Wenlin - Software for Learning Chinese

Wenlin tackles the most frustrating obstacles for students, scholars, and speakers of Chinese with its versatile and easy-to-use interface. It is like having a seasoned scholar on your desktop! An integrated solution, Wenlin combines a high-speed expandable Chinese dictionary, a full-featured text editor, and unique "flashcard" system all in one intuitive environment. Wenlin is a comprehensive tool for begining students, life-long speakers, and scholars alike. Wenlin 3 includes an expanded and improved version of the already huge ABC Chinese-English Dictionary edited by John DeFrancis, giving it a total of over 10,000 characters and approximately 200,000 words and phrases.

Wenlin's unique interface provides instant "point to" vocabulary look-up and "click" access to detailed vocabulary information. Wenlin's extensive character descriptions and cross-referencing include pictures of characters in ancient and modern forms, simple and full form, and pinyin. Wenlin reads, writes, edits, and prints Chinese documents of any size and includes built-in selection of Chinese literature and current media. You can copy and paste Chinese text between Wenlin and other applications. Unicode, GB, Big5, and UTF-8 Encodings are supported. Automated drill and review includes scoring, tracking, interactive testing, multiple-choice and composed-answer. Other powerful features include animated stroke-by-stroke display, handwriting recognition, and audio-CD quality studio recordings of all Mandarin syllables. Multi-user packs are available.

The Power of Wenlin

Dictionary Interface

• High speed customizable and expandable Chinese dictionary
• Over ten thousand characters, seventy-four thousand words and phrases
• Instant "point to" vocabulary look-up
• Click access to essential vocabulary info
• Extensive character descriptions and cross-referencing
• Pictures of ancient and modern forms of Chinese characters
• Desktop access to important Chinese scholarship and literature
• Click access to all words that contain a character, including definitions, ordered by frequency of usage
• Character look-up by component, including groups that share components
• Fast automatic search access to huge selection of literature, for finding examples in context
• Character lists arranged by stroke-count and pronunciation
• Automatically updated listing

Text Editor

• Reads, writes, edits, and prints Chinese documents
• Supports Unicode format, the most widely recognized world standard, as well as GB, Big5, UTF-8 and HZ
• Built-in selection of Chinese literature, current new media included
• Word-wrap, undo, cut, copy, paste, search, and replace
• Unlimited document size
• Characters and words entered using phonetic conversion or handwriting recognition
• Instant dictionary integrated with text editor
• Combines simple and full form Chinese characters, pinyin, and English in one document
• Compatible with other Chinese language applications, pen/tablet tools

"Flashcards" System

• Automated drill and review
• Interactive testing, multiple-choice and composed-answer
• Scoring and tracking
• Dictionary access while memorizing vocabulary
• Simultaneous display of documents, definitions, lists, and flashcards Learning
• Animated Stroke-By-Stroke Display
• Instant Handwriting Recognition
• Audio-CD quality studio recordings of all Mandarin syllables

User Praise for Wenlin:

• Thank you so much for revolutionizing my ability to learn Chinese. Before I had Wenlin, I used to search for the meaning of a character in various reference books, a laborious process indeed. With Wenlin, the analysis of each character automatically appears on the screen. It is an astonishing example of the ability of a well-designed computer program to eliminate hours of labor.
• I have found Wenlin to be an excellent programme, exactly what is required for a learner of Chinese. I like especially the cross-referencing of sources to Wieger and Karlgren.
• I am translating the libretto of a chinese opera and your software is a great and precious tool for me. Many thanks and cheers!
• I loved Wenlin 2.0 and so far also love Wenlin 3.0. You have a great product and I encourage all my friends to buy it also.
• I simply love wenlin and thank the whole crew for having invented this valuable tool.
• I love your program.
• Wonderful.
• Great software!
• I have been using this program at my university for a year already, and I am very excited to have it at home now. Thank you for making such a great program!
• What a great package. Thank you so much for developing it.
• I will be singing your praises at every opportunity!
• A fantastic programme. I will soon increase my level. It is big fun.
• Love the manual, too.
• I really like the software. The online dictionary has literally saved me hours of work.
• For doing research in China and translation work Wenlin is a lifesaver!
• Very impressive piece of software. Very helpful for studying Chinese.
• It has been an absolute lifesaver in my Chinese studies, I really don't know how I could have got this far without it.
• Really liked it.
• It is very easy to use.
• This is a great program for learning individual characters.
• Found the quiz part very helpful in character recognition.
• Fast access to characters, good character writing examples.
• It makes the reading go much faster since on the computer you can get the definition right away.
• The biggest advantage of Wenlin is that it saves a lot of the time that is usually spent looking up unknown or forgotten words in a Chinese reading. (There are definitely other advantages like seeing which words are related to a word you looked up, what the components are, etc.)
• In some ways, using Wenlin is too easy. I had to stop myself from just looking at the automatic character lookup.
• User friendly, alternate way to study.
• Quick easy access to characters, pinyin, definitions, etc.
• Watching the characters drawn on the screen is very helpful.
• Very user friendly. I liked the flashcard option and the random questions presented to assist in learning the characters.
• It's really easy to use and totally comprehensive. It's obvious that a lot of work went into making this program so useful!
• I liked the instant lookup, the dictionary.
• Instant lookup! I've always wished it could be this easy!
• This is a wonderful concept -- thank you!!
• Especially useful is the program's ability to pronounce the characters. Overall, an excellent program!!
• The Wenlin program is my constant Chinese companion. It is simply the best language software I have ever seen. It contains a large online dictionary with both old and contemporary terms. The online dictonary is a students' and dictionary-lovers' delight. Definitions for words and many common phrases with information on related character combinations, stroke order demos for all characters, pronunciation (pinyin AND sound), written character history and breakdown for each item and ability to search stored literature for examples. Move the mouse over any character and you see pronunciation and meaning for the character or for the common phrase under the mouse. Click on the character and you open the dictionary entry for that character. Type control-L and you get a little dialogue that will let you type in a word to translate from English or pinyin. Type in pinyin with a tone number and hit control-T and you get a list of possible characters, most common ones first; hit return and the highlighted character is entered in the text.
  
