(from Intermediate Chinese by Yong Ho)
The advancement of computer technology
is a great boon for language learners, and particularly for students of Chinese
in their dealing with Chinese characters. A complex character consisting of 20 to
30 strokes can be easily produced by tapping a couple of keystrokes on the
computer. It is so effective and fun at the same time that there are teachers
of Chinese who are advocating a penless approach to writing characters using
the computer.
For our purpose, computing in Chinese
refers to two things: viewing or reading characters on the internet or emails,
and producing characters using the computer.
Viewing Chinese
There are two ways to view characters.
First, you need an add-on or a helper Chinese program that comes with a package
of Chinese fonts. Such programs work in conjunction with regular word
processors and internet browsers. When it comes to inputting (more on that
later), most of them are resident in that they reside in the computer’s memory and
within whatever applications you use, but some are stand-alone. Popular Chinese
programs include TwinBridge (http://www.twinbridge.com),
Chinese Star (http://www.suntendyusa.com),
RichWin (http://www.richwinusa.com)
and NJ Star (http://www.njstar.com).
Macintosh users can use Chinese Language Kit for the Macintosh. As for the
features of these programs, please check this site: http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/FAQ.htm.
Second, the most updated operating
systems, typically Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP, are now
equipped with features which allow Chinese text to be displayed without the
assistance of a helper program mentioned above. In order to make use of this
built-in feature, you would need to change some computer configurations in your
computer’s “Control Panel”. This is how. If you use Windows 2000 or XP: from
the Start button, select Settings and then the Control Panel. From the options
on the Control Panel select "Regional Options". The default selection
under the General tab is English. Do not change it unless you want to work
exclusively in the Chinese environment. On the lower half of the window, select
Simplified or Traditional Chinese. It is a good idea to select both because
some characters you need to view use the simplified form, whereas others take
the traditional form. At this point, you will be asked to insert the Windows
2000 Install CD and copy over the files it needs. You will then need to reboot
for the new settings to take effect. If you need a step-by-step guide on how to
install the program, check this site:
http://californiadream.com/workshops/info/winXPLang/winXPlangInstallConfig.html
The latest version of two major browsers
(Netscape and Internet Explorer) can also support Chinese without having to
resort to any other add-on programs. Some Chinese web pages are so smart that
it can trigger the browser for it to automatically apply Chinese fonts to
display the characters. Other web pages do not have this feature such that
Chinese characters will not be automatically displayed correctly. When this
happens, you need to adjust the settings under View in your browser. If you use
Netscape, select View, Character Set, and then either simplified Chinese or
traditional Chinese. If you use Internet Explorer, select View, Encoding, and
then simplified or traditional Chinese.
If your internet browser does not
display Chinese correctly, the simplest thing for you to do is to upgrade your
internet browser to a newer version or to install the free language support
packs when you are prompted by your computer system. If you use Windows 95, 98 or NT, you can download free Chinese
language support package at the following website:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/recommended/ime/install.asp
“Write” Chinese
The software needed to write Chinese
characters is basically the same as that for viewing Chinese characters. That
is, use an add-on Chinese program or use the built-in input device that comes
with certain operating systems.
Each of the
popular add-on programs mentioned earlier (TwinBridge, Chinese Star, RichWin
and NJ Star) can do the job very well. Of the four, TwinBridge, Chinese Star,
RichWin are resident programs, and NJ Star is a stand-alone program. There are
a variety of input methods, but for students of Chinese, I suggest the pinyin
method, which is not only easy, but also helpful in enhancing your awareness of
pinyin and consequently the correct pronunciation of words. When you
activate one of these add-on programs, whether inside or outside a
word-processing application, a panel will appear on the screen. When you type pinyin
for a particular character, word or even phrase, they will appear in the panel.
Since Chinese is famous for the proliferation of homophones, you will get a
list of characters that are pronounced the same when you type pinyin for
a character. All the homophones are numbered. If the character you intend to
produce happens to be the first choice, you can simply press the space bar and
the character will go on the screen where the cursor is. If the intended
character is not the first item on the list, you will then need to select it by
pressing the corresponding number. This undoubtedly is quite slow and
time-consuming. The right way to input is to type by the word rather than
individual characters. Since most words in Chinese today are dissyllabic, there
are far fewer homophones for dissyllabic or polysyllabic words. For example, if
you want to produce the word 中文 zh!ngw6n, which consists of two characters 中 zh!ng and 文 w6n, you can
do it in one of the two ways. First, you can first type 中
and then 文. If you do that, you will get 17
characters for zhong and 15 characters for wen (on NJ Star). You will then need
to pick the right character from the list. The second way is to enter the word
in its entirety: zhongwen. When you do this, only one word appears on the panel
because there is no other word in Chinese that is also pronounced zhongwen.
Before long, you will find that you don’t even have to type an entire pinyin
before you can get a word of your choice. Some representations will suffice.
For example, when you type zhongw, the characters for zhongwen
already appear. If you become sufficiently familiar with the process, you will
further find that you can get 中文 if you simply type zhw. It takes seven
key strokes to type the word Chinese in English, but it only take three
strokes to produce the equivalent in Chinese. So it is not a myth that people
can type Chinese characters as fast as they type English words or even faster.
Alternatively
you can use built-in input devices that come with certain operating systems,
also configured under the Language or Regional settings within your computer’s
control panel. If you do this, you won’t then need an add-on Chinese program.
This is how you can do it on Windows XP:
First, install
East Asian language files on your computer. The files include Chinese,
Japanese, and Korean. The following are steps to do this:
1.
Click
Control Panel to open Regional and Language Options.
2.
On the
Languages tab, under Supplemental language support, select Install files for
East Asian languages. Check box and then click OK or Apply. You will then be prompted to
insert the Windows CD-ROM or point to a network location where the files are
located.
3.
After the
files are installed, you must restart your computer.
After you have
installed the East Asian language files on your computer's hard disk, you must
add the individual languages for which you want to input and display text. For
us, Chinese is what we need:
1.
Open
Regional and Language Options in Control Panel.
2.
On the
Advanced tab, under Language for non-Unicode programs, click Chinese
(Chinese-PRC for simplified Chinese; Chinese-Taiwan for traditional Chinese)
The last step will be to choose an
appropriate Chinese input method. We recommend Pinyin to Chinese language
learners:
1.
Open
Regional and Language Options in Control Panel.
2.
On the
Languages tab, under Text services and input languages, click Details.
3.
Under
Installed services, click Add.
4.
On the
Input language list, click the language for the keyboard layout or Input Method
Editor (IME) you want to add. For us, we should choose “Chinese (Chinese-PRC
for simplified Chinese; Chinese-Taiwan for traditional Chinese)”
5.
Select the
Keyboard layout/IME check box, click Chinese-simplified, Microsoft Pinyin
IME3.0 on the list. If you choose Chinese-Taiwan in the second step above, you
may click Microsoft phonetic IME2000 here for traditional Chinese input.