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Old 2004-10-28, 12:49   Link #1
rcxAsh
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Chinese Input Methods...?

Currently learning Chinese (Mandarin) by using PinYin. However, my teacher is teaching me to read/write in traditional Chinese characters.

The problem here is that every PinYin input method in Windows and Linux seems to cater first to simplified Chinese characters. So, I often find myself going through menus and menus of characters to look for the traditional character.. and sometimes, I don't even seem to find what I'm looking for.

All the Traditional Chinese input methods editors I tried require input with phonetic symbols. Unfortunately, I firstly do not know these, and secondly, my computer's keyboard does not have these printed on the keys...

Just wondering, if there such thing as a Traditional Chinese input method editor that uses a form of romanized Chinese? Preferably PinYin? (Or, is there a way to configure one of the existing PinYin IMEs to show the traditional characters first?)

I'd like one for both Windows and Linux.. but one will be a good start...

I know there are some quite fluent Chinese people here, so wondering if you can help me out here.

Thanks,
rcxAsh
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Old 2004-10-28, 13:15   Link #2
AndrewLB
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Damn you. The U of T mandarin classes force us to learn simplified. Your location says GTA, assuming that's not the game, where in the greater toronto area are you learning it?
And, heh, I haven't tried writing Mandarin on the computer yet. I don't even know how to use the pinyin properly yet. There should be a way to configure the IMEs to show traditional first though. Try changing the location to Taiwan, possibly?
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Old 2004-10-28, 13:18   Link #3
hooliganj
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Microsoft has free asian language IMEs for Office XP that take romanized input, for Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese or Traditional Chinese. Just go to this page and follow the directions. It might not work with every program you want to use, but I've found that you can always open up a Wordpad session, type what you need, and then cut & paste it into the appropriate window.
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Old 2004-10-28, 14:57   Link #4
rcxAsh
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AndrewLB
Damn you. The U of T mandarin classes force us to learn simplified. Your location says GTA, assuming that's not the game, where in the greater toronto area are you learning it?
And, heh, I haven't tried writing Mandarin on the computer yet. I don't even know how to use the pinyin properly yet. There should be a way to configure the IMEs to show traditional first though. Try changing the location to Taiwan, possibly?
I'm taking private lessons, not with a university or school. AFAIK, since China now uses simplified Chinese, most places would teach that (they do, don't they?).

Yah, there is a configuration dialogue.. but the problem is that my Chinese knowledge is no where near enough to understand the dialogs...
Quote:
Originally Posted by hooliganj
Microsoft has free asian language IMEs for Office XP that take romanized input, for Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese or Traditional Chinese. Just go to this page and follow the directions. It might not work with every program you want to use, but I've found that you can always open up a Wordpad session, type what you need, and then cut & paste it into the appropriate window.
That's true I suppose.. but that's kind of akward... And the main problem is that I don't have Office XP. Office 2000... But if at all possible, I'd rather not have to have Microsoft Word open all the time.....

Also, no ideas for SCIM in Linux?

Hmm, if I post some screenshots of the configuration screens, I wonder if sarcasteak's free translation thread would translate it for me haha
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Old 2004-10-28, 16:15   Link #5
babbito2k
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rcxAsh
...I'd rather not have to have Microsoft Word open all the time...
I don't use Word because I don't like it. You can use the Windows IME in Wordpad with .rtf
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Old 2004-10-28, 16:34   Link #6
rcxAsh
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But is this the same IME that Windows uses in general? I can type in Chinese. It's just that it defaults everything to simplified Chinese, and some times, I can't even find the character that I want to type...

For example, if I type "wo ai ni," it prints out:
我爱你。

Notice that 'ai,' is simplified.. instead of , which is the traditional character.

Or, typing 'ma' (horse) defaults to the simplified rather than the traditional for which I have to page down the list a few times.

