Once the character list is imported or loaded, the Imported Characters pop-up will show up automatically. You can click the character in the pop-up to study them one by one, or let the system automatically play the character animations continuously.
To acquire a natural feel for the proper stroke order, it is strongly recommended to use pen and paper to practice writing. You can click the Print button on the toolbar to generate character writing worksheets with stroke sequences for offline handwriting practice. The generated handwriting worksheets will help you write Chinese characters correctly and beautifully.
1. By Pinyin
To look up a character by Pinyin, enter a Pinyin string, such as wo3 and zhong1, and click the Search button. Use v for ü, for example lv3 for lǚ. Also, the tone numbers, 1,2,3 or 4, are required and they must be at the end of the Pinyin string.
Tip: Wildcard Search: You can use a wildcard in your search query when you're unable to find the character you are looking for. Use an asterisk to indicate a wildcard in your search query; the system will then match one or more phrases. For example, the search query jiao4 * (Note that there is a space between the Pinyin and asterisk) returns results containing all of the example phrases containing characters with the pronunciation of jiao4. You can use more than one asterisk in a single search, such as bei3 * xue2 * . You can mix English with Pinyin in the search query, such as University * zhong1 guo2 to search universities with 中国 in their names. You can even mix Chinese word, English and Pinyin in the search query. As an example, you can enter 大学, medical, shang4 hai3, the system will display 上海医科大学(Shanghai Medical University) and 上海第二医科大学(Shanghai Second Medical University).
After you find the character in the phrases or sentences, you can click the character to view the stroke order animation and other information. The Pinyin in the phrases are hyperlinks. You can click them to listen the pronunciation.
Please note that wildcard searches only work for whole words, Pinyin, Chinese characters and words. Currently, the system doesn't support searches in which an asterisk indicates a fraction or extension of an English word or Pinyin. Bei * University will not match Beijing University. However, you can search Chinese words using a query like 京* to return all examples or sentences using character 京2. By English
To search a character or phrase by English, simply type the English meaning, such as love and I like Chinese food, and click the Search button.
3. By Radicals
To look up a character by character radicals, you can click the Chinese radical table link. The Chinese radical table lists all the radicals for the simplified Chinese characters, grouped by stroke count. The English meaning of each radical will be displayed as tooltip when you move your mouse over it. To look up a character, you can click the radical. All the simplified characters with the radical will show up. Again, the English definition, along with Pinyin, of each Chinese character will be shown as tooltip when you move your mouse over it. You can order the characters by usage frequency, stroke count or alphabetically (based on their pronunciations). After you locate the character you are looking for, you can click it to view the details.
4. By Character Components
To look up characters with a given component, enter a character component, such as 隹, 寸, 占, 此etc. in the following box (or the search box of the Chinese character component page) and press the Find button. You can group and order the search results in multiple ways (by the frequency of usage, character structure or Pinyin). Clicking a character on the page will bring you back to the character animator.
5. By English Phrases
To search the corresponding Chinese phrases or sentences for an English phrase, enter a phrase, for examples, Chinese food, chicken soup, good luck, etc. and then Click the Search button.
6. By English Sentence Fragments
This is similar to the search by English phrases. Simply enter a sentence fragment, such as, prefer to, might as well, my Chinese teacher, am going to, He is a big boy now etc. The system looks up the Chinese-English dictionary and sentence repository to find corresponding Chinese words and sentences.
7. By Characters
To search English definition and stroke order information for a Chinese character, you can enter a Chinese character to the search box using your favorite Chinese character Input Method Editor(IME),
and then hit the Search button. Alternatively, you can copy and paste a Chinese character from other sources, such as files or web pages, and then click the Search button.
8. By Phrases
If you are looking for the example usages of a phrase or idiom, for an example,动物园(zoo), you can copy and paste (or enter using a IME) the phrase or idiom to the search box and hit the Search button. The search results, if any, will display on the example sentence area.
9. By Sentence Patterns or Any Sentence Fragments
If you are looking for the example usages of sentence structures or patterns, such as 与其...不如‚ (instead of..., might as well...), you can copy and paste the patterns into the search box and then hit the search button. Again, the example usages, if any in the system, will show up on the example sentence area. In fact, you can search any entire sentences as well.
10. Import Chinese Text
To load Chinese phrases or words to the stroke animator, copy and paste the Chinese text from files or web sites to the following box,
and then hit the Import button. Once the Chinese text is imported, you can watch the writing animations for all the characters and generate writing worksheets for offline practice.
11. Load Chinese Text From a File
You can also load Chinese characters, phrases or sentences to the character animator from a file. On the Imported Characters pop-up, there is Open File button. After you click the button to open a file from your local machine, the Chinese characters will be loaded instantly. Note the file must be a text file and is encoded in UTF-8 format. If you have a Chinese PDF or Word file, you need to convert it to ( or save it as) a plain, UTF-8 encoded text file first. Alternatively, you can Import them into the character animater after you copy the text from the file and paste them into the text box above.