What Wenlin customers are saying…
“Wenlin is ‘software for learning Chinese’ in the broadest sense of ‘learning Chinese’: a lifelong engagement with this language and its subtleties. It is an invaluable tool not just for those in the early stages of this process, but also for those conducting advanced research. I believe that the incorporated DeFrancis dictionary is the most complete and accurate Chinese-English dictionary for modern Chinese in any format. It also serves as an index to other valuable reference works and to the Unicode and GB18030 encodings. I use it every day.”
—Bill Baxter, Professor of Linguistics and Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan,
“As the Director of Languages at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, I need to keep abreast of the latest teaching aids for the twenty languages that we teach. Wenlin is among the best tools for serious students of Chinese. As a learner of Chinese myself, I especially value the ability to add my own notes to the dictionary in a way that personalizes my learning and helps me retain my knowledge. I would recommend Wenlin to anyone who wants to study more than the surface of the amazing Chinese language.”
—Gordon Davies, Director, Languages, Arts & Science, University of Toronto
“I am particularly impressed with their attention to detail, meticulous proof reading…always essential to any such lexicographical project."
—John S. Rohsenow, Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago
"I have been using Wenlin since 2007 when I started learning Chinese. It has proven an invaluable tool from my days as a 1st year Chinese language student, right up to the present where I now use it to assist me in reading Chinese language academic articles to contribute to my research - this includes official CCP policy documents and academic journal articles from CKNI. I have used many other dictionaries such as iCiba, Yixue, CC-CEDICT, Pleco and Youdao but I keep coming back to Wenlin because it is easy to use and has many great features the others lack - I strongly recommend you try it."
—区吉民 - James Oswald, PhD Candidate, Department of Asian Studies, University of Adelaide
"As a translator of classical Chinese medical literature and professor of literary Chinese, I use Wenlin on a regular basis and also strongly advise my students to purchase it, which they usually do. I find it extremely user-friendly, even for total beginners in the Chinese language who are often intimidated by characters, comprehensive in the range of translations, and an invaluable translation aid for anybody from my beginning students to seasoned translators like myself. Personally, I so appreciate the depictions of the earliest versions of each character, the easily accessible link to the Shuowen definitions (unfortunately at this point still only in Chinese), and the etymological explanations. These alone make it a tool that I continue to use even at my level of language proficiency. I have also found the support team at Wenlin to be very helpful and quick in responding, and have received the same happy feedback from students who had technical issues. A deep bow of gratitude to the developers of Wenlin, for creating such a wonderful tool, which has made my job as a teacher of literary Chinese infinitesimally easier!”
—Sabine Wilms, Ph.D., translator, author, and professor in the School of Classical Chinese Medicine, National University of Natural Medicine
“SinOptic is very happy to use this software for years! Congratulations for this excellent product! SinOptic is an individual company, which doesn't need to buy larger licensing rights. We have recommended your software to many institutions (like the Unit of Chinese Studies, University of Geneva) and various people.”
–-Gérald Béroud, SinOptic - Services and Studies on the Chinese World, http://www.sinoptic.ch/
“Thank you Mark and Tom for the invaluable service you provide with Wenlin. I for one can tell you that my daily translation work would be significantly more difficult if not impossible without it. I recommend Wenlin to every student of Chinese language I interact with. I know that this and $10 will buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks, but thought you wouldn't mind hearing how appreciated your hard work is anyway.”
—Scott Savitt, Journalist
“I have been a Wenlin user for many years. Having studied Chinese before the advent of computers and the Internet, a period in which looking up obscure Chinese words in heavy hand-held dictionaries could sometimes takes hours, Wenlin came as a revelation. It was, and is, a no-nonsense Chinese learner's dream program: a powerful dictionary with modification capabilities, flashcards, and diverse texts for reading. It is my go-to program for writing in Chinese and for reading Chinese. No Chinese learner, no Chinese teaching program should be without it.”
—Mel Friedman, Writer
“I learn Chinese or Mandarin so that I could serve the Chinese congregation in my church. To equip myself to prepare lessons or sermons in Mandarin, I purchased a number of programs such as Pleco, MDBG Chinese Reader, and of late, Wenlin. Well, each of these programs have their strength and weakness. Wenlin has one distinctive feature that I love most is that it suggests Chinese words for any English words on mouse over besides giving the translation of any Chinese characters or phrases.”
—Sam Chan, Minister
“I have been constantly using Wenlin for last ten years. That is ever since the beginning of my Chinese studies at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan Poland. Ever since than I stay amazed by the connection of simplicity of interface and complexity of Wenlin's contents. I consider it to be great base of knowledge on Chinese language and culture, giving us understanding of its basis as well as deep insights.”
—Mariusz Jezierski, Project Manager, Connect China
“I’m a happy and pround Wenlin user since many years. I did often use your software when I was studying Mandarin. It helps a lot to understand characters including radicals and its origins. There is often an historical radical explanation that I really liked to use because foreigners who study Mandarin usually need to decompose characters in order to remember them. Once we know parts from which a character is made, it becomes easier to remember it. I used your software since the older version (with green Wenlin logo) and the new one with the red logo. Thank you so much for making such a powerful Chinese learning tool. The work behind all this is massive and needs respect and recognition. Thank you!”
—Mark Severin
“I am still a great fan of Wenlin and even though I don't have a lot of time I still use it to read ancient medical texts as I am studying medicine now. It is a great and user friendly dictionary which helped me a lot during my studies! Keep up the good work!”
—Simon D. M.A.
“Thanks for your extraordinary useful work!”
—Alain Bouc, Writer