Great news today. The excellent “Pleco” Chinese <-> English and Chinese <-> Chinese dictionary was finally relased today! If you speak english and use Chinese then I can’t recommend this dictionary highly enough. Download it.

More information about Pleco…

Our flagship product, Pleco 2.0, gives you everything you need to look up and study Chinese vocabulary: content from seven different dictionaries, handwriting input, flexible Pinyin searches, audio recordings for over 34,000 words, stroke order diagrams, a built-in document reader, and one of the most advanced and customizable flashcard systems ever invented. And all of this running on a device you can carry around in your pocket.

More important than the software itself is the quality of the dictionaries that the Pleco team has licensed:

• ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive (almost 200,000 entries)
• Oxford Concise English & Chinese Dictionary
• Chinese-Chinese Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian
• 21st Century English-Chinese Dictionary (280,000 entries)
• Cheng & Tsui English-Chinese Lexicon of Business Terms

Go to www.pleco.com and take a closer look!

Yes and no. People in HK actually use slightly different 繁体字 then the people in Taiwan, so there is a version of Big5 called “Big5-HKSCS” (Hong Kong Special Character Supplement). For example, if you were to take the mandarin “是不是他們的?”, in Cantonese (HK) it would be written as “係唔係佢哋嘅?”. For more examples of interesting characters used in Hong Kong but not in Taiwan, see: Written Cantonese.

This translation site also has a few cantonese/mandarin translation examples that are worth taking a look at.

It’s OK for the HK people to read Taiwan-style Chinese text or for the Taiwan people to read HK-style text – they can understand the content without any problem, but that won’t make them as comfortable as reading the text in their own language style.

The tone of wording is also slightly different. When we say ZHHK, we must make the text read suitable for Cantonese speakers. When we provide ZHTW documents, we need to adapt it to mandarin tongues.

Therefore, for those text with great significance and extreme cultural sensitivity, for example the ads and important marketing brochures, we need to at least get them read through by the “native speakers” residing in either HK or Taiwan, thus to ensure your text delivers the right subtle feeling to the targeted audience.

My little brother just started Chinese Class this week! Will be great one day to be able to speak with him in Mandarin! Here’s a copy of a pinyin sheet — basically every sound in chinese. Note that there are dialects all over china and most people’s pronunciation of the national standard language is quite a long ways off. For example, most southern countryside folks can’t distinguish zhi:zi shi:si or chi:ci. Meanwhile, Shanghainese folks can’t distinguish in:ing (yin ≠ ying, xin ≠ xing, etc). There are even some spots where ji, qi, and xi are all pronounced the same… So, be careful

Of course, like in most places in the world, proper pronunciation and a good education/upbringing usually go hand in hand. If the pronunciation is way off the national standard, particularly for young people, there were almost certainly raised in a relatively rural area.

I can certainly do better than this, but if you take a look at the form, you’ll also see that reading pinyin without it’s proper phonetic indicator is somewhat awkward (ie, reading wāng wáng wǎng or wàng or even 王 往 or 旺 is much easier than reading “wang”). Anyway – this is a quick read over the list

一切反动派都是纸老虎。
看起来反动派的样子是可怕的，
但是实际上并没有什么了不起的力量。
从长远的观点看问题，
真正强大的力量不是属于反动派，
而是属于人民。
- 毛主席语录

我认为严重口音问题是：

1. 很多词语被好了意思，写法，和拼音，但是必须纠正音调
2. 朗读速度太慢～需要说快点
3. 但，这次我的第四声已没前天那么难听！

刚刚又录音过～这次自己觉得蛮好听的啦！情听听让后给我写评论吧～帮我纠正！;-)

人民靠我们去组织，中国的反动分子，
靠我们组织起人民去把他打倒。凡是反动的东西，
你不打，他就不倒。这也和扫地一样，
扫帚不到，灰尘照例不会自己跑掉。
－毛主席语录

