Tutorial 1: Importing and Reading Chinese Text
The following tutorial was written for Chinese Toolbox FREE 7.1.0, but the principles apply to the current version as well. The differences between 7.1 and 9.1 are minor. First, the CHARACTER UNDERSTANDING panel in 7.1 has been moved to the Character Understanding and Review window. Second, the field labels have been shorten. Third, the Understanding group and the Review group are now positioned horizontally instead of vertically in relation to the other.
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This tutorial will show you how to use Chinese Toolbox FREE to read Chinese texts and how to mark characters for unassisted and assisted reading.
After installing the software you should see Chinese Toolbox FREE icons/shortcuts on the desktop and on the start menu. Click or double-click as appropriate one of these, and the program will begin to load.
For this tutorial we’ll copy the text from
http://faculty.virginia.edu/cll/chinese_reading/Beginning/airport.html into the Chinese Toolbox FREE reader window.
After launching the program, the first thing you’ll want to do is paste the Chinese text you want to read into the reader window. To do so, load the program that has the text of interest and copy it to the Windows clipboard. In the screen capture shown below, you can see Internet Explore to the right with the text of interest selected. Also, the Edit menu is expanded. In this example, we click on “Copy” in the Edit menu in IE to copy the selected text to the Windows clipboard. You could also press Ctrl-c, the standard Windows Copy shortcut.
In the screen capture below, the formerly selected text is pasted into the Chinese Toolbox FREE reader window. To paste text from the Windows clipboard into the reader window, first click inside the reader window text area (with white background), then press Ctrl-v (also a standard Windows keyboard shortcut). If you’re following this tutorial, you should see the following. Otherwise, whatever text you had formerly copied to the Windows clipboard will appear in the reader window of Chinese Toolbox FREE.
Now click in the text area of the reader window and press the right arrow key to select the first character. When a character is selected in the reading window, a one-pixel-wide border appears around the character. In this User Guide this selection box is referred to as a cursor. The first character in the reading window should also appear in the character dictionary as shown below:
Now press the right arrow key again. Notice how the cursor is on the next character in the reading window and the same character appears in the character dictionary. Also, the character that has already been “read” appears in the reading window in a gray-filled box with no border.
Now, press the right arrow key three more times. Notice how the cursor overlays each character in the reading window. The current character (as marked by the cursor) appears in the main window — in the character dictionary. When the character appears in the character dictionary, all fields associated with it (i.e. pinyin, zhuyin, English definition, entry number, and total entries) are also updated.
Now press the right arrow key five times to display the character 天 (pinyin: tian1) as shown below:
Let’s just assume that this is a character you know, or, are at least somewhat familiar with. Press the spacebar to display the following:
The change may not be obvious: In the main window the data field From 1 to 5, I understand this character at level has changed from 0 to 1. Also notice the current character in the reading window. Its color has changed from blue to gray. This indicates that you know this character, or at least, you want to begin trying to read this character without automatic dictionary display.
Also, notice the fourth line, the third character from the left after the comma. This character is also 天. It also has turned gray. In fact, all 天 characters will be displayed in gray, both in the text currently displayed and in any text you paste in the future.
When you press the right direction key in the reader window to select the next character, the newly selected character will appear in the dictionary window only if its color is blue, that is, if it is considered to be an unknown character. Gray characters in the reading window are considered to be “known” characters, so when you select such a character using the direction keys, that character will not appear in the character dictionary.
Now let’s continue reading. As you read, press the spacebar on characters you recognize. In the screenshot below, I’ve read the first paragraph and marked the characters I’m familiar with. Notice that when you press the spacebar on a character, all instances of that character in the reading window are displayed in gray. They are marked for unassisted reading.
In the screenshot above notice the selected character in the reading window. It is not displayed in the dictionary window because it had previously been marked for unassisted reading. When you come across such a character in the reading window, you should know its pronunciation and meaning. If you forget, just press the spacebar again. The character will remain marked for unassisted reading (i.e., it will still be gray), but it will show up in the character dictionary window:
Now let’s finish reading the first page. As I read, I mark characters that I recognize.
When you get to the last character on a page, pressing the right arrow key will cause the next page to be displayed as shown below:
As you continue to read the second page, suppose you come across a character you really shouldn’t have marked for unassisted reading. Take a look at the following:
In this example, I just can’t remember the character 機. I probably need to see this character a few more times before I can remember it. There is a way to revert the character back to the unknown state.
In order to revert the character to its original, unknown state, the character needs to be displayed in the character dictionary. To do so, either click on the character (in the reader window) with the mouse or press the spacebar while the reader is active. The character dictionary will be updated as follows:
Take a look at the right side of the main window. Just under the label CHARACTER UNDERSTANDING there’s a label frame: From 1 to 5, I understand this character at level. Look at the frame directly to the right of this label. For characters marked for unassisted reading, this field will be a 1 (or 2-5). For all others characters in this example, this field will be a 0. If you click in the frame containing the 1 then press 0 on your keyboard, the character will be reset to “unknown”. Notice in the reading window how the 機 character changes from gray to blue.
This completes Tutorial 1. To learn how to use Chinese Toolbox FREE to review the characters you’ve already read, check out the next two tutorials, Reviewing by Levels and Reviewing by Date.