The nciku random character generator displays random characters from the nciku database, along with an animation of their stroke order, all pronunciations, and the first definition for each pronunciation. You can click on the link for each pronunciation to see the full entry in the nciku dictionary, or use the orange link below to search nciku for words starting with that character.
By default only the most common 1000 Chinese characters are shown - you can use the Settings link to change the range of characters shown.
You can now also add the nciku random character generator to your personalised Google homepage.
26 responses so far ↓
1 Measure words and random characters
Mar 13, 2009 at 6:27 pm
[…] Character Generator One of our planners, Kevin, hacked together a little feature and put it on a blog page. He says it, “displays random characters from the nciku database, […]
2 TZM
Mar 13, 2009 at 10:54 pm
I am pressing next and it just leaves the same character up, great idea though.
A suggestion, perhaps introduce a toggle option for coloured tones like www.mdbg.net has introduced.
3 Dan
Mar 16, 2009 at 12:15 am
Works great on my office and personal computer. Maybe you keep rolling the same number on the 3000 side die.
4 Kevin
Mar 17, 2009 at 11:12 am
@TZM: were you using Opera? If so, it should work for you now (Opera thought that because the URL was the same there was no point in re-downloading the page, so it always showed the first character you loaded).
If it still doesn’t work, try clearing your cache, or choosing a combination you’ve never chosen before in the random character tool’s Settings area.
I’m not really convinced about how effective the coloured tones are, but I’ll add it to the to-do list.
5 Kevin
Mar 17, 2009 at 4:30 pm
This tool is now also available as an iGoogle gadget for your personalized Google homepage: click here to add it to your iGoogle page.
6 ximeng
Mar 23, 2009 at 6:32 am
It seems to reset the settings each time.
7 Kevin
Mar 23, 2009 at 9:15 am
@Ximeng: I fixed the problem (I introduced a bug when I was making the Opera-compatible version, oops). It should work properly now.
8 Suparto
Apr 15, 2009 at 8:57 am
I wish I were able to see Chinese Characters appeared on my phonecell screen. So, I can use your, Vocabulary Service maximal y. Please. tell me what I should do.
9 Kevin
Apr 16, 2009 at 9:24 am
@Suparto: Our stroke order animations use Flash, which isn’t supported by most mobile phones - I’m afraid there’s nothing we can really do about that.
If you’re talking about displaying Chinese characters on your mobile phone to use our other services like the nciku mobile Chinese dictionary, it’s possible to download new firmware for a lot of phone models that will let you see Chinese characters. Just Google for “Nokia n95 Chinese firmware” or whatever, and you should be able to find instructions on how to do so.
If you’re having difficulty installing it yourself and you live in a city with a large Chinese population, you’ll probably be able to find a shop in your local Chinatown area that will install Chinese firmware on your phone for a small fee.
10 Random Chinese Character Stroke Animation
Apr 27, 2009 at 4:49 am
[…] You can check it out here: nciku’s Random Character Generator […]
11 Kevin
Jun 19, 2009 at 11:59 am
If you like the random character generator, you might also be interested in another similar page I made using the same content. It continuously displays a new random character (chosen from the 1000 most popular characters) every 30 seconds.
12 coledodo
Jun 22, 2009 at 5:40 pm
It’s cool！How about adding to personal blog？
13 Kevin
Jun 26, 2009 at 4:45 pm
@coledodo it’s possible to add iGoogle gadgets to your own pages (I think some blog platforms like Blogspot let you do this directly), so the easiest way to add random characters to your blog is probably to use your iGoogle gadget in this way.
14 KC
Jun 28, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Thanks - this is a great app!
Kevin, I noticed the link you posted is called screensaver.html - is there any way to use that web page as a screensaver?
15 Kevin
Jun 29, 2009 at 11:07 am
@KC the reason for the name is that it was a design for a screensaver that we eventually decided not to make. But a Google search brings up downloads for various operating systems that claim to let you use a webpage as a screensaver - I haven’t tested any of them, but from the descriptions they seem to do what you want.
16 Faith
Jul 15, 2009 at 6:51 pm
how to make it in the powerpoint?
17 mulder
Jul 21, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Im looking for a translation of the word ” Lost “. Ive found only translations like “the loss , lose” and so on. Is there even a direct translation of ” Lost “. helpppp
18 Kevin
Jul 21, 2009 at 5:27 pm
@Faith you can’t add this tool to a PowerPoint presentation - the best you can do is probably to take a screenshot of the character you want (press the “Print Screen” button on your keyboard, then press Control+V in Powerpoint) and edit the image so only the character and its meaning are included.
@Mulder if you want to look up the Chinese translation of an English word, it’s best to look in the main nciku dictionary - the random character generator only includes single Chinese characters, but most words are made up of more than one character. In the case of “lost”, you can go to http://www.nciku.com/search/en/detail/lost/1707931 to see the definition ([+object] 丢失的 diūshī de; [+person, animal] 走失的 zǒushī de)
19 mulder
Jul 23, 2009 at 1:21 pm
thanks for the tip, i find these translations pages hard to navigate. They also seem to not always be right, and things seem to get lost in translation, is this website the real deal?
20 Kevin
Jul 23, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Which pages do you mean by “these translation pages”? If you’re talking about this random character tool, the translations shouldn’t be wrong, but it only gives the most common meaning of the character so a character might have more meanings that aren’t shown here.
If your problem is with the dictionary pages at www.nciku.com instead of with this tool, I’m sorry that you find it difficult to navigate - if you let us know what problems you’re encountering, we’ll take your suggestions into account when we make improvements to the dictionary (either post comments on the blog or use the ’send feedback’ link at the bottom of the nciku.com page). In the meantime, we do have a simpler version of the site (originally intended for mobile phones, but you can use it on your computer as well) at http://m.nciku.com that you might find easier to use.
If you want to get more dictionary information about a word you find in the random character generator, you can click the green links to go to that word’s entry in the dictionary, which has usage information, more meanings, examples etc.
21 mulder
Jul 25, 2009 at 1:15 pm
ya sorry i meant these tranlsation pages in general, not this one in specific. ive given up looking through the pages, so i was just looking for a place to ask someone. thanks again.
22 qazwsx
Aug 20, 2009 at 1:45 am
Is there a way to obtain the entire database of Chinese characters from you ?
23 Ning
Sep 27, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Is embedded code provided for adding the tool to blog? It must be very helpful.
24 Kevin
Sep 28, 2009 at 11:32 am
@Ning There is an iGoogle version, and Google makes it possible to add iGoogle gadgets to your webpage: http://www.gmodules.com/ig/creator?synd=open&url=http://blog.nciku.com/blog/en/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/randomcharacter.xml&lang=en
Depending on your blog software, there might also be a built-in way to integrate Google gadgets.
25 TESHIA
Oct 5, 2009 at 8:46 am
I was looking for the chinese symbol that means blessed and i was womdering did you have it.
26 tobo
Oct 27, 2009 at 10:19 am
too good for my students. thanks
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