Using a PDA to learn Chinese

[atitarev]

Thanks guys, I'll check the shops for Palm OS when I am ready to buy. In Australian shops they make funny faces when I say I need a PDA for learning Asian languages. I don't know a specialised shop to get advice. Japan Plaza has closed in Melbourne now , they used to have very good PDA specialised for Japanese input, like drawing characters with stylo, in-built dictionaries and WP (I am sure those should work with Chinese as well, if the right software is loaded).

I'llcheck some links on Plecodict too.

[venture160]

I was at ZhongGuanCun the other day and some salesman showed me his tweaked out Palm. He had it hacked so that he could input pinyin and get character output, also had it hacked so that it could be in english but also read and write Chinese. His phone had quite a few chinese software hacks, I didn't get a chance to look at all of them. He was using a different chinese input method than the standard one you can download, it seemed to be a lot more universal and stable.

[roddy]

It shouldn't be that difficult. Get the PDA, then Plecodict, presumably, and if you want to use Chinese in other apps besides Plecodict (ie web browsing, documents) you'll need CJKOS (remember to factor that into the cost). Then a handwriting app if you want to do that.

Advantage of buying in China is that CJKOS and handwriting usually comes pre-installed and doesn't need to be bought and loaded separately.

[venture160]

Roddy, this guy was not running CJKOS, its a domestic software program that seems to be a little better. It was called... 玫瑰中文偷入 I think.

[atitarev]

Maybe, I should ask people who I know regularly go to China to get it for me. I'll choose a model I like first here.

[self-taught-mba]

Advantage of buying in China is that CJKOS and handwriting usually comes pre-installed and doesn't need to be bought and loaded separately.

But don't think you won't still pay for it. The pdas here are more expensive than in the US (like most electronics).

Even officially fromthe Palm site the pda list price on the Chinese site is more expensive than in America.

[Shadowdh]

Yes but probably cheaper than Aus (and the UK for that matter although in the case of PDAs not by much but cameras are a whole diff story)... I just wish I was passing through the states on this trip...

[badr]

no need to go through the US, Hong Kong is just as good price wise.

I tried looking up that Chinese software online but couldn't get any palm related hits.. can anyone help with finding out more?

[smalltownfart]

I've never heard of "rose" but for PalmOS, the only other Chinese input package I know of which is pretty good quality is HWPen ($10 to register I believe)

As a sidenote, for any extended language support, English is *always* supported (you can call this the spoils of being first at the post), as English is always displayable with base ASCII. So if you can see English and Chinese, that isn't as impressive as Korean + Arabic (or Chinese + Russian).

[gato]

It's 梅花输入 , which is available for the Palm and PocketPC.

http://www.baidu.com/s?ct=0&ie=gb2312&bs=%C3%B7%BB%A8%CA%E4%C8%EB&sr=&z=&cl=3&f=8&wd=%C3%B7%BB%A8%CA%E4%C8%EB+palm

Found a few things about Chinese input methods on the Palm/Treo:

Another handwriting recogntion program to try. Its suppose to higher recognition rate than the built-in 蒙恬手写输入 on the Treo

http://down1.tech.sina.com.cn/download/pda/2006-03-16/24525.shtml

汉王笔For PalmOS 紫罗兰

A supposedly very good free pinyin input method

http://www.51pda.cn/bbs/htm_data/52/0603/458.html

"掌易"中文输入平台 1.06

A review of the CECT (i.e. official mainland) edition of Treo 650

http://club.mypda.com.cn/sp.asp?tid=89539&bcp=1&loc=1

　·CJK中文系统和蒙恬手写输入这两款软件被Treo 650内置到ROM中了，早期的Palm并不重视中文市场，CJK和蒙恬是国人使用Palm的必备工具，

About choosing a handwriting recognition program

http://www.tompda.com/bbs/palm.asp?forumID=2090038

在650上蒙恬和汉王比那个好用

[atitarev]

smalltownfart:

As a sidenote, for any extended language support, English is *always* supported (you can call this the spoils of being first at the post), as English is always displayable with base ASCII. So if you can see English and Chinese, that isn't as impressive as Korean + Arabic (or Chinese + Russian).

