Free Chinese study software!

[mandarinboy]

Opps, have to look in to that:oops:

Seems like it is the usual screen resolution problem again. Do you mind sharing with me you screen settings?

No, it was not my intention to have it in the folder as dim sum. Actualy I did not know they where using that folder. I have alwas used that folder since my first software was named chinese tools. Maybe i need to change it. Thanks for the input. I will take care of this first thing tomorrow.

[bogleg]

The screen resolution that I'm using right now is 1280 x 1024.

Chris

[chinesetools]

No, it was not my intention to have it in the folder as dim sum. Actualy I did not know they where using that folder. I have alwas used that folder since my first software was named chinese tools. Maybe i need to change it. Thanks for the input. I will take care of this first thing tomorrow.

I think it's an example of convergent evolution. With both of us using Chinese tools as a description separately, it's natural to put programs in a ChineseTools directory.

[mandarinboy]

Chinesetools: I will change to another directory anyway. Easier for the users not to mix files. Even though i write in c++/vb and your is in java there might be file confusions anyway. By the way, i just downloaded dimsum and love it! Very nice. I will test it further tonight when my 20 month baby is sleeping (no time to code when she is awake:wink: )

Bogleg: I have been testing this over and over this morning but i can´t seem to reproduce the error. I will tonigt ride in to my work and test in in our lab there. We have all sorts of computers and servers there with all versions of Os and screens. I will find it:)

[mandarinboy]

I have just released the latest version of "Chinese Homework trainer" Among the new featues i have added are

- New study window with radicals, stroke animations etc.

- Made it easier to add compunds to compund lists.

- Added numer of lists in each category and number of words in each list to the selection tree.

- Made it possible to click on any word in the datagrid to get more info about the word, including stroke order and radical data.

- New function to create a study list and import directly to it.

- Added functions to choose simplified or traditional characters wordlists when importing.

- Added number of study lists in each category and number of entries in each study list to the tree view control on the main window.

-Made it possible to Import all stuy lists in one folder with one click on the button.

-Made it possible to export all stuy lists in one category with one click on the button.

- Fixed several bugs.

- Changed install directory to avoid installing in the same folder as dim sum.

- Updated radical data. Changed to older Unicode values to avoid font problems (very few unicode 5 fonts out there)

- And more...

Download site is here:http://www.euroasiasoftware.com/ht/index.html

If you already is using one of my old versions, please take a backup of the database ( can be done from inside the program) before you install the new version. I have made several changes to the databases in the program so you need to update everything. If you have own study lists, export them and import them back in the new verision!

I am still working on several more updates to come. Functions for example senteces, dialogues and texts is what I focus on now.

[Southernjohn]

mandarinboy-

Thank you- this is a fantastic program to be made available as shareware. I have only begun using it today, and have yet to test some of the features(like printing out flashcards) but so far I am extremely happy. Correct me if I am wrong, but you have essentially taken the important principles of Supermemo and adapted them to a chinese study-specific application. I tried to use Supermemo, and it is an extremely powerful application, but I found it to be cumbersome/unwieldy to use, at least at first; a little bit of a learning curve, and I am not completely computer-illiterate.

My favorite feature so far: the 'pinyin field' allows you to type in whatever you wish... so you can also type in other romanizations of other dialects for a character, be it Cantonese or Shanghaiese or whatever. This is a DEFINITE plus for me and probably for many other people.

A couple of small questions/problems: 1) I have encountered a bug when I choose to backup to the default file... it gives an error message and closes everything. 2) font problems (and this is probably as much to do with my lack of knowledge as anything else) I cannot seem to title my lists in chinese.... I can, but than it is not recognized as a list. If I title a list in Chinese characters, and then go to add words to the list, I get a message telling me I haven't chosen a valid list. Other font problem: I noticed a few pinyin accents do not display properly... there is a box instead superimposed over the letters. I haven't explored it enough, but it seems to have something to do with n, g? Not sure.

Anyway, thank you again... this is a great application! I will be using it intensively and will be donating money for this effort very shortly. I urge others to do the same.

southernjohn.

[mandarinboy]

1: This is most likely due to the fact that i am compiling the code on a server with the latest Microsoft scripting host. I guess that you had a waring about that when you installed and skipped it. I will fix this next week by going back to the version used by windows XP and windows 2000. Sorry.

2: Wow, i have totaly missed the obvious here. Naturaly it must be possible to name your study lists with characters. I will look in to this this week-end. I have just never named my list in Chinese so this i have totaly missed.

3: Font. This is a just a font problem. Not all fonts supports Unicode for pinyin. Try t.ex AR PL ZenKai Uni ( Acrobat reader: can be downloaded herehttp://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrasianfontpack.html

Or any of the fonts we have at our download page.

There will be a new version out next week with many new features. One of the nicest things i am working on right now (comes later) is a feature to calculate the number of characters and/or words you know and and get them matched to texts. You will be able to se that in e.g text1 you know 70% of the words, in text 2 you know 40 % etc. The rest of the words is annotated so you can read them, save them to your study list etc. I have found this useful for my self. And yes, i am working hard on a proper help file. Sorry for the poor quality of the help file. We coders are very seldom good at that part.

Thanks for the input!!: It is very important to have feedback so that i know what to improve.

[g0tland]

First of all thank you for this great tool. No doubt it will help me a lot to improve my chinese and do my homework! I have just installed it and I discover lots of great features (I was only using dimsum before).

One problem though: I can not make the file import working.

I have first created a category and a list name. I try to import a simple text file but the result is not good (see attached).