It takes me some time to find the traditional Character.
The traditional IMEs that I've tried don't use PinYin. For example, some use ZhuYin (I think?) which uses phonetic characters to compose words.. but I don't know these, and my keyboard doesn't have those characters printed on.. (eg, ㄆㄊㄍㄐ...etc)
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Old 2004-10-28, 16:50   Link #7
hooliganj
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Yes, it's the same IME. You should be able to tell it which to use by selecting Chinese (Simplified) or Chinese (Traditional) from the language bar that appears after you complete the full installation. Also, the different choices have internal priority settings for the characters. My experience comes mostly from using the Japanese IME, but Chinese boasts the same feature, where the program remembers which characters you use more often and places them higher on the list for you to find. Once you use a certain character enough times in a row, it becomes the default choice.
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Old 2004-10-28, 16:53   Link #8
ramune
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rcxAsh
I'm taking private lessons, not with a university or school. AFAIK, since China now uses simplified Chinese, most places would teach that (they do, don't they?).
Off topic but I just want to say that unless you are REALLY planning to go to mainland China, learning simplified Chinese is completely useless. Most, if not all, Chinese people overseas use traditional, heck even Taiwanese people use it. You will find youself not knowing how to read a lot of traditonal if you only know simplified.

One thing I hate about the Chinese government is how they butchered the Chinese characters that took our ancestors several thousands of years to develope. Yes I know traditonal Chinese is hard to learn, but so what? That's how our language is supposed to be. You can't just be like "oh, our language is too hard, let's make it simpler." Man I can't imagine the day where simplified Chinese becomes standard worldwide...
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Old 2004-10-28, 17:03   Link #9
rcxAsh
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hooliganj
Yes, it's the same IME. You should be able to tell it which to use by selecting Chinese (Simplified) or Chinese (Traditional) from the language bar that appears after you complete the full installation. Also, the different choices have internal priority settings for the characters. My experience comes mostly from using the Japanese IME, but Chinese boasts the same feature, where the program remembers which characters you use more often and places them higher on the list for you to find. Once you use a certain character enough times in a row, it becomes the default choice.
Thanks for the info. I will have to check that out when I'm back in Windows again later.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ramune
Off topic but I just want to say that unless you are REALLY planning to go to mainland China, learning simplified Chinese is completely useless. Most, if not all, Chinese people overseas use traditional, heck even Taiwanese people use it. You will find youself not knowing how to read a lot of traditonal if you only know simplified.

One thing I hate about the Chinese government is how they butchered the Chinese characters that took our ancestors several thousands of years to develope. Yes I know traditonal Chinese is hard to learn, but so what? That's how our language is supposed to be. You can't just be like "oh, our language is too hard, let's make it simpler." Man I can't imagine the day where simplified Chinese becomes standard worldwide...
Yah, that's probably why it's a good thing that I'm learning traditional.

Although, IIRC, I read that the reason why the Chinese government decided to simplify the characters was due to illiteracy. After they made it easier to read and write, the level of illiteracy went down.. But yes, the flipside is that we lose the history and work behind the traditional characters
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Old 2004-10-28, 17:32   Link #10
Akirasuto.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ramune
Off topic but I just want to say that unless you are REALLY planning to go to mainland China, learning simplified Chinese is completely useless. Most, if not all, Chinese people overseas use traditional, heck even Taiwanese people use it. You will find youself not knowing how to read a lot of traditonal if you only know simplified.
I don't want to sound rude but you doesn't seem to know China has been using simplified for a long time. It is the proper way to write, period.

If you find yourself unable to read a lot of traditional because you're familiar with simplified, I suggest it's the otherwise -- you aren't familiar with simplified at all and therefore unable to to read the traditionals.

I also find it interesting that most people do not realise that English has been simplified many times, the modern english now, the 'old' english, and the even older form of english which is mostly pretty much straight rip from French, German, Latin, and other languages in lesser proportion.

So, want to stick to 'traditional' english? I am sure you will find it in a world of pain.
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Old 2004-10-28, 18:44   Link #11
Sokar
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ramune
Off topic but I just want to say that unless you are REALLY planning to go to mainland China, learning simplified Chinese is completely useless. Most, if not all, Chinese people overseas use traditional, heck even Taiwanese people use it. You will find youself not knowing how to read a lot of traditonal if you only know simplified.

One thing I hate about the Chinese government is how they butchered the Chinese characters that took our ancestors several thousands of years to develope. Yes I know traditonal Chinese is hard to learn, but so what? That's how our language is supposed to be. You can't just be like "oh, our language is too hard, let's make it simpler." Man I can't imagine the day where simplified Chinese becomes standard worldwide...

The language is not "butchered" as you say. I suppose we should all be writing in Latin instead of English. Language is always evolving, and Simplified is just a modern form of Chinese. It helps to spread literacy, as it is a lot easier to learn. Chinese isn't always like Traditional either, go back 1000 years and see how many characters you recognize. The thousands of years of Chinese character development has resulted in Simplified Chinese. As for not imagining the day where Simplified Chinese becomes standdard world wide, wait 30 years.

