Learning Chinese: Resources - Wenlin 文林

Wenlin is Chinese learning software developed by Wenlin Institute, Inc. for the purpose of providing both Chinese learners and natives with dictionary and learning resources to expand their knowledge of language and culture. The feature that I find most useful is the dictionary. The dictionary result for each character contains its standard Pinyin, stroke order, and what is most interesting is that it contains the romanization for Cantonese pronunciation as well. Below is a list of all of Wenlin's other features taken from their official website.


Dictionary Interface

* High speed customizable and expandable Chinese dictionary
* Over ten thousand characters, over 200,000 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


If you are serious about studying Chinese, this is one of the most useful resources you can have. Try it out, it's definitely think its worth it.