Another extension: Chinese Tools

[Luxi]

Also for Chrome (or Firefox or Opera)

 

Chinese Tools
offered by https://www.purpleculture.net/

 

Tools provided in this extension includes:
- Chinese to Pinyin/Zhuyin conversion
- Traditional/Simplified Chinese conversion
- Vocabulary list generator
- Dictionary lookup
- Translate to English
- Chinese text to speech

 

It works from the context menu: highlight and right click to get the list of options. I like the TTS - it sounds humans but bots are getting too good these days, it may not be.

 

The website is well worth a visit. It's a Hong Kong bookshop with lots of titles for Chinese learners offering easier payment and shipping options than mainland sites, it allows Paypal for payments. I haven't compared prices. The site also has an array of diverse tools for learners, something for everyone.

 

[uvwxyz]

On 21/01/2018 at 3:29 AM, Luxi said:

I haven't compared prices.

I had, they seem to be in line with what, say, Sinolingua/BLCUP charge on their websites. Plus it is always easier to deal with one aggregator instead of several publisher's sites.. Delivery cost is rather atrocious everywhere ~75%-100% of price of the books, but this seems to be 中国特色。

[Luxi]

On 23/01/2018 at 8:34 AM, uvwxyz said:

I had, they seem to be in line with what, say, Sinolingua/BLCUP charge on their websites.

 

Yes, and cheaper than some of those books in Amazon UK - the book I wanted was offered at £1237 by an Amazon seller! 

 

Last Sunday I ordered a book (a real bargain : book on reading online media and CD for less than £10). I paid with a couple of clicks using Paypal. Airmail postage was about £8.50 - which isn't too bad and works OK from Hong Kong (about 2 weeks). The Express delivery would have been over £30, but this may not be so bad in an order for several books. The ordering process was as fast and easy.

 

Unfortunately, the book I wanted wasn't in stock, but within minutes of placing the order I had an email from Paypal notifying me of the refund. Disappointing not to get the book, but good to know the sellers are trustworthy.

 

[Luxi]

Chinese Reader - Annotated Daily News

Wow!

 

This one is an online tool, not a browser extension. 

 

The tool - from the Purpleculture set, is my Chinese Tool of the Year. It's a selection of passages from the day's news with everything one needs to study.  It has everything I could have asked for, except a human voice for the TTS - but individual words don't sound too bad. The texts change daily.

 

Don't forget to copy or save your word list before moving out of the page! I lost a very useful list that way.

 

[Luxi]

Purpleculture has some new (to me at least) tools and other additions worth mentioning.

 

This 'Compraison' [sic] Chart of Chinese Graded Readers looks useful for people trying to decide which to buy next, it even includes some layout and page samples. In the tools section, the pinyin tools list seems longer than earlier but I wouldn't know what is new there. These 汉字 tools  are new to me and seem quite good for trying new ways of revising.

 

Chinese Word/Pinyin Search Puzzle Generator  - paste a list of characters you want to revise and it generates a page with random characters + the ones you pasted to test recognition.

 

Chinese Crossword Puzzle Generator

Paste a list of 汉字and it generates a blank crossword puzzle grid based on their pinyin (even gives a with / without tone mark choice)   

 

And a rather quirky Chinese Bingo Card generator  which might be fun for teachers of Chinese to try out in class.

 

Their book catalogue seems much expanded now. Especially their Literature & Novels list has grown to 900+ titles and includes many bilingual English-Chinese books and even quite a few translations in Spanish. The air mail shipping costs from Hong Kong are quite reasonable and delivery times to UK are only 2-3 weeks.

 

[mungouk]

15 hours ago, Luxi said:

The air mail shipping costs from Hong Kong are quite reasonable and delivery times to UK are only 2-3 weeks.

 

I like these guys. They quote 2 weeks for delivery to Singapore but when I've bought books the orders arrived within 5 days.

 

They also accept paypal, and the site is much easier to navigate for a learner than Chinese Amazon, for example. 

[Luxi]

On 8/28/2018 at 3:51 AM, mungouk said:

the orders arrived within 5 days.

 

Same here, my deliveries to UK arrived in less than 2 weeks, and I even got confirmation of dispatch and tracking numbers. Cost and timing by air mail are just about same as for deliveries from the US, and book prices are as from mainland China.