Electronic Chinese-English dictionary?
nastymcballs
April 18, 2008, 02:24 AM posted in General DiscussionSo when the teacher introduces a new word all the Asian students in my class immediately whip out their handhelds and start clicking away leaving the round-eyes in the dust...
Does anyone know of/can reccomend an electronic Chinese translation device made for English speakers? Where can a whiteboy get some hardware in 中国？
christine
April 18, 2008, 04:42 AMoops, i'm a Brit. got confused. second hand palm tungsten approx $100 or 50UKP pleco - $100
mandomikey
April 18, 2008, 05:22 AMLots more info here from this past conversation on the same topic: http://chinesepod.com/connections/viewpost/galois789/connect/electronic+pocket+dictionary+
christine
April 18, 2008, 04:41 AMI have one word for you; PLECODICT. oh, I lied, maybe two or three.... USING A PALM OR POCKET PC. DON'T waste large sums of money on difficult to use, badly translated, designed for Chinese learners of English, versions available in Chinese shopping malls. The thing with plecodict is that it has to run on a palm (or a pda running palm software) or on a pocket pc. However, a second hand palm tungsten can be obtained for around $50. it is worth the money. many many many times over in my opinion. I reluctantly parted with my cash a year or so ago, and then wished I had had one from the very beginning of my chinese study. Since then, five of my friends have bought them and are enthusiastically recruiting more friends. plecodict is a downloadable programme, and more bad news, is not super cheap, but worth every penny. i think my package was $100. the bundled dictionaries are great, includes the one wenlin uses, which if you bought wenlin would cost you maybe $400. it has fantastic hanzi recognition (you can draw them on the screen using a stylus) and it does not rely on you getting the stroke order right. even if you get it a bit wrong it will suggest around six characters it thinks it could be. again, excellent - better than wenlin. then.... there is the flashcard package. amazing. I forgot using my other flashcard package (supermemo) and swapped entirely to this. extremely easy to add cards, and you can create endless flashcard 'piles'. eg i have piles for 'food', 'chengyu', etc etc. plus users can beam flashcard collections to each other or download ready made collections based on wellknown textbooks from the internet. i have all the words from NPCR in mine for example. plus, you can use an 'intelligent learning feature'... ie if you get it wrong, it will show you that card tomorrow, if you get it right you see it in 3 days time... keep gettting it right, you see it less and less often but it keeps popping up occasionally. wonderful. plus, i love my palm. never had a pda before and it has also become indispensible. how did i manage before? so, palm/equivalent - $100 second hand or less maybe plecodict - $100 (i think, check their website) www.pleco.com NB. a friend recently told me that if you are a registered university student or with a recognised programme you can also get a discount with pleco. also - they plan to upgrade to a new improved pleco soon... check the website. however, if you buy before the new one comes out, they will upgrade it for free when the new one becomes available (check they have not withdrawn this offer). plus, if you are in BJ, and can't find another pleco user (unlikely!) then message me, and we can meet for coffee for me to help you get started. :) Honestly, PLECO IS THE WAY! For my chinese study, there are two things that have saved my sanity. Pleco and Chinesepod.