这次，第四声强调太多

这次，发音更像本地人，但速度太慢

我继续纠正。大概被好了这个小语录～现在能朗读顺口点。听听。

这几天在美国过了很好。洛杉矶的夜生活很丰富。在比佛利山庄美女不少，但感觉拜金女比例比上海市区还要高! 可能是好莱坞离它那么近的原因。挺有意思的。

回美国一趟给了我机会能重新了解美国国情。先要说，这边优点有，缺点也有。美国的福利保障制度蛮好：

• 5至18岁政府来承担所有的学费
• 上大学时政府提供无利息贷款给大学生
• 收入税对高收入人群非常厉害，所以富有和贫穷之间差距不大
• 对于危及生命的突发病，医疗系统会保障穷人的治疗
• 人民非常遵守法律和政府规则
• 政府的执行规则能力非常强
• 政府办事比较透明化
• 群众教育程度比较高
• 社会鼓励人民创业，并不断进行革新

但美国缺点也不少：

• 政府定的税太高，企业和富人税都太多
• （这样让最能干的人缺少动力）
• 类似民工的工人薪酬太多，导致通货膨胀
• 特别是参加工会的蓝领人～薪酬疯狂的高
• 公交一点不行，如不想开车无法到达目的地
• 胖胖胖，连华人在美国人人都太胖！
• 什么人都不关心国家发展和未来
• 他们高枕无忧，忘记世界一直在变化
• 宏观经济结构必需重新调整
• 贸易顺差和美国中央银行债券总额太大
• 少数人关心经济情况，大多数人不懂生意难做

有的人感到很奇怪，为什么一个外国来到上海会有”在家”的感觉？我对美国西雅图还有点眷恋，但如让我选择永远放弃哪座城市，当然我会流着眼泪和西雅图说”拜拜”。

还有个小故事告诉你…

搬家到上海前，我的女朋友是个在洛杉矶长大的韩国人。由于要搬到上海来，没办法跟她继续在一起，但这个女孩是我最爱的一个姑娘，所以搬过来之后没办法完全把她真正忘记。昨晚终于跟她再碰头了，但发现她没我回忆那么好，我走之后她没好好保养身材，没继续在工作上有进步，就不是之前那个非常了不起女孩。

这部分故事该是正常的～很多时候人没我们回忆那么好，但奇怪的事是

跟她重新开始接触，开始了想她.. 发现了”天啊! 这个女的好烦!” 就没女人味了… 如叫她帮你拿什么东西带过来或许一起到什么地方去，她就不懂怎么做女人，不但是很作，而且有点大女子主义，感觉男人是在指使她，所以让她感觉很丢脸。对我来说，美国人好像忘记了”男女有别”。

当然事业型的女人，我很欣赏。不要让社会规则限制她们的发展，但同时不要造成困扰家庭的因素。我不想控制女人，但我受不了女人要控制我，特别是这个控制表现出她缺少自信!

出差前我感觉世界各地的女人都一样，但我现在越来越像上海人，开始认为与其他地方人的文化差异太大。非常少见能同时具有两个地方文化的人：”一方水土养一方人”。可能说”入乡随俗”时候，后面要添上个提醒，”入乡随俗，但如融入，会离不开”。哈哈!

The new Palm Treo Pro could be the best device for people who need Chinese and English friendly operation of SMS and Email, and an amazing Chinese <-> English and Chinese <-> Chinese dictionary too.

The Treo Pro will start shipping in September for $550 for Unlocked GSM + Wifi + GPS + 400 MHz CPU + Good Battery + 2MP Camera

Additionally, Opera Mobile for Windows Mobile is supposed to be as good or better than Safari on the iPhone, so with EDGE, 3G and WiFi, this would be a great alternative to the iPhone. Additionally, the Treo Pro is smaller than the iPhone!

Dictionary: Pleco Dict including the 现代汉语规范词典 for Chinese <-> Chinese and the 21世纪大英汉词典 for 280,000 including proper nouns like cities, countries and even 16 Simpson’s TV show guest stars! It’s a very useful $99 upgrade on top of the standard package, or about $200 in total if you’ve never purchased an earlier Pleco version.

Input-method-wise, CE-Star (http://www.mobem.com/) has a built in handwriting recognizer and decent Pinyin input but costs a lot of money ($43.50), but there’s a keyboard-only one called ZTA4 (http://www.ztqj.com/) that’s free and actually really nice – has a slick interface and it does a very good job with intelligently guessing what you’re trying to type. It doesn’t enable Chinese support on English-language phones, though, while CE-Star does.

