Mouse-over dictionary

Hi. Does anyone know of a software that can translate chinese characters by simply mousing over them? When I was working with some engineers in china recently I noticed that they had this running on there desktops for translating english. This seems significantly more convenient then cutting and pasting into an online dictionary.

BTW, I am new to this web site, so if there is a FAQ somewhere on dictionary tools I would love to hear about it. Thanks! Eric Grimm

Most (if not all) Chinese use this program 金山词霸 which does what you're looking for. I've got it on my computer and open it up whenever I need it. It does tend to get a bit annoying from time to time, popping up when it's not needed.

Other than that, it's a great tool.

For more info, visit their website: http://push.cb.kingsoft.com/cb06/index.htm

You can find the full version on BT sites, if you'd like to "evaluate" it.

Kingsoft is pretty good, but for a lot less money you could also check out Hanzibar, that's what I usually use.

Hanzibar only works in Firefox / IE, but you can always copy and paste if you're trying to read something from another document. (see the bottom of his "usage tips" page for this)

http://realimaginary.com/hanzibar/

If you're using Mac, then Live Dictionary works nicely within the Safari browser, and apparently you can hack it to work in Mail too.

I copy and paste into Wenlin, but will check out the alternatives mentioned.

Dalaowai wrote:

I checked the site, but could not find any English. Do you know if they have an English web site? [i guess this is why I need the tool ]

Also, I am unfamiliar with the acronymn "BT" ... can you break it down for me?

Thanks!

Hi,

we use Kingsoft at our office. Whereas the functionality that the product offers is good, it seems that the SW is not as stable as it should be. It has caused our computers to crash many a time. We use Win XP Pro.

When their system hangs, people get a chance to use expletives they just learnt thanks to this product

If you are reading online content and willing to use Firefox, you might want to consider the Adso plugin. Simply press the letter 'a' and click on chinese text for an adsotated popup window. Mouseover that text for a popup with an enlarged chinese version and english and pinyin.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/7087-firefox-plugin-chinese-text-annotation

One disadvantage of the software is that it is designed to offer the most likely gloss for any word rather than all potential definitions, which makes it occasionally wrong. One advantage is that the service identifies words contextually rather than simply parsing starting at the character your mouse is over.

The backend dictionary is also up around 150,000 entries and is quite comprehensive, so the content is about as robust as you'll get for free. If you run into missing content, you can also help the community by adding it to the backend database.

Here's a list of various on-line and off-line programs and websites that help with dictionary look-up:

DimSum Chinese Language Tools

http://www.mandarintools.com/dimsum.html

Wenlin

http://www.wenlin.com/

Clavis Sinica

http://www.clavisinica.com/

Wakan

http://wakan.manga.cz/

CquickTrans

http://www.coolest.com/cquicktrans/

Waiyu.org

http://www.waiyu.org/

Rikai.com

http://www.rikai.com/perl/HomePage.pl?Language=Zh

EuroAsia Software Chinese Tools

http://www.euroasiasoftware.com/english/chinese/dictionary/index.html

"KEY Pro" CJK Reading, Writing, Teaching & Learning package

http://www.cjkware.com

Adsotrans translation-aid and study aid for Chinese text.

http://www.adsotrans.com

GoChinese: "Intelligent Chinese language education"

http://www.gochinese.net/index.jsp

Xuexi Zhongwen

http://www.xuexizhongwen.de/index.htm?computing_t5.htm&1

Hanzi Explorer

http://www.globechinese.com/

zdt: Zhongwen Development Tool

http://zdt.sourceforge.net/

Thanks for all the replies.

I am still working my way through all the possibilities, but HanziBar looked appealing for $15, so I tried it. But it doesn't work very well - or it didn't for me. On some pages it picked up the word I pointed at, but on others it would find stuff all over the page to translate - stuff that was not being pointed at.

I see that you've been given too many choices. I'd suggest that you try "Dimsum" then. It's free and works very well for both offline and online texts.

