chinese writing system for the mac
May 8, 2010 3:25 PM Subscribe
i'd like to install a system for writing chinese on my mac and learn how to use it. i am just beginning to learn chinese. I know about 200 characters. what is the best system to learn? which one would be easiest for a someone just beginning chinese? which one would be most useful for learning the language?
my husband found a system where you write pin yin and then the characters come up. however, i've heard that chinese use a radical based system which may be better for organizing the chinese characters in your memory.
it's hard to find and install these programs because the information is all in chinese. so another issue is finding one with installation and use instructions in english. perhaps something intended for english speakers learning chinese?
my husband found a system where you write pin yin and then the characters come up. however, i've heard that chinese use a radical based system which may be better for organizing the chinese characters in your memory.
it's hard to find and install these programs because the information is all in chinese. so another issue is finding one with installation and use instructions in english. perhaps something intended for english speakers learning chinese?
Are you just talking about inputting Chinese? Because in that case, it's already on your computer. Go to your System Preferences, then click to the Language & Text panel (it should be on the top). The rightmost tab there is "Input Sources," which allows you to turn on a variety of input languages, including several methods for both traditional and simplified Chinese.
Once you turn on one of those input methods, you'll see a new icon in the upper right corner, probably of an American flag. This will be where you choose between input languages. After you select one of the Chinese ones, there will be a new option in that same menu for help using that input method.
posted by Schismatic at 4:03 PM on May 8, 2010
Once you turn on one of those input methods, you'll see a new icon in the upper right corner, probably of an American flag. This will be where you choose between input languages. After you select one of the Chinese ones, there will be a new option in that same menu for help using that input method.
posted by Schismatic at 4:03 PM on May 8, 2010
Schismatic is correct. Multiple types of input systems exist on both windows and mac. For a beginning speaker, I'd say that pinyin is most useful. The stroke method has a steep learning curve and it's only really useful if you're trying to type quickly. Furthermore, if you forget the strokes of a character, you're out of luck. The pinyin method will reinforce the pronunciation of each character, which is the most important thing for you at this point.
P.S. There's lots of additional software out there for fancy types of recognition (like handwriting/tablet), but everything you need is accessible on your computer already. You might have to download a "Language Pack" from Microsoft. And there's a lot of English-language instruction about such things. Don't pay anything.
posted by acidic at 4:27 PM on May 8, 2010
P.S. There's lots of additional software out there for fancy types of recognition (like handwriting/tablet), but everything you need is accessible on your computer already. You might have to download a "Language Pack" from Microsoft. And there's a lot of English-language instruction about such things. Don't pay anything.
posted by acidic at 4:27 PM on May 8, 2010
i supported an office full of chinese people, some of them were using 'twinbridge'. (not a recommendation, i'm not sure how well it worked.)
posted by kimyo at 8:39 PM on May 8, 2010
posted by kimyo at 8:39 PM on May 8, 2010
Your Mac comes with several input methods. The pinyin method is good for learning that focuses on the pronunciation; it looks like the wubi xing method (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubizixing) is very fast at a professional level, but takes a long time to learn. Most of my Chinese-American friends use a pinyin based method, but most of my Chinese-American friends can't read and write perfectly anyway, so there's that. I've always used a pinyin method myself - a phonetic input method just feels more natural to me. You might want to try both; you can activate them both in the International menu and switch between them as described by Schismatic.
posted by Lady Li at 8:45 PM on May 8, 2010
posted by Lady Li at 8:45 PM on May 8, 2010
Pinyin is going to be the easiest and most commonly used for inputting Chinese. If you're learning to speak, it's pretty easy to learn the spelling rules. And it's already built into your Mac, so you don't need to install anything.
posted by wongcorgi at 3:38 AM on May 9, 2010
posted by wongcorgi at 3:38 AM on May 9, 2010
As others have said, OSX has the popular basic input methods built-in. There's also OpenVanilla which is still kind of active.
To be honest, if you're a beginning, I am not sure how practical it is for you to use anything but pin yin or nine strokes if you don't have a keyboard with the radical/stroke markings on the keys. I would compare that to learning to type on a blank keyboard.
posted by tksh at 9:34 AM on May 10, 2010
To be honest, if you're a beginning, I am not sure how practical it is for you to use anything but pin yin or nine strokes if you don't have a keyboard with the radical/stroke markings on the keys. I would compare that to learning to type on a blank keyboard.
posted by tksh at 9:34 AM on May 10, 2010
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posted by Chocolate Pickle at 3:43 PM on May 8, 2010