Read and type Chinese on your computer:
C08 students are strongly encouraged to use a computer program to input Chinese characters. Chinese character typing is really fun and a practical game for speaking and reading practice. All you need to do is input the Pinyin and choose the
right words from the pop-up window.
At first please ensure that their computers can transmit Chinese characters. To read/input Chinese characters on your computer, you have to tune up your windows first. Go to start--control panel--regional and language option on "language" tab, choose "install files for east Asia language" on "advance" tab, check "10008( mac-simplifed Chinese gb2312" and "50227(iso-2022 simplified Chinese)". These steps make sure your system "understand" Chinese; otherwise, all Chinese character are shown as "口“.
After that, you may want to install a Chinese character input ImE. A Couple of them are available, such as Microsoft pinyin3.0 from office2007. I myself use Google pinyin, which is pretty straight forward. Go to this site "http://www.google.com/ime/pinyin/" click this button "下载谷歌拼音输入法” if you are using a 32-bit system if you are using a 64-bit system, click the link says"点击这里下载64位版“ download should start, save it and install the program. Make sure after the program has been installed, you will use "ALT+SHIFT" to activate Chinese input.
The instruction above is for WINXP system. For WIN 7 system, I assume you don't need to do the first part. Just go to the site I provided above, download and install, it should work.
You may also try Inputking. All you have to do is go to Inputking.com and then choose which language you want to type in. Then you type Pinyin and then select the appropriate character.
How to install Chinese on Windows XP
Getting Chinese text in Windows is quite easy. Providing you have administrator rights, you can simply enable it in the control panel.
1. Open the Windows Control Panel.
2. (If the Control Panel is in "Category view") Select "Date, Time, Language and Regional options."
3. Open the "Regional and Language Options" icon.
4. Choose the "Languages" tab, and ensure the "Install files for East Asian languages" is checked, as per the screenshot below:
5. Click the "Details" button to open the "Text services and input languages" dialog.
6. If "Chinese" is not listed in the "Installed Services" box, click "Add".
7. In the "Input Language" list, choose "Chinese (PRC)". The "Keyboard layout" should default to "Chinese (Simplified) - Microsoft Pinyin IME 3.0". Click "Ok" on both dialogs to return to the "Regional and Language Options".
8. Click "Ok", you will probably need to insert your Windows CD for the files to be installed.
9. The language bar should now have appeared in the bottom right of the taskbar. It should default to English - "EN".
10. Click on the "EN" button to show the available languages:
11. By changing the language to "CH", you can now type in Pinyin. You can change the current language by pressing "ALT" + "SHIFT" on your keyboard.
Thanks to http://www.fozza.com/zhongwen/guides/text-windows.php
I hope this helps! Please feel free to ask your classmates or ask me if you still have questions about it.