Fili's world» Chinese Studies | China, HK, Taiwan

Lingoes – Free Translation Software That Works

Fili — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 02:17:44 +0000

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 use a keyboard-mouse combo (“Cursor Translator”), simply select the word you wish to translate (“Zoned Word Translator”) or copy it to the clipboard (“Clipboard Translator”). The nicest feature, IMHO, is that you can highlight sentences and not only words, and it will go online to fetch a translation from translation engines.

It includes an endless collection of dictionaries and thesauruses (here’s Traditional Chinese, Hebrew and English). And, it’s all completely free.

Some sample screenshots ?

Lingoes English

Lingoes Chinese

Lingoes sentence “Instant Translation”

Like it? know something else that’s better? Let me know.

Online and Offline Chinese-Hebrew Dictionaries

Fili — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:08:00 +0000

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 most useful of all is a commercial product of an Israeli company – Babylon. Point at a word in Chinese, do a click combination (shift+click in my settings) and a translation will come up in Hebrew. I was so surprised the first time I noticed there’s a Chinese->Hebrew translation in there, I figured things have changed since I started studying Chinese and it’s probably time to do a short survey of the growing niche and available tools out there.

A terrific product, for translations from any language to any language.

Another is Dicts.info. It’s far from perfect, but it has the basics, so those looking for some very basic vocabulary might find it useful.

Hopefully, it will improve with time.

There’s also Tirgumatzik (תירגומצ’יק) which does a slightly better job, though the interface is in Hebrew.

It includes both simplified and traditional Chinese as well as a number of other exotic languages.

If you’re going to China and you’re looking for a basic chitchat dictionary with Hebrew, then Limpid’s downloadable dictionary might be useful, at least for pointing to Chinese what you want. If you want to use this for speaking, you’ll probably need to learn how to pronounce the basic Pinyin to really make the most of it. As the link in Limpid’s is broken, here’s the full working link. I hope they’ll keep it there.

If you’re looking to buy a Chinese Hebrew dictionary then you have atleast two options that I know of. One is by Israeli Peret Emanuel, and the other by Chinese Ruan Xiang (阮项)(buy it on the Chinese Amazon).

Know of any other resources to help translate between Chinese and Hebrew? let me know…

Taiwanese music – Recommended Mandarin Chinese artists from Taiwan – 張惠妹, 張懸, 楊乃文

Fili — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 04:47:57 +0000

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 heavy-metal, electronic or punk music, but rather some very soft and melodic Mandarin Chinese alternative like music, in more of an Alanis Morrisete style. I’m honestly not even sure all of those are Taiwanese, so I’ll hope you excuse my ignorance, but, since they’re well-liked here, I’ll just assume that they are. Let do those, say, 3 at a time…

張惠妹-我要快樂

This is an extremely popular album from last year. Here’s the theme song – “我要快樂” (“I want happiness”)

And another song from the album ”不像個大人”

Sweet, quiet, melodic, just the way us Taiwanese like it…

張懸 – 親愛的…我還不知道

Here’s a little live session from Spring-Scream:

and something from her previous album – 無狀態 :

She’s also very famous for a song called 寶貝.

This next one is slightly different style. There’s something more unique about this girl. Taiwanese describe her personality as cold, but her voice and music shows a lot of depth.

楊乃文女爵

Here’s the theme song :

And another one called 微笑著揮手 :

Like it? Hopefully, more next time…

Goodbye friends – Intense summer Chinese course is over

Fili — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 04:18:03 +0000

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 the last day, the lovely ms. Hung gave us a wonderful clip she made from the photos we took during the course with "Sakura Sakura" playing in the background. We exchanged some goodbye letters and headed out to a buffet lunch sponsored by the Chinese school. After filling up, we moved on to hang-out at Dino’s World, one of the many video-games places around Tainan. Later on that evening, we met again for a Taiwanese style dinner and a glimpse of the Tainan nightlife. And then… we parted, all leaving to go back to their countries… me the only one staying in Tainan. Ay ya…

Goodbye ZuoTang, FongYong, AiTing, Zimin, WaiLai and DouMa, I had a really great time. Hope to see you again sometime…

Tong Hua by Guang Liang (Fairy-tale 童话 by Michael Wong 光良)

Fili — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:38:15 +0000

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 Karaoke competition this past week among the Chinese language students. Surprisingly, I knew some of the songs there, but – among others – there was Michael Wong’s Tonghua once again. So, here’s a chance to compare the Chinese language students of the NCKU Chinese Language center in Tainan-Taiwan to the Hebrew University East Asia department in Jerusalem-Israel :

NCKU Language School KTV contest:

Hebrew University’s East-Asia day:

(Honestly, who do you think’s better?)

