New Versions of NJStar Software

Language Learning Chinese
1

Dear all,

I posted this at a forum for learners of Cantonese in response to a notice about all the Chinese language software from NJStar having been updated.

I think it would be useful to post it here too.

Thanks for the information.

It’s a fantastic program.

I was going over the list of characters that don’t have compound words for them, and saw 鹿 meaning “deer” and thought of adding “giraffe”.

Usually, I would type in pinyin to get the characters. But, I forgot how to pronounce “neck” in Mandarin, but luckily the new version of NJStar’s Chinese word processor includes an English IME (input method editor). I inputted “giraffe” and got the characters.

Another new feature included in the program is a “popup dictionary” that’s similar to that popjisyo thing. It’s fantastic!

I place the cursor to the left of the word 長頸鹿 and I get a “popup” that shows the following:

長頸鹿【chang2 jing3 lu4】 giraffe.
長【zhang3】 older; elder; senior; eldest; oldest; chief; head; grow; develop; cone into; being to grow; from; acquire; enhance; increase.
長【chang2】 long; length; of long duration; steadily; regularly; strong point; forte.

I place the cursor to the left of the character 頸 in the word 長頸鹿 and I get:

頸【jing3】 neck.

I place the cursor to the left of the character 鹿 in the word 長頸鹿 and I get:

鹿【lu4】 deer.

And you can also click controls on the popup to get any of the entries printed out. Or you can click a control and have a whole page of words using the “main” character to come up.

You can cut and paste any Chinese text from any source off the Internet and look up their definitions this way.

Of course, the romanisation is Mandarin pinyin and the definitions are for standard Chinese. And there aren’t any Cantonese characters or really obscure variants. But it’s still a very good program. It also allows input of simplified and traditional characters on the same line.

XXXXX

http://www.njstar.com/

Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.[/url]

2

NJStar actually does support Cantonese characters. You just need to switch to one of the Cantonese IMEs.

3

Dear Tetsuo,

The program has 5 Input methods using 4 Cantonese romanisation schemes (Canton pinyin, LSHK Jyutping, F. F. Lee & Sidney Lau) to input characters. But, the program can’t input Cantonese dialectal characters except for these 2 characters:

佢 (Mand: qu2, Cant: keui5) the Cantonese equivalent of 他 ta1 he, she.

冇 (Mand: mao3, Cant: mou5) the Cantonese equivalent of 沒有 mei2 you3 no, not haven’t.

Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.

4

You’ll find, at least in the previous version, that it can also handle the characters 乜(Cant:Mat - what) 唔 (Cant: Ng - Cantonese version of 不) and others. I’d find more, but it’s 2:30 am and I can’t be bothered.

NOTE: I don’t know if these’ll show up. A lot of dialectal characters aren’t part of the standard Big5 character set.

5

Dear Tetsuo,

The character examples you gave me exist in Mandarin so they are not strictly Cantonese dialectal characters. They just have additional meanings to them in Cantonese.

Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.

6

Hi…I don’t know why but my display of words always get scrambled up when I use NJstar these days?
! :notworthy: :loco: :slight_smile:

7

You might have to switch encoding.