Penpower Chinese Expert (Pen Scanner Edition)

by PenPower

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.2 x 0.8 inches ; 11.2 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000VS28JW
• Item model number: Penpower Chinese Expert
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank

  #25 in

  Electronics > Computers & Accessories > Computer Accessories > Scanner Accessories

• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 6, 2007

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Break down the barriers of communication with the Penpower Chinese Expert pen scanner. With one easy learning tool, you'll have the power to quickly scan any document into the Penpower Chinese Expert program and simultaneously have access to incredible features such as reading, writing, translating, listening, and speaking in Chinese.

Via a mini ScanEYE pen scanner and a simple USB port, three easy-to-use interfaces break down Chinese documents utilizing the functions of Penpower Chinese Expert Chinese-English Translation Interface, Sentence Segmentation Interface, and Phrase Database Management. Together these amazing features make the process of learning Chinese both faster and easier. This software recognizes more than 13,000 traditional Chinese characters and 6,700 simplified Chinese characters in both horizontal and vertical alignment, and provides pronunciation and phrase structures of texts.

The Penpower Chinese Expert software utilizes intelligent syntax technology, allowing you to listen to correct pronunciation of characters or whole sentences. You can also record live pronunciations from fluent Chinese speakers for review. Reading Chinese becomes as easy as scanning text from books, newspapers, or magazines. The software will help you pinpoint unknown Chinese characters, their radicals and strokes, and their meaning in English. You'll also be able to take quick quizzes on your PC to polish up your spoken Chinese, learn to write any Chinese character in the correct stroke order, and translate words, phrases, or sentences easily from Chinese to English or vice versa. The Penpower Chinese Expert pen scanner is the first step in becoming fluent. It comes backed by a one-year limited manufacturer's warranty.

What's in the Box
Penpower Chinese Expert scan and translation pen, software CD, user's manual, and registration card.

Product Description

Penpower Chinese Expert lets you learn Mandarin from any source such as Chinese web sites, books, newspapers or magazines, in either simplified or traditional Chinese, in addition to our expertly selected lessons. Unlike other Chinese learning CDs or DVDs which you will probably throw away after a few months, Penpower Chinese Expert uses revolutionary intelligent software built with Penpower's latest award-winning technologies in phrase segmentation, speech recognition, text to speech, optical character recognition, handwriting and even machine translation. It's software you will keep for years to come. There is no limit to how much you can learn when using this Penpower Chinese Expert. It trains your listening comprehension with clearly pronounced text; your speech ability with instant speech recognition correction feedback and oral exams; your reading comprehension with an onscreen phrase dictionary and online dictionary; your handwriting skills with handwriting recognition technology. Penpower Chinese Expert also encourages and facilitates a user community, where you can share with others your learning materials by packing your recording, your translation and any notes you take in a convenient file. Just download these fun and dynamic learning materials. You¿re guaranteed that learning Mandarin will be an enjoyable and rewarding journey. On top of that, we also guarantee your satisfaction by offering lifetime software upgrades free of charge; you will always have the latest and the greatest software. Penpower Chinese Expert is truly a lifetime learning companion! [ Hardware Specifications ] ¿ Dimension (WxHxD): 131×31×19 mm (5.15"x1.22"x0.74") ¿ Weight: 45g (excludes USB cable) (1.5 oz.) ¿ Interface: USB 2.0 ¿ Scanning speed: 15 cm/sec ¿ Character size¿5~22 pt [ System Requirements ] ¿ Pentium II 300 CPU or above ¿ 128MB of RAM ¿ 220MB of available hard disk space ¿ Windows 2000/XP/vista 32bit ¿ USB port

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a must-have tool to learn Chinese, February 26, 2008

By	John Montana - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Penpower Chinese Expert (Pen Scanner Edition) (Electronics)

Allow me to quote from a newsletter first:

+++ quote begins +++
Chinese is quickly becoming a popular study choice as a foreign language but it can still be difficult to find resources and tools to support a Chinese learning environment. Penpower Chinese Expert provides the right setup by immersing learners in a Mandarin listening and speaking setting -- but with a twist.

