mouse cursor roll over translator?

[Sebasti]

Is there any software that would simply show me a translation of any hanzi when i roll my mouse over it, for example in internet browser window? If I would roll cursor over this 是 a translation of "be" would appear on a floating tag or to program's own info window.

[YuehanHao]

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3349

Note this is an extension for Mozilla Firefox.

约翰好

[mikevwilliams]

There are 3 pieces of software that do this (that I know of). One is called Stardict, which I used to use, and worked pretty well, one called Lingoes, which I've now switched to since I think it's better than Stardict. Both of these programs are free, however currently Stardict has more dictionaries available for it. The other program is called Kingsoft Powerword, but it's not free, and I tried the beta of the 2008 version, but didn't really like it that much.

Also, if you use Firefox, there is an extension called Chinese-Pera Kun, which will give you a pop-up translation, but it only works in Firefox, whereas the other programs mentioned above work with almost any Hanzi text you can see in any program.

[flameproof]

There is another one, a browser independent freeware one, that work with any Windows application: Wakan

http://wakan.manga.cz

[Luobot]

Kingsoft Powerword ... I tried the beta of the 2008 version, but didn't really like it that much.

@mikevwilliams - I haven't tried it but am wondering what you didn't like about it.

btw, after I installed Stardict and started it up, my security software asked me if it was okay to allow Stardict to monitor my keystrokes and connect to the internet. Nooo! Isn't that what spyware keyloggers are for?

[mikevwilliams]

Luobot, the reasons I didn't like it were because Stardict had more available dictionaries for it, and I found it a bit slow, however I think the mouseover function had better accuracy than Stardict. I am happy with Lingoes for the moment anyway.

[mirgcire]

I tried Kingsoft Powerword, and its cousin Dr.Eye, but neither of them display hanyu pinyin. This makes sense because they are made for chinese speaking consumers. I exchanged some emails with the developers and they thought adding hanyu pinyin was a good idea.

[ange9s]

I've always kind of liked hanzibar http://realimaginary.com/HanziBar/

[flameproof]

Lingoes works very well. After you install you need to chose one of the 100 available Chinese dictionaries. I chose CEDICT, works well, but doesn't display Pinyin, I just get the "wan3" display.

Is there any dictionary that makes it display Pinyin, or is there any way to have CEDICT display Pinyin?

[mikevwilliams]

A note for Lingoes users...Lingoes 2.2, which is the version available for download if you follow the links on the English site doesn't work with Firefox 3, but on the Chinese version of the Lingoes site, the latest version, 2.3, does support Firefox 3 (amongst a few other application problems Lingoes had). The download page is here. It does let you choose English as the language for Lingoes menus etc in case you were worried.

[blogtim]

If you are using Windows and Internet Explorer, you should also check out Loqu8 iNterpret (http://loqu8.com). It's especially designed for (1) Chinese so that the Chinese character is large and (2) high speed scanning. It also supports both Pinyin and Bopomofo. We'll be releasing a version shortly that works great on FF3 (even when zoomed).

It's currently based on the CEDICT dictionary, though we have considered working with Wenlin to embed the ABC Dictionary. If anyone has any comments on this, I'd love to hear it.

Cheers,

Tim