Need Help. Thanks.

[Eric739]

Hi Guys:

We need some help with the adjustment blues. We waited, as you did, to get the K-1 almost two years. Overcame the blue card and she finally arrived in May. We married in June.

Could not get a social security for her, not unusual. She wants to work desperately so she can have her own money, despite my offer to help. So she is quite sad and depressed. It takes a few months to get the work permit and then more months for the restrictions.

There are not a lot of Chinese people here (Arizona) to help. She has few friends and she is not computer literate enough to correspond easily using the computer. (I want her to join this forum.)

I noticed several people have developed means of typing Mandarin characters on their keyboard. How? The downloads to XP and Vista are clunky and slow and she has trouble with it. Patience is not one of her virtues.

Anyone familiar with the Chinese Penpower system? Or any means of getting Chinese characters to the screen quickly and easily?

Thanks. Any support is greatly appreciated. She is quite sad and talking about missing China. Concerns me.

[Randy W]

Hi Guys:

 

I noticed several people have developed means of typing Mandarin characters on their keyboard. How? The downloads to XP and Vista are clunky and slow and she has trouble with it. Patience is not one of her virtues.

 

Anyone familiar with the Chinese Penpower system? Or any means of getting Chinese characters to the screen quickly and easily?

 

Thanks. Any support is greatly appreciated. She is quite sad and talking about missing China. Concerns me.

 

 

See if any of this helps:

 

 

Translation Tools

Online Chinese Tools

 

Online Translation -

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/

Google translate

Kingsoft Powerword Pro

 

Chinese Handwriting recognition -

Hanwang Technology

http://www.twinbridge.com/

 

Hanvon Writing Tablets

PDA Chinese dictionaries -

http://www.pleco.com/

English-Chinese Medical Dictionary - http://www.drdict.com/

Enabling Chinese Characters

XP

- Call up the Control Panel. Select "Regional and Language Options", "Languages" and "Details". Click on "Add", and "Chinese(

PRC

)"

 

http://www.chinafamilyvisa.com/forum/uploads/monthly_05_2009/post-4-1243273519_thumb.jpg

http://www.chinafamilyvisa.com/forum/uploads/monthly_05_2009/post-4-1243273563_thumb.jpg

Select "Chinese (

PRC

)"

 

This will allow the Chinese fonts, with

Pinyin

input (you select a Chinese character from a list for each

Pinyin

syllable).

 

If you want to enable input from a drawing pad, select the Japanese IME (yes, it supports Chinese characters, which the Chinese IME does not) (This is not necessary with the Twin Bridge drawing pad mentioned below).

 

In your browser, select View, (Character) Encoding, and Unicode or Chinese Simplified or GB-2312

 

VISTA

Ultimate allows the installation of "language packs", which control the language used by the operating system

"Windows Vista MUIs provide a translated version of most of the user interface. MUIs require a license to be used and are only available with Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows Vista Enterprise. If you are using Windows Vista Ultimate, you

can

download MUIs by using Windows Update. If you are using Windows Vista Enterprise, contact your system administrator for information about installing additional languages.

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/e...ab5ecc1033.mspx

 

You might try Enabling Chinese characters (in any version of VISTA)

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-

US

/Help/2bac0e03-c331-48fc-8b7e-b66b8007512d1033.mspx

 

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/e...69b8271033.mspx

or simply changing the Character Encoding to a Chinese in the browser (View, Character Encoding)

Chinese Television in the US

Dish vs Kylin

Chinese GPS

The Garmin 750 and 850 have been reported as Mandarin-capable out of the box. You

can

also download and install Mandarin and Cantonese "voices" for a Garmin voice-compatible GPS. The Chinese versions may not offer text-to-speech capability (They will say - in Chinese - "turn left in 50 yards", rather than using the street name). Look on eBay for prices as low as $200.

 

Besta GPS-88 Multi-Language GPS Device

 

China eCool Home Shopping

 

http://forums.gpsreview.net/viewtopic.php?...hlight=mandarin

Chinese Language Forums - 001

http://

usa

.bbs.net/

- or -

http://www.

001

.com.cn/forum/

usa

/index.html?id=1

- or -

http://jessi99.bbs.net/bbs/01/index.html

for those in the states

Edited September 2, 2009 by Randy W (see edit history)

[dnoblett]

It is known as PIN-YIN IME, I have this set up on all my windows PC's it is what my wife uses to enter Chinese characters.

 

http://www.pinyinjoe.com/pinyin/pinyin_setup.htm

 

SSN needs to be applied for within the 90 days after arrival, but no later than 10 days or so before the I-94 expiration. TOO late now.

 

SSN is NOT work authorization, EAD from USCIS is.

 

Have you filed AOS yet, you can file an I-765 for EAD with AOS at no additional charge. If you filed I-485 without I-765, you can file the I-765 with a copy of I-485 receipt letter and not pay a fee either.

 

EAD based on a pending I-485 uses code (C )(9 ) on question 16.

