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Users have praised Wenlin

  • Thank you so much for revolutionizing my ability to learn Chinese. Before I had Wenlin, I used to search for the meaning of a character in various reference books, a laborious process indeed. With Wenlin, the analysis of each character automatically appears on the screen. It is an astonishing example of the ability of a well-designed computer program to eliminate hours of labor.
  • I have found Wenlin to be an excellent programme, exactly what is required for a learner of Chinese. I like especially the cross-referencing of sources to Wieger and Karlgren.
  • I am translating the libretto of a chinese opera and your software is a great and precious tool for me. Many thanks and cheers!
  • I simply love wenlin and thank the whole crew for having invented this valuable tool.
  • I love your program.
  • Wonderful.
  • Great software!
  • I have been using this program at my university for a year already, and I am very excited to have it at home now. Thank you for making such a great program!
  • What a great package. Thank you so much for developing it.
  • I will be singing your praises at every opportunity!
  • A fantastic programme. I will soon increase my level. It is big fun.
  • Love the manual, too.
  • I really like the software. The online dictionary has literally saved me hours of work.
  • For doing research in China and translation work Wenlin is a lifesaver!
  • Very impressive piece of software. Very helpful for studying Chinese.
  • It has been an absolute lifesaver in my Chinese studies, I really don't know how I could have got this far without it.
  • Really liked it.
  • It is very easy to use.
  • This is a great program for learning individual characters.
  • Found the quiz part very helpful in character recognition.
  • Fast access to characters, good character writing examples.
  • It makes the reading go much faster since on the computer you can get the definition right away.
  • The biggest advantage of Wenlin is that it saves a lot of the time that is usually spent looking up unknown or forgotten words in a Chinese reading. (There are definitely other advantages like seeing which words are related to a word you looked up, what the components are, etc.)
  • In some ways, using Wenlin is too easy. I had to stop myself from just looking at the automatic character lookup.
  • User friendly, alternate way to study.
  • Quick easy access to characters, pinyin, definitions, etc.
  • Watching the characters drawn on the screen is very helpful.
  • Very user friendly. I liked the flashcard option and the random questions presented to assist in learning the characters.
  • It's really easy to use and totally comprehensive. It's obvious that a lot of work went into making this program so useful!
  • I liked the instant lookup, the dictionary.
  • Instant lookup! I've always wished it could be this easy!
  • This is a wonderful concept -- thank you!!
  • Especially useful is the program's ability to pronounce the characters. Overall, an excellent program!!

Reviews

A review of Wenlin 4.0 by Sinosplice

A review of Wenlin 4.0 by Pinyin.info

A review and movie demo of Wenlin 3.3.6 by Stian Håklev

A review of Wenlin 2.0 by Robert Freud

A review of Wenlin on the CALICO website

An article from the Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, by Prof. Marjorie Chan, which mentions Wenlin (2002).

There are more CLTA reviews of Wenlin and other Chinese-learning software.

Prof. Zheng-sheng Zhang of Cal State San Diego has published (in the Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association and on the Web) an article on Computer-Assisted Language Learning for Chinese, that discusses Wenlin 1.0 along with nine other programs.

Prof. Cecilia Chu of U.C. Berkeley has made a review of Wenlin 1.0 available on the Web. (Note: the street address given in that article is no longer valid.)

Please contact us to provide your own feedback -- comments, suggestions, criticisms, and questions.