  Files saved by Wenlin can be read by MS Word for further word processing (you need Chinese fonts for Word). You can cut and paste from a web page or an email into Wenlin and build a translation with the help of the dictionary. I use Wenlin to help me compose emails to my Chinese tutor, then I put it into Word as an attachment or just use alt-PrtScr to grab the image of the sentence and paste it into the email -- don't have to worry about email or font compatibility that way.
  
  You can work in either simplified or traditional character mode; both styles are displayed. You can input pinyin or actual characters stroke-by-stroke. Stroke entry is best with a graphic input pad, but I can input characters with the mouse and my very clumsy hand and the program guesses my character more times than any other character entry program (including English handwriting recognizers) I have ever used.
  
  The program comes with a lot of online Chinese literature, graded from easy to difficult.
  
  I own several good paper dictionaries, four Chinese courses (Pimsleur, Ni Hao, Integrated Chinese, Connections) and a couple of PDA programs. Wenlin and Pimsleur are the indispensable ones. Wenlin seems expensive, but it is worth every penny. I hesitated to buy it for several weeks because of the price. But in the end, it turned out to be a bargain because of its functionality and quantity of material. If they ever come out with a PDA version, I will spring for that, too. I have bought several language programs for computer over the years. Most have been a profound disappointment. This and the Oxford superlex 3-language dictionary are the only ones I have kept and continue to use.
  
  Compatibility: Windows, Mac and Linux (under wine or Crossover Office). On linux, make sure you have ALSA drivers for wine sound.

Wenlin Demo 3.1.9

The free demo (demonstration) version of Wenlin Software for Learning Chinese is a useful program in its own right. It does not expire. It differs from the complete version in the following ways:

• The Demo has only a miniature dictionary, with a few dozen vocabulary items. The complete Wenlin dictionary has over 10,000 characters and about 200,000 words and phrases.
• The Demo doesn't include any sound files. The complete Wenlin has Audio CD-quality studio recordings of all the syllables of Mandarin Chinese, in both a man's voice and a woman's voice.
• The Demo includes only one sample Chinese text. The complete Wenlin includes a collection of Chinese literature.
• The complete Wenlin comes on a CD-ROM, with a 248-page User's Guide. The same CD-ROM runs on Macintosh and MS-Windows.
• The complete Wenlin enables you to edit the dictionary, to add new vocabulary and modify definitions.
• Your computer's hard disk should have at least 10 megabytes of available space in order to install the demo. You don't need a CD-ROM drive. Otherwise, the system requirements for the demo are the same as the requirements for the complete version.

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You must accept all the terms specified below, before you can download or use the demo.

The demo is Copyright ? 2004 Wenlin Institute, Inc. You may use, copy and distribute the demo solely for demonstration purposes, provided that no modification is made to the program, that all of the original files are included unmodified, that no files are added, and that it is not sold for profit. Commercial use of the demo is prohibited. You may not disassemble, decompose, reverse engineer, or alter any of the files in the package. A student's "flashcard" score is for the student's private use only, and must not be used for academic credit or grading.

Disclaimer: The demo software comes without any warranty. You use it at your own risk. In no event shall Wenlin Institute, Inc. or LanguageWorld.com.au be liable for any damages arising out of the use of the demo.

If you agree to all the above terms, then you may download the demo by clicking on the appropriate option below for your operating system.

I agree: download the MS-Windows (XP/Me/2000/98/95/NT4) version. It's in an installer program named wenlindemo319.exe (3,349,977 bytes, version 3.1.9, January 15, 2004). (After downloading the installer, you can run it by double-clicking.)

I agree: download the MacOS X version. It's in a disk-image file named wenlindemo319.dmg (3,113,246 bytes, version 3.1.9, January 15, 2004). (After downloading the disk-image file, you can mount it by double-clicking, to obtain a volume named Wenlin3Demo Volume.)

I agree: download the Macintosh Classic version. It's in a Bin-Hex file named wenlindemo319.hqx (4,047,732 bytes, version 3.1.9, January 15, 2004). (It contains Wenlin Demo 3.1.9.sea, which contains a folder Wenlin3Demo. If extraction doesn't occur automatically, try double-clicking, or drag the wenlindemo319.hqx file onto Stuffit Expander.)