exploring the relationship between characters (in traditional character)

Online Dictionaries that support screen (mouse) character writing

• nciku.com - a new tool based on UniHan
• A Java tool from Chinese-Tools.com

Offline (instant pinyin and definition for offline text reading)

• Dimsum (provides pop-up definition for both websites and offline texts; uses Java, should run on PC/Mac/and more)
• PlecoDict (Palm/PocketPC; US$99.95 for version with John deFrancis's excellent ABC dictionary, allows for a instant definition while reading on your PDA - works the best with TealDoc on Palm; excellent full-featured flashcard system). See discussion.
• Wakan Free mouse-over pop-up dictionary for all windows applications.
• Wenlin, US$199, with academic discounts possible; PC/Mac; includes the ABC dictionary; provides mouse-over pinyin and definitions and unique features such as one-click searches for all characters containing a component or all phrases containing a character. (G) [S,T]
• NJStar (mainly a word processor, but version 5.0 also has a teaching mode which provides pop-up definitions and automated vocabulary list generator; demo version is fully functional, but need to pay for registration for all features, including the full dictionary)
• HanConv: converts between Chinese characters to pinyin and romanized Cantonese, and convert between Simplified and Traditional Chinese characters
• Puku: converts between Chinese character to pinyin on Microsoft Pocket PC. Freeware made by a non-profit Putonghua advocate group.
• Powerword: The most commonly used pop-up translator software in China. More geared towards native Chinese speakers learning English but is perhaps the most efficient Chinese-English mouse-over translator combined with a user-created CEDICT dictionary add-on found here.
  
• For more on electronic dictionaries, see this discussion and this.
• For more on mouse-over/pop-up dictionaries, see this discussion.
• PABLO (Windows): Freeware Chinese-English dictionary, with handwriting recognition, stroke animations and great search features.

Test Preparation

• Popup Chinese - sample HSK test exercises at three levels of difficulty (beginner, intermediate, advanced).
  
  
  Tones
  • SpeakGoodChinese (program for training tone pronunciation, see discussion)
  • Start from Pinyin: Alphabet of Pinyin (with .wav audio)
  • Mandarin Chinese Pronunciation Guide (no audio)
  • Pinyin Practice (B)
  • Romanization Explained
  • Pinyin Wiki
  • More here...
  
  Grammar
  • ChinesePod (grammar guide, or podcasts with grammar points).
• Chinese Usage Dictionary.

Listening Material

• Popup Chinese - free podcast lessons, HSK tests and annotated texts and transcripts with mouseover popups. Focus on standard Beijing dialect.
• Chinese as a Second Language Podcasts.
• Podcast with free transcripts from Nankai University.
• Chinese Voices, collection of short, engaging mini-essays with accompanying audio for intermediate students.
• CCTV Travel in Chinese (teaches you Chinese with a travel theme; transcript available on website). See this discussion.
• CCTV's "Economics Half Hour" 《经济半小时》: videos (click on the little icon after the titles) and transcripts of many shows are available on the site. A little like a more commercialized version of "60 Minutes." The show covers many subjects, not just the economy, despite its name.
• ChinesePod.com
• China Radio International beginning Chinese listening materials (with pinyin and English transcripts). See discussion.
• Chinese subtitles/script for Chinese movies (for movies that you may have downloaded from lib.verycd.com). See discussion.
• Online audio lessons (I)
• Chinese Radio Online
• Chinese Television Online
• Radio Free Asia
• ChinesePod (learning community & podcasts)
• More listening resources: see this discussion.

Reading Material

• Chinese Text Sampler (texts graded by difficulty level) (linked through anonymouse.org due to site being blocked by the Great Firewall)
• NewsInChinese.com
• Collection of writings by famous modern authors such as Lu Xun, Su Tong, and Wang Xiaobo

Flashcards/Vocabulary

• Software
  • jMemorize, Supermemo-like flashcard system that keeps track of your study history
  • MyChineseFlashCards: nice open-source Chinese flashcard program (Mac, PC, Linux)
  • See PlecoDict above
  • Zhongwen Development Tool, java-based cross platform (Windows, Mac, Linux). Open Source.
  • PINGRID (Windows): Freeware vocabulary training game. Based on spaced repetitions and 100% geared towards Chinese vocabulary.
• Specific Flashcards
  • Integrated Chinese Level 1, with about 1154 words (simplified characters)
  • David & Helen
  • New Practical Chinese Reader
  • Most frequently used character list
  • Hanyu Shuipin Kaoshi (HSK; Chinese Achievement Test) vocabulary list
    -> Mnemosyne/Anki format, TSV format, Supermemo format, KVoctrain/Parley format
  • Lists of most frequently used words phrases in literature and news
  • 250 Most Common Idioms
  • List of common Chinese names and translation of foreign names
  • FlashcardExchange
  • YellowBridge Flashcards

