Welcome To Global Talk Software!

Global Word is a Chinese-English Dictionary containing over 80,000 Chinese words. It has the following major features:

• Look-up By Radical, Simplified Character, Traditional Character, Pinyin, Zhuyin, or English
• Spotlight Search displays results matching search criteria
• Embedded Chat Room allows you to study with others worldwide
• New words are being added constantly, and updates are easily downloaded
• Using the Dictionary does not require Internet access
• Low Cost - $12.95 with lifetime free upgrades

Click here for your free, 30-day trial of Global Word.

Global Talk utilizes the Global Word dictionary but gives the student more features, including:

• Print your own flashcards
• Handwriting Practice Sheets
• The Global Word Dictionary, containing 80,000+ entries
• Listen to 200 words spoken by Male & Female Native Mandarin Teachers
• Plus Many More!

Global Talk is currently in its second round of private Beta Testing.

New Series - "Radical Thinking"

Greetings --

For the past few weeks, I've been working on many things, one of which is a new, three-part blog series that I'll be publishing very shortly. I call it "Radical Thinking", and it will hopefully shed some light on the importance of understanding and using radicals to look-up Chinese characters.

Part 1 will be called "Radical Thinking: What is a Radical?" and will explain the history of radicals and provide some examples of radicals found in characters.

Part 2 will be called "Radical Thinking: How do I use a Radical?" and will show you how to use a radical index and a dictionary to find a Chinese word which you have no idea how to pronounce or know anything about its meaning.

Part 3 will be called "Radical Thinking: What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Radicals?" and will give some personal insight and experience that I have had using radicals in my personal study of Chinese.

It took me some time to really "get the concept" behind radicals, and I'm hoping that I can boil those learnings down to a few simple blog posts, loaded with examples.

You may be asking, "why is Bob so interested in radicals all of a sudden?" I am pleased to announce that our parent company has been approved by Apple as official iPhone Developers. This is a big deal, not only for our larger business but also for Global Talk. It means that I can now produce native applications for both the iPhone and iPod Touch. And, I have two new product ideas that I'll be announcing and launching in the next few months. Not only has the iPhone itself been a learning curve from a programming point of view, but I've had to come up with unique methods to allow you to very quickly find the word you are looking for in Chinese. Computing has changed the way we can lookup Chinese words, but it also has required us to come up with new means of interacting with a Chinese dictionary that now contains over 70,000 Chinese words.

I hope this upcoming, three-part series is of interest and use to you, the student of the Chinese language.

Best,

-- bk