Help in Dealing with Chinese on the Computer

Because we need to communicate often in a mixture of English and Chinese, some of us are experiencing a learning curve in terms of dealing with Chinese on the computer.

Our fc71 site uses UTF-8 encoding (a form of UNICODE) and if your browser does not show Chinese characters correctly, make sure you have the the view -> character encoding set to UTF-8. If UTF-8 does not work, try setting the encoding to Big5 (for Chinese Traditional) or GB2312 (fr Chinese Simplified). See this other page for more information.

In general, it is best to use UTF-8 encoding when sending and viewing email (website). To select the encoding, use the view—>character encoding menu option of your email program.

Chinese input can present a problem. If you use a Chinese version of Windows XP, you already have Chinese input support. But if you are in the West, it is likely you are using an English version of Windows XP. In that case you can install the East Asian Language support and then you can enter Chinese from the keyboard. This is fast if you know, or are willing to learn (not hard), one of the input methods such as Pinyin (汉语拼音). The IME pad (available on the tools menu on the language bar) provides a character recognition pad that can be very handy.

You may also find this document and this article useful for setting up Chinese input on your Windows computer.

For our little friends, this 注音符号 -- 汉语拼音 對照表 can also be useful. (See below also.)

If you use Fedora (Linux), see the IIIMF faq for Chinese input method information.

For occasional use, you may find Chinese dictionary website, English-Chinese Translator, and 成語檢索 (big5 site) and 漢英詞典. It can produce Chinese characters for you to "copy and paste" into your email or picture captions for your page.

There is another how to page that can be helpful for using/viewing Chinese for email, on the Web, and Internet. You may also find these tools for Chinese useful.

For those who are are 2nd generation Chinese immigrants, this learn by picture site can be very helpful.

The World-wide Web

Here is a helpful introduction to the Web.

注音=漢語拼音

單音

ㄅ=b ㄆ=p ㄇ=m ㄈ=f ㄉ=d ㄊ=t ㄋ=n ㄌ=l ㄍ=g ㄎ=k ㄏ=h ㄐ=j ㄑ=q ㄒ=x

ㄓ=zhi【zh】ㄔ=chi【ch】ㄕ=shi【sh】ㄖ=ri【r】ㄗ=zi【z】ㄘ=ci【c】ㄙ=si【s】

ㄚ=a ㄛ=o ㄜ=e ㄝ=ê ㄞ=ai ㄟ=ei ㄠ=ao ㄡ=ou ㄢ=an ㄣ=en

ㄤ=ang ㄥ=eng ㄦ=er ㄧ=yi【i】 ㄨ=wu【u】 ㄩ=yu【ü】

連音

ㄧㄚ==ya【ia】 ㄧㄛ==yo【io】 ㄧㄝ==ye【ie】 ㄧㄞ==yai【iai】

ㄧㄠ==yao【iao】 ㄧㄡ==you【iu】 ㄧㄢ==yan【ian】 ㄧㄣ==yin【in】

ㄧㄤ==yang【iang】 ㄧㄥ==ying【ing】 ㄨㄚ==wa【ua】 ㄨㄛ==wo【uo】

ㄨㄞ==wai【uai】 ㄨㄟ==wei【ui】 ㄨㄢ==wan【uan】 ㄨㄣ==wen【un】

ㄨㄤ==wang【uang】 ㄨㄥ==weng【ong】 ㄩㄝ==yue【üe】 ㄩㄢ==yuan【üan】

ㄩㄣ==yun【ün】 ㄩㄥ==yong【iong】