So, as a tribute to the official number 1 study-Chinese song, here’s the original TongHua video with English translation embedded, followed by the lyrics (thanks to Chinatown):

Tong Hua by Guang Liang
(Fairy-tale 童话 by Michael Wong 光良)

忘了有多久
wàng le yǒu duō jiǔ
I forgot how long it has been
再没听到你
zài méi tīng dào nǐ
Since the last time I heard you
对我说你最爱的故事
duì wǒ shuō nǐ zuì ài de gù shì
and I told you your favourite story
我想了很久
wǒ xiǎng lè hěn jiǔ
I thought for a long time
我开始慌了
wǒ kāi shǐ huāng le
I started to feel confused
是不是我又做错什么
shì bú shì wǒ yòu zuò cuò shén me
If once again it was my mistake
你哭着对我说
nǐ kū zhe duì wǒ shuō
You told me crying
童话里都是骗人的
tóng huà lǐ dōu shì piàn rén de
that all fairytales are a lie
我不可能是你的王子
Wǒ bù kě néng shì nǐ de wáng zi
and I can’t be your prince
也许你不会懂
yé xü3 nǐ bù huì dǒng
But you don’t understand either
从你说爱我以后
cóng nǐ shuō ài wǒ yǐ hòu
that since you told me you loved me
我的天空星星都亮了
wǒ de tiān kōng xīng xīng dōu liàng le
All the stars in my sky were bright
我愿变成童话里
wǒ yuàn biàn chéng tóng huà lǐ
I hope I’ll change this fairytale
你爱的那个天使
nǐ ài de nǎ gè tiān shǐ
your love for that angel
张开双手
zhāng kāi shuāng shǒu
Extend my hands
变成翅膀守护你
biàn chéng chì bǎng shǒu hù nǐ
turning them into wings to protect you
你要相信
nǐ yào xiāng xìn
You have to believe
相信我们会像童话故事里
xiāng xìn wǒ men huì xiàng tóng huà gù shì lǐ
We can be just like a fairytale
幸福和快乐是结局
xìng fú hé kuài lè shi jié jú
With happiness and joy in the end
一起写我们的结局
yī qǐ xiě wǒ men de jié jú
We can write together our own happy ending.

Damn, Chinese again

Fili — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 09:41:00 +0000

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 read a few hundred characters and I have more than the basic vocabulary, but it just doesn’t flow. Although officially, I haven’t been studying long, it’s safe to say that Chinese has no doubt been the hardest challenge of my study life, if not my biggest frustration.

Anyhow, it’s now on again, in the NCKU Chinese language school with Hong laoshi and Zhang laoshi. Last time in Taipei, I barely survived 2 hours a day, and now it’s 4 exhausting hours every day. I joined a class that is starting from the 10th session of the the first book, which after looking into I thought was way below my level, but the 4 hours today made me realize that I’m in really bad shape when it comes to talking and understanding. I need to go back to the basics, confront my Chinese shyness, and try to start talking again, even if I’m making a complete ass of myself.

I’m the oldest one in the group. Not surprisingly my class is all Asians - 3 Japanese, one Taiwanese born Japanese and one Taiwanese born American, which makes me the only one really struggling with Chinese characters and makes English not very useful. Oh well… that might be a good thing.

I’m hoping it will pay off. Time will tell.

No related posts.

Fili's world» Chinese Studies | China, HK, Taiwan

Lingoes – Free Translation Software That Works

Lingoes English

Lingoes Chinese

Lingoes sentence “Instant Translation”

Online and Offline Chinese-Hebrew Dictionaries

Taiwanese music – Recommended Mandarin Chinese artists from Taiwan – 張惠妹, 張懸, 楊乃文

張惠妹-我要快樂

張懸 – 親愛的…我還不知道

楊乃文 女爵

Goodbye friends – Intense summer Chinese course is over

Tong Hua by Guang Liang (Fairy-tale 童话 by Michael Wong 光良)

Tong Hua by Guang Liang (Fairy-tale 童话 by Michael Wong 光良)

Damn, Chinese again

楊乃文女爵

Tong Hua by Guang Liang
(Fairy-tale 童话 by Michael Wong 光良)