Used Daily:

1.       http://dict.cn/ – great tool to see how to use the Chinese word in a sentence, many sentence examples.

2.       http://adsotrans.com/- very simple annotation website (if you don't feel like using the above mozilla plugin or mdbg.net's annotator).  Copy and paste Chinese text and press "annotate", then mouse-over the Chinese characters.

Great Mandarin Chinese iPhone/iTouch/iPad apps:

3.       Pleco – these days I only use this tool for all my Chinese needs (except annotation). This is one of the most sophisticated, customizable Chinese learning app I’ve ever seen. A While back I bought the Flashcard “Add-On” for 12 USD. Worth it! Pleco iTunes link. Go here or here for demo vidoes.

4.       KTdict C-E Dictionary – I used this for a while before Pleco. Cool thing about this one is that you don’t have to switch on “English” when you’re searching for an English word and “Chinese” when you’re searching in Chinese/Pinyin. It just “knows”. KTdict iTunes link.

Other sites I used to use a lot:

5.       iTalki – this is a "language exchange website" that has tonnes of Shanghainese people too.  Sometimes it's hard to find girls with bad English.  With this website you can choose people who have bad English (so that you can practice more).

6.       MDGB – I don't use this very much, but many people like it.  It's basically an all in one website.

7.       www.eon.com.hk/estroke/ – download this/copy into your website.  Copy and paste a single Chinese character into this program and it will be magically written for you.  One of the best problems for animated Chinese characters, stroke count, radicals, and much more.

Practice Typing Chinese Advice:

To start off, I suggest you install the Chinese characters and just start typing a bunch of stuff with MSN, while using dict.cn and adsotrans.com.

MDBG has an MSN mouse-over tool – mouse of the Chinese character and up pop the Pinyin and English meaning.  30 USD or so, though.

Scene 5 from Shower…