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Wenlin is an excellent Chinese-English dictionary. But it can also be used to read Chinese texts on a computer. It translates in real time words and expressions that are pointed by the mouse cursor.
As far as I know, it is the only dictionary that gives the etymology of characters and their historical evolution (from the « turtle shell» character to the modern simplified version).
I use it to read articles, blogs and even books in Chinese (a lot of Chinese books can be downloaded, although some are pirate versions).
The procedure is very simple:
- Open a new window in Wenlin (CTRL + N)
- Copy and paste the text you want to read, and that’s it ! (No need to wait for the text to be loaded contrary to other sofwares).
You can also look up characters in many other ways.
Pinyin lookup (CTRL + L)
Google pinyin (my favourite pinyin software) can replace Wenlin’s pinyin conversion system. Those two pieces of software software can be used together.
Characters can also be looked up by being drawn with a mouse. Cf. "brush" icon on the left of the screen (Hint: chose the "list characters to chose" options, it is much more efficient).
More specific to Wenlin, characters can be looked up by character components (all components, not only character keys).
For example I want to look up 匙, without knowing how to pronounce it. But I know that it contains a 是 that I know how to pronounce.
In the 是 character page, click on "list containing characters 是 as a component" and here it is, 匙 is the fifth character of the list.
Other very useful functions:
- List containing words 是 (most common words first)
- List words starting with 是 (in alphabetical order)
One thing I don’t like about Wenlin :
- Dictionary examples are only written in pinyin, what really does not make sens !
But as a conclusion, Wenlin is really the essential companion of my chinese studies.
Wenlin’s official website
Wenlin's official website
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