Study Tools

• Hanyu College: Animated dialogues, karaoke, radio, and advanced readings (B,I,A) [S]
• DimSum: offline reading tool with annotation, dictionary (I,A) [S,T]
• University of Oxford Multi-Media Language Course (B,I)
• Read Mandarin - Learn to Read Chinese : Very useful website created by Daniel for learning characters (B, +pronunciation audio files) [S]

Converters

• Simplified to Traditional
• Traditional to Simplified

Language Partners

• Find a Chinese chat partner with QQ (a popular instant message program in China). See discussion.
• Meet Language Partners Online
• LangEx
• Sharedtalk.com

Games

• Chinese Memory Card Game
• Chinese Squabble
• http://pirate.shu.edu/~chendong/chin...uage_games.htm
• http://qi-journal.com/culture.asp?-t...nConcentration
• http://www.flyordie.com/games-cn.html
• http://trc.ucdavis.edu/msjacob/gamelist.htm
• http://www.shareup.com/Linguata_Chin...oad-47158.html (PC only)

Other

• Mandarin Slang (Wikipedia)
• Mandarin-Cantonese Term Converter
• Hanzismatter exposes the misuse of Chinese characters
• Signese exposes characters in action

[gato]

This is very timely since I was just discussing with Roddy, the webmaster here, about doing a "short list" of study resources. Most lists currently available on the net are much too long. A shorter list would help a student new to online/electronic resources to get off the ground much more quickly and avoid some of the trial and errors process that many of us have gone through.

[roddy]

Woot! Fantastic stuff, and as gato mentions something that was being discussed behind the scenes.

Like you say, some lists are just too long - I think it would be better to not claim to be 'comprehensive', but rather be 'selective' - for example, there's no way we need to include every CEDICT mirror.

thatbeijing.com should now be thatsbj.com, btw.

Many thanks

Roddy

[roddy]

Few suggestions:

a) As we're looking at 'best of Chinese Study Tools' here, it might be wise to leave the job / living / travel stuff aside for now, or perhaps split it off into it's own post? I'm a big fan of focus.

b) The dictionary interface for adsotrans is worth mentioning - it's not pretty, but it gives you access to the adso database, which is now at over 150,000 entries.

c) Does anyone know of any good and free sites for finding Chinese language exchange partners online? That would be a useful thing to add.

[kudra]

For the updated list of 25 texts (including author, publisher, isbn) used in years 1-4 used at:

Columbia
George Washington U
Middlebury
Middlebury Summer 9 week course
Brown
Kenyon College
California State University Long Beach

along with a table showing the info arranged by year and school see

http://www.chinese-forums.com/showthread.php?t=9612

[johnmck]

Quote:

c) Does anyone know of any good and free sites for finding Chinese language exchange partners online? That would be a useful thing to add.

There is: http://www.polyglot-learn-language.com/ it is in the Links section of the forum.

[onebir]

Langex seems quite good - especially if you're actually in china. there's a general thread on language exchange websites here.

[doumeizhen]

Gato! You are brilliant!*** Thank you for the list!

I like the idea of a selective list and will spend some time weeding this weekend between scenes of 包待制 beating the justice out of someone. As you can tell, and as Roddy made very clear by pointing to my dated that's link, my bookmarks are in serious need of oranization and cleaning.

Putting living/work/travel on a separate list is a good idea. Most people don't need it. I'll still pass it on to my department because there are a lot of students who don't realize that they can go to China without paying someone a lot of money to take them, or asking Jen if she knows anyone who has a job for them.

Kudra~ Thank you for your book list. A lot of students have been pushing for some updated materials, and will definitely appreciate knowing what to look for, and what other people are using.

johnmck, merci beaucoup, and onebir, thanks for your language exchange recommendations. (It never occured to me as I just shamelessly abuse the other grad students, all of whom are Chinese, for this very purpose!) I wonder if anyone is making use of skype for this purpose... We set up my mom's microphone/headset today for when I leave again.

Now, I guess we'll see if anything else comes up in this thread, and if not, I'll start making sure everything is in order (meaning, get rid of most of my dictionary links!) and we'll get a standardized, select list. I'm considering splitting them into general, beginners, and advanced. Am I being too compulsive here?



***Roddy, your brilliance is ineffable, and my words could not beging to do it no justice. You understand, right?

[roddy]

I think graded lists sounds great, but you could just as easily tag stuff as more / less suitable for certain levels in the list. That might prevent stuff having to be duplicated across the lists (for example, you'll presumably be recommending this site to all levels).

