ISO hanzi writing software
marc__d
June 28, 2008, 10:44 PM posted in General DiscussionDoes anypoddie have suggestions for hanzi writing training software to use with a stylus input device? When I studied Japanese, I was aware of several options available for both Nintendo DS as well as Palm OS. I never tried these. It seems that the Gakusoft KingKanji program for Palm has a Chinese cousin called KingHanzi, but it only covers 530 characters. Is there something better out there?
chees
July 25, 2008, 03:55 PMWhen I was in Malaysia on a holiday I saw a keyboard which comes with a surface for writing chinese with a stylus. There was of course a driver disk that came with it, which would contain the kind of software you are looking for...
It was a really cool thing actually and I sort of regret not getting one for myself, though I did buy one for my aunt, who can write chinese.
I tried it at my aunt's place and it's actually pretty good. In total it was about $20AUD.
pinkjeans
July 25, 2008, 04:25 PMchees, where did you see this? AUD20 is really affordable and I'm going to be in KL in a couple of days; would love to check it out.
GreyPhoenix
November 05, 2008, 10:13 PMI know this is really late, but a new software just came out for the DS. It's called My Chinese Coach. I'd been waiting for a program like this for quite awhile, and read nothing but raving reviews from users. I just ordered it yesterday, and will post a review once I get a chance to test it out myself. Here's a link if you're interested:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16878147112&Tpk=Chinese%20Coach
marc__d
July 25, 2008, 03:48 PMWell, I guess no one replied, but I have some follow-up on this post. I'm evaluating KingHanzi by Gakusoft, and I think it is pretty cool.
I was able to easily create KingHanzi lessons out of a dozen of my studied Newbie lessons. Now I have a convenient tool to practice writing without wasting paper. I was amazed at my inability at first to write characters, despite having no problem with on-screen recognition. I think the writing practice has really improved my recognition/reading ability.
If enough poddies use this tool, I propose setting up a site to trade KingHanzi lessons. It takes less than 10min to write a lesson for a whole Newbie vocab list (key+supplemental).
The PalmOS version is really nice since it is portable & it features a stylus input, but the resolution is not sufficient for even moderately complex characters. For example, 国 takes up the whole writing area (top-to-bottom), and you can't fit more than 4 characters left-to-right. The 餐 in 中餐 (supplementary vocab from Newbie - Intro 5: Do you have a menu?) does not fit top-to-bottom. Also, my fingers hurt after awhile from using the tiny stylus.
The Windows version offers a huge writing input area at full screen resolution, and also a much better Chinese character font. But unless you have a touch-screen or a USB drawing pad, you are stuck using the mouse to draw characters. It doesn't feel as natural as a pen or stylus, but it's a reasonable trade-off considering the increased resolution and writing space. Also, it is not as portable as the Palm. If you have a touchscreen tablet notebook, this software is definitely for you.
It's $25. You can probably get by with the evaluation version on a PC by constantly reinstalling or maybe setting back the system clock once the 14 day trial period ends. But on a Palm or Smartphone, you probably need to do a system reboot to get the same effect, which will delete everything on your device. Otherwise, just pay for it.