There is a very useful website to learn Cinese (Mandarin）
darkduck
August 11, 2008, 07:20 AM posted in General DiscussionThere is a very useful website to learn Cinese (Mandarin)
You can't miss it
http://www.nciku.com/
1.Handwriting Recognition
The handwriting tool allows you to find characters by drawing them. Simply write the character in the box and select the desired one from the list that appears
2.learn Character Decomposition and Stroke Order
3.Theme Words
Theme Words are lists of words with pictures about certain topics. The themes make it easy to find groups of words that are related, such as vegetables or places.
4.Conversation
Conversations’ is a section containing dialogues between two or more people about a certain topic. You can find conversations made by nciku or users and grab or edit them, or make your own brand new conversations。
5.Pinyin assist
Pinyin assist gives you the pinyin for Chinese characters on nciku without you having to look them up on your own
6.Text to speech
Text to speech allows you not only to read the text but to hear how the text sounds as well. All of the entries, examples, and conversations can be listened to with their proper pronunciation. Create a conversation and hear it come alive!
barryb
August 11, 2008, 09:30 PMThanks! The handwriting recognition is brilliant - a very fast way of identifying characters I don't know. And I think drawing the new character will help me remember it, too.
Drawing with a mouse might be too fiddly for complicated stuff, but at my level it does the job.
darkduck
August 13, 2008, 09:43 AMpenben you said that there is no place to learn Chinese That maybe wrong the nciku was not only a dictionary but also a teacher can help you to learn Chinese language and culture you can go to the Q&A bar ask what 's you want to konw there are many nice users and nciku staff out there. they are more than happy to help you out
penben
August 11, 2008, 06:21 PMI find nciku to be very useful, but I wouldn't call it a place to learn Chinese. To me, it is more a dictionary with a couple of extra features. Great to help study, but doesn't really include instruction.
I would have to admit, though, the handwriting recognition tool is awesome. Need to figure out a character from tv or on your Chinese Food menu, no need to scan, etc, merely make your attempt to scrawl it out and the software figures out what you might be trying to draw. Very Cool.