Of course, Windows Mobile also runs Skype and MSN Messenger

Just need to make sure I can load the Chinese language version of Windows Mobile 6.1 on the Treo Pro and we’re in good shape!

inhabitants of North Eastern England and their Dialect the dialect is the oldest from of continually used English in the world totally unintelligible to anyone else. You thought Jamaican patois was weird try geordie…

“eee a divvent knaa if am gonna gan doon ta watch the footbaall the neet’

Translates as: hmm i dont know i am going to watch the football tonight

这个星期六我要到热带风暴去。我记得前年我到了热带风暴时发现前一天关门了，季节结束了。真倒霉。今年应该想办法4次左右到了热带风暴去。
地址：上海市闵行区新镇路78号
网站：www.dinobeach.com.cn

我朋友那里到了热带风暴路线。。。

先，我要乘地铁一号线到了莘庄附近。
离朋友家一点是：“锦江乐园站”
离热带风暴比较直接路线是：“莘庄站”

中间也有两个站可能也行：“莲花路站”和“外环路站”

View Larger Map

YouTube [MV]Rain 내가 누웠던 침대

In My Bed lyrics (Naega Nuweottteon Chimdae)
오늘 들었어 네게 새로운 남자가 생겼다고 벌써
니 친구의 입을 통해서 모두 다 퍼졌어
니가 어떻게 사귀고 있는지 너무 놀라버렸어

나에게 주었던 똑같은 선물을 만들어줬어
똑같은 내용이 담긴 편질 덧붙였어
이런 사랑은 처음이라면서 baby

내가 누웠던 침대에 누워 내게 주었던 눈빛을 주며
사랑을 나눠 다른 사람과 어떻게 벌써 이렇게 날 잊어
믿어지지가 않아 정말 날 사랑하기는 한 건 맞아
나는 아직도 다른 사랑은 생각조차도 하지 못하는데

나를 불렀던 똑같은 호칭으로 그 사람을 부르고
내가 널 데려 간 곳들을 그 사람 손잡고
마치 처음가보는 사람처럼 설레이는 척하며
모든 게 나와 함께했던 소중한 추억들인데
그 사람과 다시하면 다 지워질텐데
우리 추억들을 왜 지우는데 왜왜

내가 누웠던 침대에 누워 내게 주었던 눈빛을 주며
사랑을 나눠 다른 사람과 어떻게 벌써 이렇게 날 잊어
믿어지지가 않아 정말 날 사랑하기는 한 건 맞아
나는 아직도 다른 사랑은 생각조차도 하지 못하는데

내가 탔던 차 내가 앉던 의자
내가 서있던 자리에 그 사람이 있어
날 사랑한다고 말하던 입술로
이제 다른 사람의 입을 맞추고 있어

내가 누웠던 침대에 누워 내게 주었던 눈빛을 주며
사랑을 나눠 다른 사람과 어떻게 벌써 이렇게 날 잊어
믿어지지가 않아 정말 날 사랑하기는 한 건 맞아
나는 아직도 다른 사랑은 생각조차도 하지 못하는데

내가 누웠던 침대에 누워 내게 주었던 눈빛을 주며
사랑을 나눠 다른 사람과 어떻게 벌써 이렇게 날 잊어
믿어지지가 않아 정말 날 사랑하기는 한 건 맞아..

I heard it today
That you already have a new man
From you friends mouth, it was passed on
How you were keeping company surprised me

You made the same present that you gave me
Adding a letter with the same content
Saying that this kind of love is a first for you, baby

Lay in the bed I laid in
Giving the same look you once gave me
Split love with another person, how could you already forget me like this
I don’t believe it, did you ever really love me
I still can’t fathom loving again yet

Call him by the same nickname you called me
Hold his hand at the places I took you to
Like a person at a march for the first time, pretend to wait in anticipation
Those were all precious memories made with me
They’ll all be erased if you do them with him too
Why are you erasing our memories, why why

