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Charll shared this beautiful Xianfeng (1851-1861) dated bottle depicting NeZha combating the Dragon King amongst a rolling sea of blue and eight mythical sea creatures.


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Some helpful 'Chinese' tools for the non-Chinese speakers and writers...

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Pat - 查尚杰
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Zha Shang Jie 查尚杰


« on: April 08, 2011, 09:49:11 pm »

http://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/mouse-dictionary/

I have found these tools indispensable for someone like me... I am multi-lingual but struggle with Chinese.  Enjoy..
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richy88
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« Reply #1 on: April 09, 2011, 02:49:40 am »

Thanks for sharing, Pat!

A few more website that you can use:

This one translate sentences from Chinese to English and vice versa:

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=translate

This is a multi language translator:

http://www.worldlingo.com/en/products_services/worldlingo_translator.html


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Richard from sunny Singapore
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« Reply #2 on: April 09, 2011, 03:31:54 am »

Thanks Richard! Are you aware of any software that will read Chinese characters from a picture, other than the lenghty and not so accurate OCR process in Iris, Abbyy or Omnipage? 
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« Reply #3 on: April 09, 2011, 03:37:08 am »

Hi Pat, unfortunately no.

It will be quite difficult to considering that most of the artists do no write or sign in standard regular Chinese script that is more recognisable on OCR.

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Richard from sunny Singapore
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« Reply #4 on: April 09, 2011, 03:49:40 am »

Haha, thanks for the confirmation!  I tried using the OCR tools but it is tedious, timeconsuming and inaccurate as you suggest.  It is funny though, I dont know what you think as a Chinese speaker, but if I ask friends to help me translate these inscriptions I get many different answers, all from Chinese speakers... you have such a rich language!
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« Reply #5 on: April 09, 2011, 04:16:09 am »

Hi Pat

It is not surprising that most Chinese do not fully understand those inscriptions or interpret them differently as most of them are written in the Olden Chinese. As the younger generation usually do not learn these older text in school, hence the handicap. It is unless one has an interest in old Chinese Classical literature such as poems or history then they will become more proficient.

It is a bit like reading Shakespeare in the modern context.

Moreover, many Chinese text have hidden meaning or rebus that one can only fully understand if one is familiar with the culture. Otherwise, the right meaning may not be fully understood.

Just to cite an example for the sake of illustration:

Many inside bottles were painted with a cat together with a butterfly. To many, it is just part of the overall design. However, to the Chinese who are well versed with the culture, it signifies the hidden meaning of Longevity as when you combine the two word cat and butterfly in Chinese, which is pronounced as 'Mao Die' which also sound as Longevity in ancient Chinese.

Therefore, knowing the culture is equally important to understand the language fully.
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« Reply #6 on: April 09, 2011, 04:24:55 am »

Sad to hear that this is getting lost somehow... thanks for the clarification. It makes sense. 
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Peter Bentley 彭达理
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« Reply #7 on: April 09, 2011, 05:08:01 am »

Google  language  tools  also  gives   a   quick   translation ( both ways).

But  going  from  English to  Chinese   one really needs   some basic  knowledge of Chinese  characters   to   correct the  translation because  sometimes  it  goes  very  wrong. If  there  are person  or place  names  I  insert  123  in the  english   and then     finally  type  in the      correct    characters   manually  using   MSN  Chinese  pinyin  character  input

Cheers  Peter @ HK
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