Program Ilustrating Stroke Order

[Ema01234]

Ive just begun learning chinese and am really enjoying it. Im looking for a program where I can type in the english word or the pingin and it shows the charicter and how to write it, ie gives you the stroke order. Does anybody know were i could find a program like this? Im willing to pay for it but if there was a free one that would be great. If there was an offline (not needing the internet) one that woul also b great. Thanx a million.

[mudhead]

The Pablo E-C and C-E dictionary has animated stroke order illustrations for the most common 3000 characters. It's a great, clean, simple tool. Among other things it allows you to look up by all the radicals contained in the character. Best of all, it's FREE. Here's the link: http://ehaton.blogspot.com/2007/02/learning-chinese-pablo-my-personal.html

[Later:] And no, I don't work for them.

Edited October 13, 2008 at 02:44 PM by mudhead

[david808]

Check out Arch Chinese Stroke Order Animator.

[stephanhodges]

Also check out Eon Stroke Order (http://www.eon.com.hk/estroke/). I think it has all the characters.

Pleco (http://www.pleco.com/) is a great electronic dictionary with full stroke order (in version 2 which you can get immediately if you purchase). Version 2 is "almost" in release candidate mode, and is very stable for me.

Also ZDT (in the computer section of this forum) supports stroke order for quite a few characters.

I don't have any affiliation with these companies at the present time (nor at any time in the past).

Did you check this site's wiki, which has a lot of these tools already listed? Also, just googling stroke order characters brings up stuff, although I suspect you're looking for experienced suggestions.

Stephan

[ABCinChina]

I have a similar question on these types of programs. Does anybody know is any there are any flashcard software that tests your stroke order? For instance, you could see the pinyin and definition, then you have to write out the word in the correct stroke order. If you get the character wrong, then the card goes back into your unlearned deck sort of how Mnemosyne works. (This would be a great idea if not already done IMO and would be something I would pay for) Ideally, there would be a complete database of character animations while you'd be able to write in your own definitions/pinyin for each character. Also, you would be able to write characters through a writing pad instead of by your mouse. Finally, the database of character animations would be sequenced through their frequency of usage so you'd learn how to write the easiest characters first.

I think I've asked this question before, but I remember there was not. Just thought I'd ask since technology is always improving.

[renzhe]

I don't know if there is such a thing, but programs like Mnemosyne work by having you evaulate your performance yourself.

So you could get the animated gifs of stroke order of characters from the web and use those as answers, and the question would be the character (without animation).

So you're quizzed by seeing the character, you write it on a piece of paper, and then check whether you were right by watching the animation (which is the answer).

I don't think that there is such a database, but somebody who really wanted to, could probably build such a thing using free resources.

[ABCinChina]

Thanks for your response, Renzhe. I don't think the current version of Mnemosyne supports animated gifs and Peter said that the 2.0 series would. But I'd prefer to have no clue of how a character is written so that's why I'd like to see the pinyin/definitions as the questions. After all, I can probably guess the stroke order if the character is right before my eyes. Plus, through my "only read Chinese and not write" method of character recognition (thanks to your formatted HSK list for Mnemosyne) I can recognize a couple thousand individual characters already. The problem is when I try to write out a common character, my brain only pops up an image which looks nothing like the actual word I'm thinking about when I write it down. Yes, when I see the character, I know for sure how its pronounced and what it means.

Also, I'd like the process to be entirely computerized so there's no waste of precious trees.

[renzhe]

Hm, I didn't know about animated gifs -- it's probably a Qt issue.

Still, 2.0 shouldn't be too far off, and you can use the pinyin/definition as the question and receive the animated gif as the answer -- once this feature is available.

The most difficult part would be getting the animated gifs. You can get a zip of many common ones from here. Not sure about the license, but you should be able to at least use it for personal use without any problem, since they are freely downloadable.

If they are under an open license, then making a Mnemosyne database of stroke orders would be an interesting proposition.

[david808]

>Does anybody know is any there are any flashcard software that tests your stroke

>order? For instance, you could see the pinyin and definition, then you have to write out >the word in the correct stroke order

With some minor changes, I think Arch Chinese Flash Card can do that. In fact, at least one user requested the similar feature a few weeks ago.

[lilongyue]

Wenlin, which is a great C-E, E-C software dictionary for Mac and Windows, has animation illustrating stroke count for every character, simplified and traditional, in its dictionary. Wenlin also has a feature that allows you to write the character yourself, if you want to look up a character, but don't know how it's pronounced. This feature is only for use with the dictionary, and uses the mouse, but it also very handy. I highly recommend Wenlin. Heaven forbid you should download it via bit torrent.

[mirgcire]

Estroke is a nice program which illustrates stroke order. You can download it for free. It also has feature for generating writing practice sheets. http://www.eon.com.hk/estroke/download.html.