Guest guest Posted May 11, 2003 Report Share Posted May 11, 2003 > This is the set-up I have now. I hope you find it works better for you. With a Mac you need to get the Iris reader scanner software with the Asian add-ons. This does the OCR reading from the charactors. It is, also, not cheap: around $200. I have been pretty frustrated with getting all the components to work. Especially hard is the Word aspect in the Mac which doesn't like the Asian text even with the appropriate software. Going to simple text program is the only way that works. So even with it going I can only get an idea of what is being said, not actually what is being said. But then my grammar is not up to what it should be. I often just paste the text into the Alta Vista web site that makes translations to get a rough idea. Unfortunately, I think it's back to the Index cards and time, time, my chair, my butt and more time. I think you have a Mac which is why I respond specifically to your post. There is a for chinese on the mac but it is too technical for me. tell us what happens. doug > > Sun, 11 May 2003 00:24:19 -0700 > < > translation technology > > My colleague Bob Damone was very excited the other day to tell me about > his new translation discovery. Bob is an herbalist who has been studying > chinese for about 15 years. He is currently translating Jiao Shu de's > volume on formulas for paradigm. He is not well known, but he is well > respected by the publishing houses specializing in translation and many of > the top schools. > > Anyway Bob was excited about his new sheet fed scanner. He said he could > feed pages copied from chinese medical texts into the scanner. Then he > converts the scanned images to a text file in WORD. Then he opens the > file in wenlin (a chinese character software). When he places the cursor > over the characters in wenlin, the program gives the definitions of the > terms. According to Bob, wenlin has lots of medical terms already and it > may be linked with a more extensive TCM database at some point in the > future. > > So I assumed that what he meant was that a person such as myself could get > a very rough sense of what an article was about using this method, but not > much more. But Bob insisted that one could actually get extensive useful > detailed practical information by doing this (if one knew basic chinese > grammar, of course). I will hope to see what he means early next week > when I get a demonstration. I take Bob very seriously on this matter. He > is not one to overestimate the value of technology or minimize the need to > deep study. Quite the contrary, actually. > > Perhaps I am just reporting something already well known to many of you, > but I had not heard this before. It does strike me that using this > methodology to access chinese language material is akin to the method Bob > Flaws describes in his book on the subject. In that book, Bob suggests a > method that centers around learning by doing. Basically sitting there > with a dictionary and translating the characters one by one. Beginning > with a basic grammar and a handful of characters one adds to vocabulary > with each successive translation. This is an effective method for some > people (but not for all). I believe this method of using wenlin > essentially substitutes for the process of identifying the characters in a > stroke order dictionary. It may thus not convey the essence of chinese > medicine that some say is contained in the actual characters, but it may > on the other hand provide access to considerable data not currently > available to those who do not read chinese. Plus the act of using wenlin > in this way will serve to educate the user in chinese each time he scans a > page. > > Now I know full well that one would retain characters better if they are > actually written and looked up the old fashioned way frequently. But if > the bottom line on gaining access to chinese sources is to keep up on > modern texts, recent journals and classical case literature (as opposed to > reading complex treatises or classic texts), then this technology might be > a great springboard towards this end. There will be a language learning > exhibition at the redwing booth at the CHA conference in June. I believe > we may have an opportunity to demonstrate this exact process at that time > as Bob Damone plans to be at the booth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 11, 2003 Report Share Posted May 11, 2003 , douglas wrote: > > > I think you have a Mac which is why I respond specifically to your post. There is a for chinese on the mac but it is too technical for me. > tell us what happens. > doug > thanks doug. Bob does use a PC. However if this setup works much better on a PC and the necessary software is cheap or free, it would probably be worth it to buy a used PC laptop for the sole purpose of translation work. It would seem to me if one was translating some standard format material such as an internal meidine text, the information would be pretty easy to extract. Or materia medica, for that matter. Because these type of books are written in list or block format. What I meanis if one knows line one is name, line two is flavor, etc., complex grammar is not that much of an issue. same with lists of symptoms or herbs in a formula. Discussion would be more difficult, but one step at a time. If wenlin can help accomplish familiarity with such material as I describe, I think most would agree that was a quantum leap forward for education. If the main stumbling block to using this methodology is the scanner and OCR, I agree lets get a CD-ROM of chinese medical literature in text format (not PDF) out there ASAP. It should not be hard to get such a thing together as it probably already exists in China (the yellow emperor's greatest hits, perhaps). Then all you would have to do is open the files in wenlin. How about subscribing to an electronic TCM journal written in chinese text. Perhaps someone knows of some such a thing already available. I could envision a service of collecting important texts and journals and indexing them by pinyin and english for titles and table of contents. that would be a limited sevice that would greatly facilitate the project. that way one could look up a disease or herb or formula, then narrow one's search using wenlin's ability to search for specific terms. So you might go to vomiting and search for the character gan/liver to find the place in the chapter that discusses vomiting from liver patterns. and so on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 11, 2003 Report Share Posted May 11, 2003 , " " wrote: > Bob does use a PC. However if this setup works much better on a PC and the necessary software is cheap or free, it would probably be worth it to buy a used PC laptop for the sole purpose of translation work.>>> : Has anyone compared the capabilities of Wenlin and Twinbridge? Twinbridge TwinBridge Chinese Partner All in One has similar capabilities. Chinese Partner v5.0 With 5 additional value added software - Handwriting Recognition System, Speech input (SmartEar), OCR System (SharpEye), English-Chinese Two way Dictionary V3.0, EuroInput; support MS Windows 95/98/Me with MS Office 97/2000/XP as well as other Unicode applications. If the CHA standardized around a program, it would be nice to trade files and compare the same files. I, for one, would like to see the Wiseman dictionary (etc.) in a Wenlin format. COMP publishers should publish their translations if not along with the text, then, in an electronic format for comparison and scholarly study. Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 11, 2003 Report Share Posted May 11, 2003 Doug Are you using OSX? My computer has no problem reading characters Cara > Especially hard is the Word aspect in the Mac which doesn't like the Asian > text even with the appropriate software. Going > to simple text program is the only way that works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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