I just ordered a Wacom tablet the other day, and it just came to me that I could possibly use it to learn to write some Chinese. I’d been wanting to do that for a while, so I don’t have to drag my mom all over the place to translate stuff for me.
Does anybody know of any XP software that teaches stroke order and perhaps pronunciation (Cantonese, if available), and uses a tablet to help with stroke pressure and direction?
check out http://www.twinbridge.com/
But if you’re asking for my opinion, I would really recommend taking a class. Even if your mom helps you out sometimes, I bet you anything that you’d learn better having a teacher and other students to work with. But that’s my two cents.
Yeah, but I’ve been kind of traumatized by my memories of Chinese school, which I’ve been repressing.
Actually… maybe that’s why I don’t remember how to write Chinese.
Softwares ain’t really good for learning languages, in my opinion. If you don’t like classes you could try watching lots and lots of chinese TV shows and Movies, with the chinese subtitle on. Also talk and listen to the native language speakers as much as possible, as well as reading stuff in that language you actually like. Pretty much how I learned English, though the process does take a couple of years.
WenLin (www.wenlin.com) has a character recognition tool that does expect the strokes in the right order, and will show you the character done properly. Nothing about pressure, though. Mandarin, however.
If you are interested in chinese imput, I recommend njstar. You write the pinyin and it prompts with the character.
If you are interested in learning how to write, you really need to get something like the Practical Chinese Reader series. They have gridded areas for learning the stroke proportions and the stroke order.
It is also very important that you have some one to correct you. The strokes are subtle. If they are done wrong, they look wrong. I had trouble with the san dian shui until I realized one of the dian was upward, rather than downward. These subtle things you need another person for.