Unlike most other Chinese language programs Penpower is a learning TOOL; not curriculum or teaching materials, but a customizable, open end tool that allows students to use it in their own way:

1. Open-end Tool
# Penpower Chinese Expert uses phrase segmentation, speech recognition, text to speech technology, optical character recognition, handwriting and even machine translation software to basically convert any resource into a digital format.
# Students can utilize any resource; magazines, books, and newspapers, and transform them into learning materials.
# Students can also use the copy/paste function to turn Web-based articles and other digital formats into learning materials.

2. Immediate Feedback
# The Penpower tools combine a number of different elements to create a language environment that supports reading/writing, speech, and listening skills development.
# Students can strengthen listening comprehension with the clearly pronounced text feature.
# Students improve their speech ability with instant speech recognition correction feedback and oral exams.
# Reading comprehension develops through the use of an onscreen phrase dictionary and online dictionary.
# Student handwriting skills, an important element of learning Chinese, are supported through handwriting recognition technology.
# Penpower Chinese Expert also provides a user community where students can share learning materials and encourage one another in the process.
+++ quote ends +++

I found this newsletter captured the essence of this product. It provides you a total immersion environment for learning the Chinese language. If you are taking an online class or a class in school, this tool is like a 24x7 personal tutor with you.

1. The pen scanner is a powerful tool by itself. There are 13000+ traditional Chinese characters used in Taiwan, 6700+ simplified Chinese characters used in mainland China. The scanner recognizes them all. In addition, the scanner also recognize 4000+ Hong Kong characters, Japanese characters and English. It's really handy when you want to turn printed text into electronic form. Great for students!

2. You can use the tool to convert traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters.

3. The tool provides stroke orders for all the Chinese characters (13000+ traditional and 6700+ simplified). You can practice your handwriting either with a mouse or a tablet, it will tell you when your handwriting is recognizable.

4. The tool provides pinyin or zhuyin for all the Chinese characters. You can even put pinyin on traditional characters, or zhuyin on simplified Chinese characters

5. The tool provides Chinese English dictionary and phrase dictionary.

6. The most valuable feature is "sentence segmentation", it breaks up a sentence into smaller components to aid your comprehension of the sentence. Then you can use your mouse to hover over them to see the English meaning.

7. You can hear mandarin pronunciation in TTS for characters, phrases or sentences. You can also record your own speech, and playback too.

8. When you are all alone, the speech recognition feature comes in handy. You practice on the phrases, and the software will tell you right away how good your pronunciation is.

9. The translation feature built-in is just as good as yahoo or google translate if not better.

10. The community share is a great feature for fellow Chinese learners to share their Penpower Chinese Expert files. www.penpowerinc.com/5_0service/5_3pce-share.html

11. There is a blog located at penpower-chinese-expert.blogspot.com to share a young girl's experience of learning Chinese.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great tool for me and my students, April 8, 2008

By	Jing F. Shih - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Penpower Chinese Expert (Pen Scanner Edition) (Electronics)

I'm a Chinese teacher and my friend recommends this for me. This is a great teaching material and helps my student a lot. A lot of features in this tool and inspire them to read more Chinese books. I just want to share my experience when I use this with my students.
1. I could choose any teaching material and scan into computer. I don't need to type whole article anymore. In addition, It is easy for us to put pinying on the top of every phrase and they would practice their pronunciation by listening to TTS(text-to-speech).
2. My students can record their voice in special file and send to me. I would correct what they are saying. Also, I can record my voice and send to them, so they will have more options to learn speaking.
3. This software with big Chinese character database can show every stroke for students. They can follow it step by step.
4.Every meaning aside Chinese phrase helps them to read whole article easily, so I don't need to explain every phrase for them. It really saves our time and makes our class more fun.