Chinese Toolbox Documentation

For an overview of Chinese Toolbox 2011 continue with the rest of this page. Click on the link buttons to the left for text explanations and video demonstrations (coming soon) of various aspects of the program. Click here for a complete list of new features and enhancements in Chinese Toolbox 2011.

What Chinese Toolbox Is and Is Not?

Chinese Toolbox is not a substitute for a Chinese class. It's important to learn some basics (like pronunciation, conversation, and basic grammar) before getting started with Chinese Toolbox. But if you have already gotten started and reading Chinese is a regular part of your study routine, Chinese Toolbox is a tremendous help. It will help you to learn to read Chinese in a shorter period of time. And since you will actually be learning to read characters directly, you'll spend less time translating, and more time reading new material.

Also, Chinese Toolbox is not merely a dictionary lookup program. It is a Chinese learning system consisting of complementary features designed to improve your Chinese through reading.

The Main Features of Chinese Toolbox

The three main windows of the Chinese Toolbox system are the Reader, the Character Dictionary, and the Word Dictionary. In the Reader you paste (or import) text from the Windows clipboard that you want to practice reading. The Reader scans the text and identifies all the words in the document. Using the keyboard or mouse, you select characters and words in the Reader which then automatically appear in the Character Dictionary and the Word Dictionary windows respectively.

Dictionary lookup of definitions, however, is not what sets Chinese Toolbox apart. In fact, dictionary lookup is quite common among Chinese learning tools. What really sets it apart are the learning features. One beginning to study Chinese is easily overwhelmed by the volume of information to learn: thousands of characters, thousands of words, character complexity, and strange sounds non-existent in English. Chinese Toolbox helps to reduce the clutter by helping you to separate what you know from what you don't know.

Get started by finding something online you want to read, in Chinese, of course. The program works equally well with simplified or traditional Chinese text. Copy the text to the Windows clipboard, then click the Import Document button at the top left of the Reader window. Press the right arrow key to select the first character. Definitions will appear in the dictionary windows. Press the right arrow key again to move to the next character in the Reader.

When you come across a character in the Reader you recognize, press the spacebar to indicate to the program that you know or recognize that character. The color of the character will change to light gray (you can change this color in the Settings dialog), as well as all other instances of that character, both in the current document and in any document you import in the future. The next time you encounter this “known” character in the Reader, it will NOT appear in the Character Dictionary window. You have just reduced the clutter by one character. You are reading that character, and you do not need to rely on a dictionary anymore to help you read it.

If you happen to forget the character, just press the spacebar while it is selected in the Reader. The definition will reappear in the Character Dictionary window. And if that character is part of a word in the current document, the word definition will appear as well.

Words, phrases, and idioms in Chinese Toolbox are identified by underlines. When you select a character in the Reader that's part of a word, that word with its definition and pronunciation will appear in the Word Dictionary window. When you want to mark a word as known (familiar or recognizable), press Shift-Spacebar. The underline for that word (and all other instances of the word in the current document) will disappear. You have just learned a Chinese word, and you've reduced the clutter again by one.

Words/phrases will sometimes appear in the Word Dictionary window that are composed of other words. You can click on the characters of those component words and press the Enter key to drill down to that word. The Word Dictionary window will then display the definition and pronunciation of the component word. There is no limit to how deep you can drill down, just so long as component words appear. In the Word Dictionary window you can also mark characters as known by pressing the spacebar while that character is selected.

Context Links

Context Links is the most recent major feature of Chinese Toolbox 2011. The idea here is to provide you with the ability to customize how the program links to other resources on the Internet.

Currently, Context Links works only for the main character in the Character Dictionary window. For example, select the large character surrounded by a blue border in the Character Dictionary window, then right click on it. A context menu will appear. Menu items preceded by an asterisk (*) are preconfigured context links; they're not editable. Clicking on one of these menu items will display a website in your browser with information about the current character in the Character Dictionary. Using the Context Links window allows you to add your own links to Internet resources that you prefer to use. Click on the Context Links button to the left for more on this feature.

Context Links for words and extended selections in the Reader is coming. Context Links for words is pretty straightforward; you'll be able to access Internet resources for the current word in the Word Dictionary by simply right-clicking on the word. Context Links for selections, among other things, will provide you with the ability to get multiple online translations for the selected text in the Reader. All this is coming later in 2011.

System Recommendation

Chinese Toolbox was developed mostly on Windows Vista, but it has been tested on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 7. Though the program runs fine on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 provide a much better user experience, due mainly to improved support for Unicode fonts. Fonts are so much more complete and attractive in Vista and Windows 7 than in XP. Incomplete font support may be a problem when running Chinese Toolbox on Windows 2000. Also, window refreshing or painting is much better in Vista and Windows 7. In Windows XP, the windows of Chinese Toolbox are repainted unnecessarily when moving one window over another.