As for not knowing how to read Traditional if you just know Simplified, you obviously don't know what you are talking about. The characters, while different, maintain the same shape, if you know Simplified Chinese you can easily read a sentence in Traditional. Only individual words are hard to identify, but you won't just see a random Traditional word in real life. I read novels in Traditional perfectly fine, but I only know Simplified.
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Old 2004-10-28, 20:28   Link #12
ramune
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sokar
The language is not "butchered" as you say. I suppose we should all be writing in Latin instead of English. Language is always evolving, and Simplified is just a modern form of Chinese. It helps to spread literacy, as it is a lot easier to learn. Chinese isn't always like Traditional either, go back 1000 years and see how many characters you recognize. The thousands of years of Chinese character development has resulted in Simplified Chinese. As for not imagining the day where Simplified Chinese becomes standdard world wide, wait 30 years.
Hmm...I think the thousands of years of Chinese character development has resulted in traditional Chinese, and then the Chinese government developed the simplified based on the traditional. Of course some of them already existed before the simpification, but I think we should let them slowly become accepted as proper writing instead of making them official all of a sudden. That's how languages evolve right? A drastic change of a language will only cause confusion.

Quote:
As for not knowing how to read Traditional if you just know Simplified, you obviously don't know what you are talking about. The characters, while different, maintain the same shape, if you know Simplified Chinese you can easily read a sentence in Traditional. Only individual words are hard to identify, but you won't just see a random Traditional word in real life. I read novels in Traditional perfectly fine, but I only know Simplified.
Yes I'm talking about individual characters. Sorry if I didn't make it clear. I know simplified Chinese users can read traditional Chinese based on the shape of the characters and the context of the sentence. Same goes for traditional Chinese users as well.

I'm not saying that simplified Chinese is not a proper way of writing Chinese, and I do agree that it makes writing more efficient. But since I'm a traditionalist, I prefer traditional writing more. Besides, traditional Chinese just looks better, especially in Chinese calligraphy.
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Old 2004-10-28, 21:31   Link #13
Kawaii_tsunami
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im learning both simplified and traditional.........
i regret learning chinese at 11....its hard to pound it into my head right now....
learn young, learn fast.....
oh well..
i really dont mind if u use simplified or traditional (heck i cant read either i'll prolly only be looking at the english subtitles)....but...im chinese...*shame on me! wahha*
but cool it people...
chinese...use it
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Old 2004-10-28, 23:05   Link #14
Sepiraph
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Akirasuto.
I don't want to sound rude but you doesn't seem to know China has been using simplified for a long time. It is the proper way to write, period.
The simplified Chinese only came into existence in 1949 as the Chinese Government simplified some Chinese characters in the hope of reducing the illiteracy within China. Personally though, I'd say simplified Chinese looks less pleasing from an aesthetic point of view.

Quote:
If you find yourself unable to read a lot of traditional because you're familiar with simplified, I suggest it's the otherwise -- you aren't familiar with simplified at all and therefore unable to to read the traditionals.
The converse is true for my case, I'm able to read simplified without much trouble because I'm familiar with the traditional.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ramune
I'm not saying that simplified Chinese is not a proper way of writing Chinese, and I do agree that it makes writing more efficient. But since I'm a traditionalist, I prefer traditional writing more. Besides, traditional Chinese just looks better, especially in Chinese calligraphy.
I also happen to like traditional writing more than simplified, perhaps as a result of learning the former at a young age.
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Old 2004-10-29, 09:44   Link #15
Akirasuto.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sepiraph
The simplified Chinese only came into existence in 1949 as the Chinese Government simplified some Chinese characters in the hope of reducing the illiteracy within China. Personally though, I'd say simplified Chinese looks less pleasing from an aesthetic point of view.

I also happen to like traditional writing more than simplified, perhaps as a result of learning the former at a young age.
That is perfectly understandable and reasonable. After all, you're looking at the aesthetic angle in your personal view.

Quote:
The converse is true for my case, I'm able to read simplified without much trouble because I'm familiar with the traditional.
Good for you, that's a sign that the system is working


Quote:
Originally Posted by ramune
Hmm...I think the thousands of years of Chinese character development has resulted in traditional Chinese, and then the Chinese government developed the simplified based on the traditional. Of course some of them already existed before the simpification, but I think we should let them slowly become accepted as proper writing instead of making them official all of a sudden. That's how languages evolve right? A drastic change of a language will only cause confusion.
It would be a mess if it was not enforced and adapt a laissez-faire style. A standardised system-wide implementation actually speeds up the process of adoption -- evolution.