I actually had bad experience with Arabic on a Pocket PC. It seems behind desktop PC's. The word processing and input becomes screwed for languages other than Arabic (or any other right-to-left languages).

Konglong:

I have a PocketPC. (HP2210) I use a free dictionary called Mdict. I have mentioned it before. Below are some link to screenshots with some of the different input methods I use. I took the Unihan Database, slimmed it down, improved the look, and made a database for Mdict. With my Chinese input, I am able to write out characters I see and look them up right on the spot. It can be downloaded here. There are also other dictionary databases out there.

I am also using MDict and a few others. Not so happy with some Chinese dictionary files. UniAdso has lots of blanks (no pinyin or no translations, possibly port to .mdx problem)

This link is no longer working

http://www.ldschinese.com/mdict/zidian.rar

Please advise, which dictionary file you use with MDict, it's a great tool, only need a better dictionary. Please recommend a good dictionary!

Other questions regarding MDict.

Fonts: I downloaded and installed the font (I've got some other fonts that work fine with tone marks) as advised but some pinyin characters are not displayed properly still (shows squares instead of letters). Copying words to Word and changing the font works fine.

Spacing: Why Chinese characters have spaces in between?

Calling on Konglong and others who worked with MDict!

[Konglong]

The name of the dictionary is Unihan. Mostly because I used the Unihan database to create it. It can be downloaded here. Each part is color coded. The main screen lists all the fonts I used in it.

-Stone_Song or 微軟細明 for the Chinese font.

-Pinyin font

-Tahoma

The last time I updated it was 5/20/2005.

I have a Shanghai bus file as well if anyone is interested.

Let me know if you have any questions. I actually was thinking about Mdict today. A while back I was creating a massive dictionary of all the dictionaries I have. I stopped while trying to figure out how I was going to remove duplicates. I'll let you know if I finish it.

K

[atitarev]

Thanks, Konglong, I'll try these Can you force MDict to use a font for pinyin?

[Konglong]

Yes, it's just straight html within the entries.

李

李    lǐ

plum; judge; surname

TotalStrokes: 7

---

Freq. 2

GradeLevel: 2

部首: 木 + 3 strokes

>

I used Tahoma because it came with my Traditional Chinese PPC. I can update the fonts with others if needed. Let me know. Hope this helps.

K

[atitarev]

I see, it is already in the entry but which file has this XML entries? mdx files seem to be binaries, I can't open them in a text editor and XML tags. I assume it's the entries before conversion.

Anyway, I installed Pinyin.ttf, restarted the device but lots of entries show squares instead of vowels with tone marks - entries with the 1st and the 3rd tones (e.g. dā or dǎ). If I copy entries to a Word document, I can change the font and it looks OK, squares change to vowels with tone marks but not inside MDict. Sorry to be a pain, if you don't know I'll wait for others or contact the manufacturer of MDict.

I installed Unihan but I haven't installed the fonts recommended, so some characters (minority) are displayed as squares as well. Will search for Stone_Song or 微軟細明. I've got already Tahoma, Ariel Unicode, MS Song, Ming Liu and MS Gothic (Japanese).

[Konglong]

Where exactly are you trying to view the fonts at? Did you install the fonts to Windows/Fonts? If you did, this is incorrect. At least on my WM2003 I just drop the ttf files in the WINDOWS folder and reset the device. For some reason putting them in the Fonts folder does not install them.

K

[atitarev]

Thanks, that helped! I used a different location on my storage card, other fonts worked fine.

Only need to find those missing fonts.

[ian_kwee]

I just bought, PALM m505 for dictionary... and

I have download PlecoDict ... but, there is DEMO.

Hmm...

Do you know which address is to download FULL-Version?

If you guys know it ? would you give me an address please ?

I'm very appreciate for you information...

Regards,

ian

[imron]

This page should solve all of your problems.