Offline learning
dominic
December 29, 2007, 05:19 PM posted in General DiscussionI am about to leave the cosseted world of always-on broardband internet to go and learn Chinese and teach English in Sichuan. I'm sure a lot of people here have done this, any advice on what dictionary/utilities I should download/buy before I go so I can continue learning on my laptop, when not connected to the internet?
AuntySue
December 29, 2007, 10:25 PMTell us what sort of laptop (windows? mac? unix? linux?) so that we can recommend the right programs. Whatever it is, make sure you have installed a recent version of Java, then you can use DimSum ZDT
wildyaks
December 30, 2007, 02:34 AMWelcome to Chengdu! Where will you be teaching? It is really easy to get broadband in China for barely more than 10USD a month. You may well be able to stay connected
dominic
December 30, 2007, 12:14 PMAuntySue, I've got a Vista (I know, but what can you do) laptop. Wildyaks: I'll be teaching at New Times International Training Centre from the beginning of March. Its based near the American consulate and the Shamrock etc.
mei3hou2wang2
December 29, 2007, 10:17 PMI like paper dictionaries. Using them is more comfortable for my eyes, and I like poking around from one page to another. I now use a big Chinese-only dictionary at home with lots of example sentences, and a pocket chinese-french one in my bag. You have to get used to looking up characters by their radical, and stroke-count, but that's part of the fun. I can do it fairly fast now. I also have a little dictionary in my cell-phone)