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| *Travel Tips>>>China Travel Tips |
Pinyin-to-character software (Chinese, Mandarin)? |
Travel Info I tried googling but to no avail: My goal is to learn to speak/communicate in Mandarin, BUT I am really put off by the idea of learning thousands of characters (very difficult). the solution: learn Pinyin (very easy) The problem: Pinyin is not in mainstream use in Chinese society The possible solution for me: Find a software that can convert Mandarin Pinyin phrazes into the corresponding Characters (as well as convert characters into pinyin) The question: Does such a software exist?? Thank you. Travel Tips Your Windows XP has software to convert "Mandarin Pinyin" into Chinese Characters if you have the multi-language support installed. There is a input method called "Ms Pinyin" You can find in your "Regional and Language" setting. Pinyin is widely used as an input method to input Chinese characters into computer in China. Most people in China learns Pinyin with the characters. The problem is that you cannot use Pinyin to replace Chinese characters. Pinyin is all about how to pronounces a particular Chinese Characters. There are so many Chinese characters that are pronounces the SAME. You can really use pinyin to replace the char. (For inputting chars into computer, You type in "zhi" as Pinyin, and it returns you 5 Chinese chars to choose from.) Others That's great (if not very lazy) but you need to remember Chinese grammar too. You can happily type away Pinyin and read aloud (get the tones right! try and get a native to teach you) but Chinese word order is different to English. Also, you need to really know the characters for example 鍧?zu貌 means 'sit' whereas 搴?zu貌 means 'a seat'. Same character, just with a different radical, more importantly the pinyin is exactly the same and you could get something out of context very easily. There really isn't an easy way into learning Chinese. If you only want to speak Mandarin and not into reading the characters, try this : bbc.co.uk/languages. The words are in Pinyin not Chinese characters. I find it easy learning it on this site. Hope this helps. Xie Xie. I agree about using Microsoft to do this, and there are plenty of programs out there that you can buy for that purpose if you search the web. Other than purchasing a program, here's a little tip, if you just want to look up a word or two fast, go to http://www.mandarintools.com/worddict.ht... ... It's an online dictionary where you can put in the pinyin and get the Chinese word for it and vice versa. I use it alot. |
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