Wenlin Software for Learning Chinese () is a
software application
Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
designed by Tom Bishop, who is also president of the Wenlin Institute. It is based on his experience of the needs of learners of the
Chinese language
Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the wor ...
, predominantly
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
. It contains a dictionary function, a corpus of Chinese texts, a function for reading and creating Chinese text files, and a
flashcard
A flashcard or flash card (also known as an index card) is a card bearing information on both sides, which is intended to be used as an aid in memorization. Each flashcard bears a question on one side and an answer on the other. Flashcards are ...
function. By pointing the cursor at a Chinese character the software looks up an English word, and vice versa, working like a dictionary. The software recognizes files in
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
,
GB 2312
is a key official character set of the People's Republic of China, used for Simplified Chinese characters. GB2312 is the registered internet name for EUC-CN, which is its usual encoded form. ''GB'' refers to the Guobiao standards (国家标准 ...
,
Big5
Big-5 or Big5 is a Chinese character encoding method used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau for traditional Chinese characters.
The People's Republic of China (PRC), which uses simplified Chinese characters, uses the GB 18030 character set inst ...
, and
HZ format.
Functions
Dictionary function
The dictionary contains an electronic version of the
ABC Chinese–English Dictionary
The ''ABC Chinese–English Dictionary'' or ''ABC Dictionary'' (1996), compiled under the chief editorship of John DeFrancis, is the first Chinese dictionary to collate entries in single-sort alphabetical order of pinyin romanization, and a landmar ...
by
John DeFrancis
John DeFrancis (August 31, 1911January 2, 2009) was an American linguist, sinologist, author of Chinese language textbooks, lexicographer of Chinese dictionaries, and Professor Emeritus of Chinese Studies at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa.
B ...
and the
Shuowen Jiezi
''Shuowen Jiezi'' () is an ancient Chinese dictionary from the Han dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary (the '' Erya'' predates it), it was the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give ...
seal character dictionary. The current version (4.3.2) contains more than 300,000 Chinese-English entries and over 60,000 English-Chinese entries. It allows users to search for Chinese characters or words by inputting either Chinese characters or pinyin using a variety of input options, including handwriting recognition. Users can update existing entries and add new entries to the dictionary. The program can also be extended with additional data modules, such as the
ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
.
Unlike most electronic Chinese dictionaries, characters in Wenlin are defined in terms of the
Character Description Language (CDL), an XML specification for describing complex glyphs in East Asian language, developed by the Wenlin Institute.
This allows the program to define characters and character variants that are not defined in existing character sets such as
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
. Version 4.3.2 of Wenlin covers more than 80,000 Chinese characters, including many rare characters.
List function
The software allows the user to display lists of Chinese characters ordered by
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
, stroke count, frequency, components, or Unicode. It also displays lists of words by pinyin, frequency, and serial number. English words can be displayed alphabetically, as well as the
214 radicals of the Chinese language.
Corpus and text function
The paid version of the software comes with a small corpus of largely Classical Chinese texts. The software also allows users to open text files in a variety of
Chinese character encoding
In computing, Chinese character encodings can be used to represent text written in the CJK languages—Chinese, Japanese, Korean—and (rarely) obsolete Vietnamese, all of which use Chinese characters. Several general-purpose character enc ...
s.
Development and versioning
Wenlin Software for Learning Chinese is developed and sold by the Wenlin Institute, a
Social Purpose Corporation #REDIRECT Social purpose corporation #REDIRECT Social purpose corporation
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for Chinese and English language education, with Tom Bishop as President. The current paid version of the software, called the DELUXE Edition (), is 4.3.2. Wenlin Institute also offers a free 4.2.1 version, called the Free Edition ().
by Cecilia P. Y. Chu (
), comparison of 10 programs including Wenlin 1.0
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wenlin Software For Learning Chinese