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

Global Word - What’s your Preference?

Greetings –

Over the past few weeks, I have been working on a number of things related to Global Word, Global Talk, and yes, the potential for an iPhone version of Global Word! It has been busy and exciting … and I’m trying to continue learning my own Mandarin Chinese as well.

Today, I am pleased to announce the release of Global Word 1.30.20080216. Based on your feedback, this new release gives you several options for configuring personal preferences related to Global Word. This is a free upgrade, so please try to download it today and let me know what you think.

After running Global Word, simply click “Global Word” then “Preferences …” to access the new menu. It looks like this:

You may now change the following options on Global Word:
1. Show or Hide Zhuyin both in the main display window as well as the dictionary table.
2. Change the main display window to show Traditional or Simplified Characters.
3. Change the highlight color of single-character words.
4. Choose whether or not to enable automatic software updates.

There are many other improvements related to Global Word that I continue to work on, including the overall speed of the application, an update to the “Help” menu, some investigations on printing the main window, and more user preferences including font size and style. So, if you would like to give me feedback on what is most important to you, please drop me a quick email today!

Cheers!

– bk

PS Several people have asked me why I have such a crazy version number. 1.30.20080216 is so long, aiya! The first number, “1″ represents a major release number. The second number “30″ represents a minor release number, and I change this whenever I make minor changes to Global Word. And, “20080216″ tells you immediately the last time the CC-CEDICT dictionary was updated. In this case, it was last updated on February 16th, 2008. This revision system makes it possible for me to update the dictionary while making no functional changes to the application, or it allows me to upgrade functionality even though the dictionary hasn’t changed. I hope this helps explain my crazy numbering system.

Global Word - Modify The Dictionary

Greetings –

As you know, Global Word’s primary dictionary is based on the CC-CEDICT Project. Recently, this incredible dictionary surpassed the 60,000 entry milestone, and so now has Global Word. With the very latest release today, Global Word now contains 60,000 Chinese words, allowing it to rival most Chinese-English Dictionaries that you’ll find in your every day bookstore. Even better, Global Word’s dictionary is constantly being updated with very new terminology, including such favorites as “Starbucks” or even “Harry Potter”!

To celebrate this 60,000 milestone, I have given you a simple way to contribute to the CC-CEDICT (and hence Global Word) dictionary. Now, simply click “Global Word” then “Add to or Edit Dictionary” to see the CC-CEDICT Project’s main submission web form. You can cut-and-paste directly from Global Word into this form. All submissions are taken under review and if deemed accurate, added to the CC-CEDICT database … and then as part of a future release of Global Word.

The primary window for contributing to the dictionary (from within Global Word) looks like this:

I look forward to hearing your comments on this latest release! If you already have a copy of Global Word, it’s easy to get the new dictionary and features. Simply click “Global Word” then “Check for Updates…” to see if you need the latest, free upgrade.

Enjoy!

– bk

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