Re: Issues with Chinese


"Sébastien de Mapias" <sglrigaud@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1164459431.941308.235010@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hello,
I've just begun interesting myself to this language. I'd like
to know if you could help me in particular with this: when
I see a c. c. (chinese character) of which I have no clue
about the meaning or pronounciation, and I have no equivalent
in pinyin, HOW could I manage to type it (somewhere on the
web, just like you can type cyrillic on www.translit.ru) in order
to copy/paste this c. c. in the search field of an online
dictionary (it stands to reason I'm talking about c. c. I see
on papers I have at home) ?

Thanks.
Regards,
Seb


Assuming you don't already have something appropriate for inputting Chinese,

http://www.njstar.com

has a input method editor (aka IME) which allows you to input using
different input methods. I note that I've had trouble using njstar in WinXP,
but it was fine in earlier version of Windows, like 95 when I used it.

If you'd rather some other IME that would suit your system better, then it
would depend on what OS you're using, for example WinXP Home Edition in
French, or whatever language you happen to use. There are downloads
available via Microsoft, and you must be aware that there are two varieties
of Chinese, the simplified usually used on the mainland of China, and the
traditional characters used on Taiwan and HongKong. Whichever you decide
look for the Chinese IME with input as well as fonts, and once installed,
you will be able to read and type in Chinese.


Personally, I use pinyin inputs in both traditional and simplified Chinese.
The MS New Phonetic IME includes an IME Pad which allows me to draw the
character and it automatically chooses closest matches for me to choose
from, with each stroke, the list is revised. Click your mouse on your
desktop, then press F1, and the Help and Support Center will pop up. In the
"Search" type in 'ime' and you should have a topic or task which is called
"Add another keyboard layout or Input Method Editor", just follow the
instructions there, and you will have installed it on your machine in no
time. You may need your original disks to hand.

As for typing in Chinese, there are literally hundreds of different methods
to do so. Each system is different and based on different criteria. You may
know about input by pinyin, or the pronunciation of characters. There are
many different types available. Other input methods like Cangjie and Wubi as
mentioned by the other guys here involve mentally breaking apart the
characters according to sets of rules and the pieces are associated with
different keyboard keys.

As many of the indexing methods have been used to become input methods, the
following notes may be of help to you.

http://www.sungwh.freeserve.co.uk/methods/

There is a page detailing the complex Cangjie method (usually for traditional Chinese character input) there, and also a
lesser used but I think rather nice method, the four corner input method,
both relying on some physical property of the character. If you're using the
Kangzi 214 radicals, it is important to know how to decompose a character
stroke by stroke, else you're gonna get the wrong stroke count. I urge you
to read about them in my page, and recognise the basic shapes of the
different types of stroke, and the notes on the order of writing character
strokes, as this may come in handy. If you're gonna learn JApanese sometime
in the future, you should be aware that their standard stroke order may
differ from that of Chinese.

Joe Wicenkowski has written about the Wubi Zixing input method for simplified Chinese.
http://www.yale.edu/chinesemac/wubi/xing.html

You may like to look through some of my links which may also give you more options and ideas

http://www.dylanwhs.ukgateway.net/links.htm

Dyl.

.

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