writing in chinese for the non-knowing : how to ?

[mat1979]

hi everybody

i'm having a real bad time trying to figure out what's the best way for me to write chinese on my pc.

what exactly do i wanna do ? i wanna write emails in chinese caracters to a chinese friend. I'm using firefox. i've heard about IME. i've kind of understood a software is gonna be needed to do the trick (can't it be done online? where?). are some of those software 100% free?

the thing is, i'm here in front of my screen, i can see chinese caracters alright, but i don't know how to type them, and i just can't find a simple place on the web where a comprehensive explanation on how to do it appears!!!

my wish: that one of you can explain to me poor guy the steps that i need to follow.

and i think if you made a sticky on how to configure your pc to read and above all write in chinese, you'd have a hit (at least with me).

shed some light on my ignorance!!!

[Celso Pin]

just go to settings/ regional

in languages click languages of east asia.

in details, select simplified chinese.

after that, you are ready to write chinese caracteres!

[gougou]

I also use the IME that comes with Windows.

There also are software packages, the most popular one (so I believe) being NJ Star. But since I don't use those, I can't tell you much about them.

Some online methods of inputting hanzi are mentioned in this thread; some more discussion can be found here

[johnmck]

I don't use IME (I have a works PC and don't have access to the windows source disks). Instead I use this site:

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php

go to it and click on "type chinese". After you have typed your script you then cut and paste it.

[Chili]

I also use MDBG. It is really fantastic. It has a real good tranlate function. Just type in your message in english, and ask for a translation, copy the answer and paste it into your email for your friend. It can also translate from chinese to english, not only characters but full long sentences.

[Lu]

I would very much not recommend this last method, machine translations from English to Chinese or the other way around usually come out as barely understandable gibberish.

In windows, there's a menu in which you can add Chinese to the languages you can type. You then get a language bar, set it to Chinese and you can type characters, using pinyin.

If your friend is mainland Chinese, make sure you type GB2312, if s/he is Taiwanese, make sure you type Big5.

[stephanhodges]

A couple of free programs are:

Dimsum from www.mandarintools.com. It requires Java also

Wakan from http://wakan.manga.cz/ which supports both Japanese and Chinese.

The book "Intermediate Chinese" by Yong Ho has a small section on using the IME method, but it also applies to any "Pinyin" based method.

Each of the popular programs TwinBridge, Chinese Star, RichWin, and NJStar can do the job well. Of the four, the 1st three are resident programs.... I suggest [author speaking] the PINYIN method when entering. ... The right way to input is to type by word, rather than by individual characters. Since most words in Chinese today dissyllabic, there are far fewer homophones for dissyllabic or polysyllibic words.

[johnmck]

I also like MDBG as its dictionary will give you stoke orders for the characters. At www.mandarintools.com you can also find a Word Macro for entering chinese characters in Word.

[mat1979]

thanks all! 谢谢

[goldie]

我在用 mdbg 這是我第一次用它，覺得很好玩. wow, thanks, i didn't know this existed. 太有意思了. hee hee.