Read Chinese

Enabling one to read Chinese efficiently is the purpose of Chinese Toolbox. The program is not only a Chinese text reader, providing automatic lookup of character and word definitions; it helps you learn Chinese so that eventually you don’t need to use a reader program like Chinese Toolbox. For example, while reading a Chinese document, you can mark characters and Chinese words for unassisted reading. Such characters and words are termed Known, Recognizable, or Familiar in the program interface and online documentation. When you come across known characters or words of Chinese in your reading, they do not automatically appear in the dictionary windows. By not automatically displaying the definitions for recognizable characters and Chinese words, the program helps you to not rely so much on the dictionaries. As you read the text and understand it without dictionary assistance, you prove to yourself that you can actually read Chinese.

If you’ve marked a character or word for unassisted reading but can’t remember its meaning when you come across it in the reader text, just press the spacebar (or click the character with the mouse) to show the character and word definitions. When you really need to see definitions for Known characters or words in Chinese, the meanings are only a click or key-press away.