finding copies of Wenlin for the Mac in China

[venture160]

Hi everyone,

I am currently in China studying, and I am having a real hard time finding myself a copy of Wenlin for the MAC. All of the apple dealers at ZhongGuanCun in Beijing have never heard of it, and all of my friends that have it use PC's, anyone know of any Chinese websites that could point me in the right direction? I am dying over here without a sturdy Chinese software program, every week I have to read gobloads of journal articles for some classes and using the old Oxford Dictiory and my big Longman its painfully slow. Any help would be MUCH appreciated!!! Thanks!

Venture160

[zhwj]

While it's probably a violation of posting rule #7 to answer requests for software cracks, I'll point you to a few free solutions:

- ICiBa, the online version of Kingsoft's dictionary software. It's not a full-featured as Wenlin, but it's pretty good for making your way through unfamiliar passages.

- Lin Yutang's dictionary also has an online version that's pretty good.

- Adso does word translations as well as text annotation and translation.

[gato]

Have you tried DimSum? It's like Wenlin but with the public domain dictionary instead of the the ABC dictionary. Since it runs on Java, it should work on the Mac.

http://www.mandarintools.com/dimsum.html

[imron]

Or if you really need Wenlin, this page lists places you can get it in China.

[venture160]

hey thanks a ton for that link on DimSum, it seems like it will get me through on the short term, but I am still going to keep an eye out for WenLin in China. Anyone know of any dealers in Beijing?

[roddy]

Just for reference, I've never even seen the PC version on public sale anywhere in China, let alone the Mac version.

Roddy

[imron]

The link I posted above has contact information for a dealer in Tianjin. It seems they send stuff out by post, but failing that, Tianjin is close enough to Beijing for a day-trip. Their prices are also US$99 cheaper than the American retail price.

[Jockster]

Imron,

please keep us posted on this one; I've been thinking about buying a copy of this software in China, too. I noticed that it is much cheaper here, too, interestingly enough.

[Lugubert]

According to the User Guide (v. 3.0), the same CD works on

MacOS 7, 8, 9, or X

Win 95, 98, NT4, 2000, ME, or XP.

They also say that Wenlin is compatible with Chinese versions of MacOS and Win, and with the Apple Chinese Language Kit, but doesn't require any of them.

[badr]

i second the dimsum option. I have been using it for over a year and I love their "convert to pinyin" option.

[aeon]

If you just need a lookup facility for web pages, then Live Dictionary does the job in Safari. IIRC it can be hacked to work in other applications, though I haven't tried.

My Wenlin CD is dual platform. If you can buy an original CD in CHina, then it should be too. Otherwise you'll have to get it mailed to you from the US...

[Daraemilya]

I've been looking for Wenlin for Mac's also. I have seen them for sale although PC. Would appreciate if you could tell me if you were successful in your search. I'm currently living in Beijing at the moment.

[pandaxiongmao]

Not sure about your friends Venture, but I have a legitimate copy of Wenlin that I bought from one of the authorized dealers in China. The CD works both on my Mac (Mac OS X) and my PC (Windows Vista). So just find out where your friends got their copy.

[stephanhodges]

The same CD has software for both Mac and PC, assuming it's an official Wenlin CD

[trevelyan]

As several users have commented above, the same CD is used for both the Windows and Macintosh versions. Feel free to send a private note if you can't find a retailer in China. I can probably arrange to deliver a somewhat discounted version if you are willing to wait for shipping from the US.

[doumeizhen]

There has been a mac version release of ZDT (Zhongwen Development Tool), To use it you will need to have Java 5 installed and turned on, which comes standard it seems with the latest OS X.