Nciku - dictionary with handwriting input

Hi Nitrox, thanks for pointing this out, pinyin is probably way faster but as a learning aid and practice to write characters, this feature of the 谷歌 (google) IME is really cool - what you call radical are actually basic strokes though, which also include d for 点 （dot). I'm sure there are lots of shortcuts in that tool, just haven't had time to explore them yet. Online help is of course in Chinese

I don't know whether this has been discussed here before, but I found another cool character entry system.

It is called 笔画输入法 and available from google.

http://dl.google.com/pinyin/GooglePinyinInstaller.exe

It is actually a normal pinyin entry system but also allows

to enter characters by the following "radicals"

1. hen (h) 一

2. Shu (s) |

3. Pie (p) /

4. Na/Dian (n/d) \ `

5. Zhe (z) 乙

After you enable the shu ru fa, you have to type first "u", followed by the above "radicals" using THE CORRECT stroke order. So let's look at the following example:

Gao 高 enter: udhszhszszh

note that a box(kou) is written using Shu(s) Zhe(z) Hen(h). The z is basically any connected line with one or several changes in direction. This can be a little tricky and needs some practice. The character 弓 e.g.

consists of z, h, z (the last z contains 3 strokes).

Sometimes Shu can contain a small hook at the end

了 is written as uzs

Don't confuse p and h. p is written from right to left, whereas h is written from left to right.

毛 e.g. is written as uphhz. Notice that the top stroke is

not a hen but a pie (This is better seen with some fonts than with others).

I found that with some practice (and knowing the stroke order) you can quickly enter chinese characters.

Have fun

ok, I take everything back ( without the winamp thing and the mp3s :-) )

after I unpacked it in a folder it worked. Now let´s see what the other programm can do for me ;-)

the mp3 files work for themselfes, but the m3u and the pls lists don´t (using windows mediaplayer).

I can open them both with winamp but don´t get them to give me even one litlle sound.

John, do you think it is because I use a Mac? My son is a computer wiz and he couldn't get it to work for me either. I really think those tone drills would be beneficial. I'm probably doing something wrong.

excuter and wei1xiao4,

This is the first I've heard of the tone drills not working. They're simple MP3 files. Why wouldn't they work?

I have also had trouble getting the tone pair drills to work from Sinosplice, but I have a Macbook. Any advice. I have tried several times after I watched the YouTube video of that curious guy demonstrating continuous repetition of the words. How come he can get it to work but I can't. Help!

still don´t know how to get the tonepairdrills to work with windowsmediaplayer, maybe I´ll try after I found out about that one...

maybe I don´t wait that long we´ll see...:-)

The drawing thing a bit slow though, you have to wait for it to update it's guesses between each stroke.