Homework helper

Web tools I'm finding incredibly helpful:

Zhongwen.com -- Basic dictionary, uses pinyin input, displays both traditional and simplified, animated strokes available for simplified only (grrrr!).

xuezhongwen.net -- Dictionary that uses a variety of input methods, displays animated strokes for both traditional and simplified (yay!), displays traditional or simplified based on user preference. Bonus: allows user to type in Chinese characters or pinyin with accent marks.

adsotrans -- Extremely useful tool that can translate or tell you what the pinyin is for characters you don't know. Hard for me to explain how it works though my understanding is that AI is used and the community is relied upon to contribute annotations. So it improves with time. Go here for more info.

Chinese pera-kun -- Firefox add-on that enables one to translate words by mousing over unknown characters in the browser. Only complaint is that sometimes the definitions aren't entirely accurate or it is only able to translate the individual characters in phrase.

To fully immerse myself, I'll tune into the local radio stations. The more popular ones are listed below.

Hit FM -- One of those top 20 stations. Streaming audio can be found here.

KissRadio -- Another pop station. I think they provide an in-browser player (could be wrong, I'm too lazy to translate the page) which can be found here.

e-Classical -- A classical station that I always listen to when I'm in Taipei. They play a good selection and I'm glad to see (or hear, rather) that they are still in business. It's hard to find a good classical station in the States, or even find one at all.

The U.S. is probably the only country that doesn't provide easy access to popular music from other countries, which is a pity. In Taiwan, all the pop stations play a mixture of Chinese pop and popular songs in the States. It's probably accurate to say that other countries know of all the big artists in the U.S. as well as their own while we are mostly ignorant of the music from other countries.