Quote:
Besides, traditional Chinese just looks better, especially in Chinese calligraphy.
Aesthetic with respect to the physical look is hardly a good reason to write off a working language system. If you want that, feel free to write in calligraphy to communicate. Why not go a bit further and dig up those linguistic books and see how it is really written, say, 1000 years ago? I can guarantee those will sufficiently enough to entice your tastes for artistic values
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Old 2004-10-29, 09:52   Link #16
Sokar
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Akirasuto.
It would be a mess if it was not enforced and adapt a laissez-faire style. A standardised system-wide implementation actually speeds up the process of adoption -- evolution.
So true, a lot of governments have an agency that regulate language, not just China. I'm 100% sure the Spanish do, and I think so do the French. U.S. does not, which explains why the language is so messy. I mean there are so many new words and so many old words are redefined, that it's hard to know what a word means now. Whereas the Spanish actually goes through a regulated process that define a new word.
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Old 2004-10-29, 13:02   Link #17
ramune
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sokar
Quote:
Originally Posted by Akirasuto.
It would be a mess if it was not enforced and adapt a laissez-faire style. A standardised system-wide implementation actually speeds up the process of adoption -- evolution.
So true, a lot of governments have an agency that regulate language, not just China. I'm 100% sure the Spanish do, and I think so do the French. U.S. does not, which explains why the language is so messy. I mean there are so many new words and so many old words are redefined, that it's hard to know what a word means now. Whereas the Spanish actually goes through a regulated process that define a new word.
I think you gave a bad example. It might be true that implementing a new writing system speeds up the evolution of a language, but regulating the language itself actually slows down the evolution.

IMHO, language represents a culture, and that's why the U.S. cannot regulate its language since it's a mixed-culture society. The French has to regulate its language in order to maintain its purity since it's an accepted diplomatic language.

As for simplified Chinese becomes standard worldwide, I just can't see it happening, especially in Cantonese speaking communities since a lot of traditional Chinese characters are introduced by Cantonese speaking people. You cannot just simplify those characters without losing their meanings.

Once again, both tradition and simplified writings have their own advantages and disadvantages, and which one we choose to use simply depends on our language background and personal choice. I acknowledge both writings as the proper way of writing Chinese, and it should stay that way.
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Old 2004-10-29, 17:00   Link #18
hooliganj
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ramune
IMHO, language represents a culture, and that's why the U.S. cannot regulate its language since it's a mixed-culture society. The French has to regulate its language in order to maintain its purity since it's an accepted diplomatic language.
I thought I should note here that while the de facto standard in the US is English, there is no government recognized official language.

Carry on.
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Old 2004-10-29, 18:27   Link #19
rcxAsh
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Hehe, well, I'm probably no where as knowledgable as half of you here.. but, currently, I view Traditional vs Simplified Chinese as two different ways to "spell" in the same language...

For example, in the English language, there are even some differences between how words are composed. In Canada, people tend to spell certain words with extra u's in them. Examples, favourite, neighbour, honour, colour. Where as in the United States, those words are spelt favorite, neighbor, honor, color.

Also, in other places:
prioritize/prioritise
specialize/specialise
etc..

Perhaps I'm making a generalization.. but I don't see how this is too different from Simplified versus Traditional Chinese.

But at any rate.. just regarding the IMEs.. I found this in a mailing list regarding the input method I use in Linux:
Quote:
As Kitae said, Smart Pinyin is for simplified
Chinese, but you can get traditional Chinese characters using '中' or '繁'.
The 中 method is the original one that I was using, which still shows the simplified first. However, the other method (I haven't learned that character yet) seems to list traditional characters first!

Oh, and hooliganj, you do seem to be right about most IMEs learning which characters I use more often. I have yet to get back into Windows to figure it out. I assume it should be similar to changing the mode from 中 into the other one.
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Old 2004-10-30, 06:05   Link #20
anthonyxscotland
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rcxAsh
For example, in the English language, there are even some differences between how words are composed. In Canada, people tend to spell certain words with extra u's in them. Examples, favourite, neighbour, honour, colour. Where as in the United States, those words are spelt favorite, neighbor, honor, color.
The Canadian spelling is international english (I.E english used in every other english speaking country in the world), american english omits the u in various words like colour. Why, i dont lnow.
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