There are some great translation tools out there but Lingoes is by far the most useful one that I’ve been using lately. Based on a concept similar to the pricy Israeli-based Babylon this software will translate any language to any language in any software you run on your PC, using three methods – either [...]

I’m not sure who did this and how, perhaps it’s mediated by English, but there are now a few online dictionaries that can translate between Hebrew and Chinese (מילון עברית סינית, מילון עברי-סיני). How odd, how wonderful.
(UPDATE 29/09/2008 : Google Translate now features full website translation from Chinese to Hebrew. Best tool ever.)
The first and [...]

Although I’m a foreigner in this land, I will try and give out a few recommendations for Taiwanese music albums from a few singers I was introduced to in the past few months. The Taiwanese music I will recommend to you is heavily influenced by the Taiwanese that I know. It’s not going to be Taiwanese [...]

My one month intense summer Chinese course ended this last Friday and it feels sad.  In the one month that we’ve been studying Chinese together, I feel we’ve become really good friends. 5 hours of intense practice and lunch out together everyday, with some nights going to KTV, movie, dinners – will do that to you, I guess. 
In [...]

Tong Hua by Guang Liang (Fairy-tale 童话 by Michael Wong 光良) is an unbelievably popular song among basic Chinese class teachers and students. It was there in all the Chinese schools I attended, and it’s quite obvious why – it’s easy to understand, it’s simple to follow, it’s touching and melodic.
The NCKU Chinese Language school has been holding a KTV [...]

Forgive me father, for I have sinned. It has been over one semester since I last touched Chinese and over a year since I last had a decent Chinese class (no, Chinese classes in Israel don’t count). Honest to god, I can hardly manage anything in Chinese. I know that I know things, I can [...]

Google’s China presence is growing with new China services for their local Guge coming out often. Google China (GuGe) has just released Google Pinyin, a Chinese IME to simplify typing in Pinyin to output Chinese characters.
I think anybody using the default Windows Chinese IME has felt it’s a very frustrating tool, and most of my Chinese/Taiwanese friends [...]

I haven’t seen any announcements or mentions of this in either Chinese-related or IT-related blogs, but it seems that Google Translate is finally BETA testing Traditional Chinese, which is used in Taiwan, HK and some other Chinese communities outside China.
Although Altavista’s Babelfish has been providing this service for a while now, it always felt [...]