Any idea?

Does this come from the options that I used when saving the word doc into a text file?

Thank you for your help,

Nathalie

[mandarinboy]

Can yo mail me the list to? I can have a look at it. As i can se, you do have a , between the character and pinyin but nothing between pinyin and translation. Is that true? I might have cut some corners here but the format needs to be e.g

- chinese characters tab pinyin tab translation

- chinese characters ,pinyin ,translation

Etc. Or in any other order.

I have a new version ready for release next week with much improved import and export functions, with or without stats etc. It also comes with a new neat feature for texts. All texts is processed so you can se how many percent of the text you know. The words you do not know int he text comes with annotation. Words you do not know can be saved directly to any study list. Percentage updates when you learn more characters. I have had a lot of fun with tis this weekend:)

I will look in to the possibility to check for format of a textfile before importing it.

[g0tland]

Hej Mandarinboy,

I am looking forward to playing with the new version :-)

Please find attached my word document, as well as the text version. I did try both tab and "," yesterday. I had delimiters between all words (chinese, pinyin, translation) - only the font size in the word doc was not the same.

As I have my BLCU exam early next week, I wanted to review the vocabulary with your software. But never mind, if it is working with the new version and not 3.4.1, i will wait for this one.

hej då

Nathalie

PS: By the way, once I have successfully imported the vocabulary list (french/chinese translation), I am ready to share it with any french speaker who might be interested in (I followed the A+ course).

list import.doc

list import.txt

[mandarinboy]

I have tested to import and it works fine(sh)

See the attached screenshot for how to set the save options to unicode:

Everything in homework trainer is build on Unicode values so the save format needs to be that as well. Note also the line breakers. That is esential so that the program knows when a rows ends and a new one starts. I am working on a feature to check for formats of a file but that is not on the top of my list for the moment, unfortunately.

[g0tland]

Fantastiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiic ! Working fine for me as well with the right text format. I will upload vocabulary and train for next week.

Thank you for the great support,

Nathalie

PS: will definitely bring my contribution for your development work - as every user should do !

[Toffeeliz]

i just have one question before I begin the downloading; is the chinese font pinyin enabled? - my computer disk is faulty and so I can't gett the chinese fonts so I could really do with this being a pinyin typing tool!

The other stuff sounds great though - i can;pt wait to download it!

[mandarinboy]

Yes and no:wink:

Yes, you can type pinyin e.g wo3 and get it with proper tone marks instead. No, it is not intended to be a pinyin typing pad. There is no wordprocessor for pinyin build in. Is that something that would be nice to have? We are using Uniode for all characters, including pinyin. What you type can be used elsewhere, e.g notepad etc.

[mandarinboy]

I have just found the casue to the screen distorsion bug bogleg resported a few weeks ago:oops: .

I had by misstake calculated the size in pixels instead of twips. The size of a pixel can be different on different screens while there always is the same number of twips per pixel. I have corrected this and it will be in next release, due next weekend. Sorry. I am clearly not smart enough to debug my own code:cry:

[mandarinboy]

I have done some testing of different Chinese text to voice voices(sapi) for a project at work. To be honest, Microsofts free voices is not realy the best. I boght a couple others to test and they are realy good (aprox. 35 US$/voice). Since they where so good i started to test it on my own application and did get it to work very nicely with exporting study lists to mp3. Here is an example: http://www.freechineselearning.com/test.mp3

This file is 700 Kb. It is just the chinese voice in this file but i will later tonight receive my english voices as well. Then i can record mp3 with both chinese and translations with relatively good quality. Since i can use XML in the streams i can add pauses between words and translations etc. It actualy did turn out rather nicely. I hope to have this in my next release within a week or so. Whit this it is possible to easely record texts belonging to any chapter I am studying for the moment or just record the words to have in my player when riding the bike to work. The voices work with most text to speech aplications so i will try to find the links and add them here if any one wants them.

[bogleg]

Can you provide us with the links to the products you are using? And do you know what the licensing issues are with them?

Thanks

Chris

[mandarinboy]

I bought my voices here: http://www.regnow.com/softsell/nph-softsell.cgi?item=3961-19&affiliate=80449

There is a test file with this voice reading a short text here: http://nextupdownloads.com/neosamples/Lily.mp3

(it sounds very fast on my computer but in all text to speech application i have used and progrtammed it is possible to slow down the speed.

I am going to use this in a program i am programming for my employer but i found it to be so good that i bought one my self as well. As I understand it, you need to buy one for each user. The voice is coming as a normal exe file without any license keys or anything so i guess it up to each and everyones own moral standard what to do with it. I have mailed them about what it would cost to license it for a software but have not yet recevied any reply on that. I haven´t found any good free voices yet.

I released my latest version today of Chinese homeworktrainer today (3.5.5)http://www.euroasiasoftware.com/ht/index.html

[Luobot]

When you issue a new release, do you recommend that your users first uninstall the older version or just install the new version on top of the old version?

[mandarinboy]

Best is to uninstall the old one and then reinstall the new one. Be sure to first take a backup of the privateteacher.mdb database (can be done form the menu file). You can also export your study lists to files and then import them back in the new version. Those later versions are mainly updated in the exe file it self. It would be possible to pack just the help file and the exe file and let users download them as a package and replace the old ones with. I will try to find some time to do this. The database is mostly just updated with new study lists. I am working on creating lists for all books in the "New practical Chinese reader" series. The first book is soon done. I will also post the study list so users can inport them to programs such as ZDT and other.