[Randy W]

Hi Guys:

 

We need some help with the adjustment blues. We waited, as you did, to get the K-1 almost two years. Overcame the blue card and she finally arrived in May. We married in June.

 

Could not get a social security for her, not unusual. She wants to work desperately so she can have her own money, despite my offer to help. So she is quite sad and depressed. It takes a few months to get the work permit and then more months for the restrictions.

 

There are not a lot of Chinese people here (Arizona) to help. She has few friends and she is not computer literate enough to correspond easily using the computer. (I want her to join this forum.)

 

I noticed several people have developed means of typing Mandarin characters on their keyboard. How? The downloads to XP and Vista are clunky and slow and she has trouble with it. Patience is not one of her virtues.

 

Anyone familiar with the Chinese Penpower system? Or any means of getting Chinese characters to the screen quickly and easily?

 

Thanks. Any support is greatly appreciated. She is quite sad and talking about missing China. Concerns me.

 

 

Jiaying brought the Chinese Penpower system with her from China - it had an older version of the Twinbridge software, and was completely in Chinese. Once she set it into a mode that I couldn't get it out of, we switched to Twinbridge.

[Eric739]

I have tried most of these suggestions. XP, when adding the language package, is slow and clunky as I said.

 

Babelfish (and others) translate English to Mandarin very well but Mandarin to English is not even close to being accurate. And we need a way for her to type in Chinese characters.

 

Browser is already Chinese. I am a software engineer so I know the internals but I do not know if a package is any good or not unless I buy first. Writing is the problem.

 

I have not tried Twinbridge. Appreciate the feedback on Penpower. It's expensive and practically useless even for someone who is adept at Chinese.

 

SSN when getting in under K-1 is only good for the first 90 days to work and it is work authorization for that period only. Employers may still require authorization but that is technically not a requirement. (If it's only good for 90 days, so what?...)

 

Then you have to have DHS approval. You have 2 months to wait before you get EAD when applying for the full removal. So it's a waiting game no matter what you do.

 

Thanks for the forum ideas. Especially the Chinese TV. That will help.

 

Anymore ideas, greatly appreciated.

[dnoblett]

SSN when getting in under K-1 is only good for the first 90 days to work and it is work authorization for that period only. Employers may still require authorization but that is technically not a requirement. (If it's only good for 90 days, so what?...)

 

Have you wondered why K-1 can get SSN and K-2,3 and 4 cannot?

 

It has to do with some states requirement that a person applying f a marriage license needs to have a SSN.

 

USCIS has instructed SSA to treat K1 as work auth with or without EAD for the first 90 days after entry so that they can get SSN to satisfy the marriage license requirement in some states.

 

If you read form I-9 used by employers, the requirement for employment authorization is a PHOTO EAD card, Green-card.

 

SSA marks SSN card "Valid with DHS auth only" this instructs employers to looks for EAD or Green-card.

[A Mafan]

How big is your town?

If it is any size at all, search for Adult/Community education and get her in an English class NOW.

 

If she resists, it may be fear. Insist that she go.

 

 

 

Lessee...do you trust her to take care of the family finances? In China, many families have the tradition that the wife has complete and total control of all the money. I don't know how comfortable you are with that, but if she is part of the budgeting and spending, she might feel more happy?

 

Or that might just emphasize that she doesn't have any she earned herself. Okay, that might be a bad suggestion.

 

There must be Chinese spouses here in the US she could call and talk to, right? Do you have Skype? Or a good long distance plan so she can talk freely?

 

Can she drive?

If not, start teaching her now. And be extra patient as you teach her.

 

It just sounds funny that the Chinese language pack should be clunky with XP. I've had several computers that ran XP and added the characters, and it was plenty fast.

 

Can you afford a new computer, or maybe just more RAM?

 

Is anything I'm saying useful at all? You probably have thougth of all these.

[weiaijiayou]

if you run XP your computer should already have the capability for typing chinese characters, you just need to go to the control panel and install it. instructions for how to do this are here: http://www.chinese-tools.com/resources/windows-xp.html

 

sorry if i'm misunderstanding this part of your post, but i don't see how installing the chinese character input in this way would slow things down considerably.

 

as for helping with the blues, even if your wife can't work yet she still might be able to find somewhere she would want to volunteer (for now). my wife was a kindergarten teacher in china and loves kids, so she found a children's school here and volunteers there every day during the schoolyear. not sure what your situation is, but if you work every day and your wife is left alone in the house then this could be a big downer.

[maxsalvo]

Volunteer work will keep her busy and help her with English. Small children have small vocabularies so a school or daycare setting would be great for someone with not much English experience.

 

I can not say enough for ESL classes. Many community collages and adult education centers offer them for free or a small charge.

 

I use vista and XP on several computers. My wife has absolutely no problem using the free software that came with the systems. I did have a little bit of trouble getting it configured properly but once I did she says it works better and faster then her schools computer in China.

 

Also - TVU has proved to be essential for keeping my wife up to date and not feeling so far from home. Ecallchina.com calling cards are cheap and I have also found them to be helpful in helping with the homesickness.