*** Indeed.

[atitarev]

Great lists!

I would add Wakan to offline programs, I find it really good and it's free. Wenlin certainly beats and NJStar is comparable.

http://wakan.manga.cz/files/wakan_full_167.exe

[doumeizhen]

Habe leider keine Ahnung was ein Jong ist, aber ich bin da höchst wahrscheinlich ein halber, die andere Hälfte ist Amerikanerin und das ganze Packet kann leider nicht sehr gut Deutsch...

Danke für die Korre... correction. ;)

Um, now, for official business... As I try to end this semester in one piece... I was wondering. And then I actually had a question: There is not a lot of discussion on classical Chinese, or guwen, on the forums. Is this because people don't take it, or because they don't want to talk about it once they have. (We just did the 白马论, so I would understand). Perhaps there are some sources out there, although I have been using the wikisource and elbow grease,　而已。

[stephanhodges]

Dictionaries come in three main categories: paper, hardware, and software. I would suggest noting that in the dictionary section, with forward references to wakan, plecodict, mandarintools, zdt, etc.

In the "other" (software?) section, you missed both Dimsum from http://www.mandarintools.com and zdt from http://zdt.sourceforge.net/

They are both completely free, multifunction software tools, but, like wakan, have very good built in dictionary support for Chinese. For example, you can paste in a section of chinese text in Dimsum, and it will generate a complete list of all the vocabulary in the text. You can look up all words which contain a particular character, for example, etc. On the other hand, Wakan has several bugs in the chinese implementation, which I've reported to them well over a year ago, and they haven't come out with a new version in all that time (ver 1.67 I think). Also, they present definitions for chinese hanzi from the japanese dictionary in one situation.

Euroasia has two offerings, the on line website, with dictionary and related word lookups, and the standalone software. Since their website has been down for a very long time (the mandarinteacher site), you can't get the standalone version. I own a license to that software, by the way, and IMO, I think it has too many flaws to be very useful without some serious updating.

I like many of your categories. I'd like to suggest another category: "games", but I don't have any good suggestions for language learning games to put in there. But, sometimes putting a category down can suggest things.

Thanks for your list, btw.

[doumeizhen]

I had DimSum under offline annotation, but I moved it to Study tools because I think it's more than just a dictionary, I hope that works. I like my dictionaries to be dictionaries and not too much more, because I get VERY distracted by new words. Prorams like DimSum are under Annotators. I am going to put Zdt in Study tools too, because of its multifunctionality.

I can't run it on my platform, but we'll let popular vote decide if it stays. As mentioned earlier in the forums, we really want to et this down to a condensed list of really good things. Perhaps you can let us know how you are getting along with Zdt.

Per your suggestion, eurasia is out*. I don't like PC only things anyways.

Added the games category, and some things I found browsing, all of which look bad bad bad.
indeed

*what does IMO mean, btw?

[stephanhodges]

IMO = "in my opinion"

bogleg is the author of zdt, so hopefully he will be able to comment on why you can't get it to work.

[doumeizhen]

Ah.

Well, I believe it has nothing to do with his software, but with my platform. Let me edit that and make that clear.

[bogleg]

Hi doumeizhen,

What platform are you having troubles with? Is it a Mac?

Chris

[onebir]

I think it's worth mentioning which dictionaries have radical lookup - sometimes this is necessary if you're using a book. I know the MDBG dictionary has this...

[doumeizhen]

Chris- I am using Mac OS X 10.4.3. I don't think there is a version for macs, is there?
And more importantly, is there any help for me?

Onebir- I think that is a great suggestion, since the point was to get the best tools.Radical look-up would be important if I ever decide to use the real characters of my name, not the Bao'yuian existentialist/Roddyian variation of it.

Gato & Roddy: Should I just put the new list in the place of the original first post?

[stephanhodges]

Quote:

think it's worth mentioning which dictionaries have radical lookup - sometimes this is necessary if you're using a book.

Wenlin, Dimsum and Wakan have radical lookup. ZDT does not. Wenlin and Wakan also have stroke count lookup. All have lookup by pinyin or hanzi. I believe they all have toneless lookup also.

[doumeizhen]

Hi Chris,

I have a question about the java requirement, which says 1.5.0, I think. I thought it was downloading here, although even after installation my log still says its 1.4.2. As you have probably figured out, it's not working for me yet.

Perhaps you could have a look at my log (attached) and see if Java is the problem, and if it is, provide some instructions on how to download it. The current java download link in your read me file is for solaris, linux, and windows.

Thanks for all of your work, Chris. I am very impressed that you got this done so fast!