characters

Kralex: Right now not much exists on the site about how to write Characters. My advice is, if you have the money to buy an electronic Chinese Dictionary. The best one on the market right now is called the "Instadict MD 9288". It has tutorials on how to write more than 6,000 characters. All you have to do is just follow the lines, if you're going in the wrong stroke order it will correct you. I've found it very useful. Also I'm one of the Poddies here who tremendously advocates spending the time to learn your characters as it can tremendously help your studies in the long run.

Yeah, I'm a little apprehensive about buying new software for my aging Windows box... My job supplies me with a slightly more up-to-date Mac laptop that I use for everything Chinese. The software isn't that expensive, though...I'll probably end up taking the plunge.

When I started I had no intention to learn the characters but now this is my favourite bit of learning mandarin. Be warned though learning the characters and knowing a number of them isn't necessarilly the be all and end all you need to understand how they combine as well, and you need to get the grammar too.... It may take a while, but its relaxing and whenever I get something new I end up spending more time trying to decipher the chinese instructions than using the new gadget..... I use a Windows vista tablet PC then practice writing the characters. Its quite fussy about the stroke order so if you don't get it right it won't recognise you. I then keep all the ones I know in a spread sheet and regularly re-write them....

Just found this site: http://www.chineselearner.com/writing/symbol/index.html It has a video for each character showing how it's written.

thanks everyone! this helps alot!

This is a pretty good program: http://www.cchar.com/ A little expensive though particularly if you want the teacher version.

I've just been watching alot of KTV (Karaoke Television) on Youtube.com. I'm trying to learn traditional and simplified at the same time, so I'm sure this is slowing me down a bit, but I think it's well worth the effort. Learning with music seems to sweeten the medicine. I've given myself the goal of learning 1,000 characters by the end of 2009 and I'm going by this list: http://www.zein.se/patrick/3000char.html This is a list of what are supposedly the 3000 most commonly used characters. I think it's pretty accurate because I haven't been studying for very long and I already recognized the first couple hundred and knew most of the first 100 right off the bat. I think I mentioned this before, but it's just a personal goal that I'm sure will help me when I make "the big move". ^_^ Other than that....I recommend you ALWAYS take a look at the manuscript for each lesson you study at CPod and write down your own copy instead of printing it. Muscle memmory can save you alot of time and confusion. 加油！！！

I decided to get that Chinese Writing Master program and it's very useful. If you have the program running and you have the firefox autocopy plugin installed. Whenever you highlight a character in your browser it automatically detects so you can see how it's written straight away.

Bazza, I just did the same - was thinking about it for a while, but you provided the nudge to 加油 and get a licence as the trial had run out. I wonder if there are any features in the licenced version that weren't available in the trial version. Your tip on the firefox add-on is very helpful. Thanks.

The trial version would only do the character 好 for me.

There've been various threads on this. Here are 2 plus a link to a book: http://chinesepod.com/connections/viewpost/frank/connect/Character+recognition%3F http://chinesepod.com/connections/viewpost/deoksu/connect/Learning+Characters+in+a+Systematized+Manner... http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Writing-Chinese-Simplified-Character/dp/0804835098/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-4956157-6148719?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184121092&sr=8-1

I must have downloaded the single character demo version, because I had to download it again when I bought it.

Here is another program: http://www.eon.com.hk/estroke/ You can use what seems to be a full version for a month. My trial copy just expired. It seems to work okay, but I don't think I will buy it though because it looks like you have to pay $13 to renew it every year.

and its $29 upfront for the first year

What we need is a Nintendo Wii Chinese Character Trainer. Wouldn't it be brilliant? A "Ken and Jenny Character Workout". First, we'd copy the brush strokes, then we'd do them by ourselves. Again and again. The game would give points for accuracy. We need to stand up at our desks and wave our arms around, copying real teachers and shouting the sound, in true aerobics style! Then we'd remember. Bet Chinesepod could make it funny, too. Has Nintendo made the software interface publicly available so that others can write Wii games? Would the Wii motion detectors be sensitive enough for character strokes? It would have to be big whole-arm drawing, but isn't that how Chinese children practice in class? Surely the key to learning and retaining characters long-term is "motor memory" - muscle memory. Once the body learns it never forgets. It works best for big movements. Think swimming, cycling, driving, even writing English. On the rare occasions Chinese friends struggle to recognise a character I've noticed their arms twitch slightly, like they're dreaming. They're using motor memory. (Thoughts from those who went through the Chinese educational system?) Would it be possible?

This is an interesting idea. But the majority of what could be achieved with the Wii could just as easily be done with a brush, ink and some paper. When you consider that the Wii is great for simulating golf, boxing or tennis which are sports you can't 'really' do in your living room but a bit of calligraphy you can do on the kitchen table. Plus the tactile feeback of a real brush and pen and the smell of the ink and paper are all part of the experience. However, the Wii would be good in providing feedback as to the accuracy with which you drew a character on screen or the speed. Also the competitive side of things is well managed with a games console and brings a different dimension to the exercise. Its amazing how popular the gaming consoles are for singing and trying to match the on screen cues and out scoring your opponent. This might be good for encouraging proper tones in the guise of a game.

At beginner level you'd simply mimic the teacher (who'd have to stand back to screen). You'd draw simultaneously.

I really wanted to use the cchar program, but they don't offer a Mac version:( Here's an interesting little website with a Handwriting Recognition Tool (right side of page). The handwriting tool allows you to find characters by drawing them. You write the character in the box and select the desired one from the list that appears...click on it and it takes you to the definition.

If you want to get a good start on writing characters, Cheng and Tsui Co. have an Integrated Chinese series. They have a character workbook for level 1. It covers about 350 characters. There are also some basic rules about stroke order that will probably enable you to looks at a character and have a good Idea how to write it. After that it's lather, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat. If you have someone to 'read' your handwriting that's also good. As you get more comfortable writing you might take some liberties--hence the need for a little feed back.

The trial version worked fine for me but was only triggered when I did a cnrtl+c to the clipboard. Now the autocopy feature saves that extra step, just neet to highlight the character.