DimSum Chinese Language Tools

http://www.mandarintools.com/dimsum.html

Wow! Is DimSum (点心) a brand new tool or was it there for some time? Somehow I missed it. Looks good. Should be called "DiǎnXin", because it teaches standard Mandarin, IMHO In Singapore, they call Dim Sums Dian Xins following "speak Mandarin" propaganda.

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EDIT:

Had problem running DimSum. It starts a javaw.exe process and I can see a splash window but the application doesn't start. I am using Windows XP. Could it be some security settings that I have to give this java application? Any suggestions?

Powerword 2006 professional: http://www.8soft.net/SoftDown/SoftDown_11206.html

You can find two download addresses right under the first green arrow. The download speed is Ok with Thunder 5.0 at 300kb/s on average.

EDIT: 1. During the installment, a popup window appears. click the third button.

2. After the installment, paste the two files in the RAR to the directory to substitute the original ones.

It does tend to get a bit annoying from time to time, popping up when it's not needed.

Go to the 'Control' menu and change in to 'Shift+Mouseover' or 'Ctrl + Mouseover'.

powerword2006patch.rar

Had problem running DimSum. It starts a javaw.exe process and I can see a splash window but the application doesn't start. I am using Windows XP. Could it be some security settings that I have to give this java application? Any suggestions?

The dimsum program is in a '.jar' file (a compression format used for Java). To run a .jar file, say xxx.jar, Windows has to run "javaw -jar xxx.jar". Your problem may be because your file association is not set up correctly.

See this page for how to set it up correctly:

http://vietunicode.sourceforge.net/howto/file_association.html

From the instructions:

# If you have JRE 1.3 installed on your machine, the interpreter java or javaw is usually found at C:Program FilesJavaSoftJRE1.3.1bin. Type C:Program FilesJavaSoftJRE1.3.1binjavaw.exe -jar %1 in Application used to perform action field and click OK.

I recognize the irony in using a Cantonese word to name a program for learning Mandarin. It worked well for what I hope to create, a program with many included tools that the user could pick and choose to use (and hopefully find tasty :-).

Regarding the install programs, I've unfortunately now heard from several users who have described problems running DimSum on Windows XP. The next release will hopefully fix some of these but I always value additional bug reports.

For situation described by atitarev, I don't think it is a file association problem because the splash screen appears. If the jar file association was wrong, the splash screen wouldn't even appear. If it was a file association problem (say WinRAR comes up instead of DimSum), then there is a handy little program call jarfix that will fix it all. Just download and run http://www.jonelo.de/java/faq/jarfix.exe

To help me figure out what else the problem may be, please follow the instructions at http://www.chinesecomputing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11 . These bug reports are very helpful to me and improve the program for everyone.

For other DimSum related questions or comments, visit the discussion board at http://www.chinesecomputing.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=1

Thanks, guys. I'll try to check the instructions again. I used to be a java programmer myself (over 3 years), now switched to more database work, so I know how java apps normally work. I am subscribing to this thread too to see if there is a fix for Windows XP. If I find out myself will post here.

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EDIT:

Installed DimSum on my work's PC, also Windows XP - works fine. Not sure why it doesn't work at home. Will check again later.

DimSum on XP works for me.

But what I was looking for when somebody here told me about it was an MS Word macro to add pinyin to more than some half a dozen characters at a time. Just recording one doesn't work.

To Chinesetools,

I ran the program at home from the command line (all paths are valid):

C:Program FilesDimSum>"C:j2sdk1.4.2_05binjavaw.exe" "C:Program FilesDimSumDimSum.jar"

And received an error message "Could not find the main class, program will exit!"

I located the MANIFEST.MF file inside the jar file, it says the main file is Annotator, which also exists in the DimSum.jar file

Manifest-Version: 1.0

Created-By: 1.4.2_03 (Sun Microsystems Inc.)

main-class: Annotator

To atitarev,

You need to add -jar the middle, like this:

C:Program FilesDimSum>"C:j2sdk1.4.2_05binjavaw.exe" -jar "C:Program FilesDimSumDimSum.jar"