Lay in the bed I laid in
Giving the same look you once gave me
Split love with another person, how could you already forget me like this
I don’t believe it, did you ever really love me
I still can’t fathom loving again yet

The car I rode in
The chair I sat in
That person is standing in my place
The lips that once told me they loved me are now matching someone else’s lips

搭便车问题（Free rider problem）是一种发生在公共财上的问题。指一些人需要某种公共财，但事先宣称自己并无需要，在别人付出代价去取得后，他们就可不劳而获的享受成果。

在日常生活中也常可找到搭便车的例子，例如许多轮船公司不肯兴建灯塔，他们可以获得同样的服务，此种搭便车问题会影响公共政策的顺利制定及有效执行。

例子

假设在一条街道有25名住户，并且本街道即将进行卫生设施改造，改造的费用为$2500。因此分摊到每个住户的改造费用为$100。虽然设施的改造会使得所有住户都可以受益，但当费用是自愿支付时，肯定会有一部分的住户拒绝交纳。这部分住户盘算着其他住户会分担改造费用，而此种卫生设施肯定会投入使用。

解决方法是使得25名相互独立的住户作为一个整体支付这笔费用，即集体意志代表个人意志。在此情况下，住户可以通过投票决定是否进行设施改造。如果投票的结果认为应该进行改造，则所有住户都必须交纳费用。

正是由于这个原因，一些公共服务，如国防、公共治安等，就必须由政府组织提供。

当然，仅仅通过投票决定还没能把问题解决。住户们还需要对费用的分摊比例进行讨论，因为一种平均分配费用的原则又显得无法公平的反映用户之间的差异。

A good friend encouraged me to try Meebo, and online unified instant messaging client. If you live on planet ASCII-only, then that might be fine, but if you work with other languages that is probably a complete deal-breaker. Using Meebo, trying to select other input methods they are just completely grayed out – unable to be selected.

On the other hand, there are two unified instant messaging clients that I’ve found to be very stable, very convenient, and have great i18n support:

* Adium for Mac OS X
* IM+ for the Blackberry

Really highly recommend both of these!

1) 原始社会 2) 封建社会 3) 资本主义社会 4) 社会主义社会 5) 共产主义社会

在中国,”社会主义社会”前加了一个定语”有中国特色”。事实，可能倒退到”资本主义社会”以市场经济为主导。

Interesting piece in the Economist: American housing – Map of misery. Can’t say I care too much, but it does define the relationships between rents and mortgages in more eloquent economic terms that I have

A better measure of housing fundamentals is the relationship between house prices and rents. This is a sort of price/earnings ratio for the housing market: the price of a house reflects the discounted value of future ownership, either as rental income or as rent saved by an owner who lives in the house.

—Chinese Version—

衡量关于房地产的基础经济情况：房价和租金的关系。你可以理解这个比例有点像股票的市盈率：一套房子所有权的价格表示贴现值的未来所有权。这个所有权代表房子可以赚的租金或者这个房东可以节约的房租。

当然，你还要考虑：

－利息的比例
－通货膨胀的比例
－其他的因素

但是可以用这个比例来判断这段时间是否适合买房。

And in case you were curious about that map…

UPDATED: 2008/05/15 – Added Chinese Translation and Considerations…

“FULIGANA” is the notation on japanese characters that includes the Hiragana script next to the chinese character so the reader will be aware of the reading method.

For example:
かん じ
漢 字

If you want to write FULIGANA on Mac OS X, the fastest route is to download NeoOffice for Mac OS X, open a new document, and choose “Format” / “Asian phonetic guide…”.

In addition to NeoOffice, other Furigana support includes:

• Microsoft Word (though I’m not sure how to use it…)
• Egword – which has been discontinued as of Jan 2008
• Adobe Indesign – Japanese version
• LightWayText is rumored to be “worth trying”, though I haven’t yet…
• NOTE: iWork Pages does not support Furigana at this time

It would be great if I could use this editor… But it seems to no longer be available.

References:
See: http://liliy.net/blog/?p=30
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furigana
See: http://pagesfaq.blogspot.com/2006/11/which-languages-does-pages-support.html
See: http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/TypingJapanese.html
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kana