Hi Folks,

Many have asked me for a link to a site that sells Chinese chops/seals. A kind person sent me this link, I hope it will supply your needs:

• http://www.goodorient.com/goodorient/zodsealcar.html .

If you'd like to access Chinese characters on the internet, this following are good places to visit.

Thomas Chin has a fully automated dictionary of some 14 000 characters in his database. Use "English Lookup", type in an English word, and you should get a list of Chinese characters.

• Thomas Chin's "A Hakka pronouncing dictionary of Chinese characters"

Rick Harbaugh's got a book version of his site out. Check before you buy as they say :

• http://www.zhongwen.com/

Both sources give you gif format (pictures) of the characters requested. The latter is interesting for its attempt at deriving a meaning from the character components. My view is, that the given reasons which are often derived from traditional sources, is mainly guess work and should be ignored.

I have found one on-line source which can provide you with a three character Chinese name. It is at:

• Erik E. Peterson's "Get A Chinese Name"

I believe it works on the principle of the meaning of your name in English, then giving a translation depending on the gender of the name required, and then matching up with some four hundred or so Chinese surnames, and a multitude of given names. So it will not appear that the sounds rendered by the characters relate in any obvious way to the sounds which you have supplied by the name you've entered.

• http://www.easternheritage.com/freechinesenames/

This is a site I've only had a glimpse at, but from what I saw, it looked promising. Free Chinese names. The only thing is, there aren't a great variety of names there.

• http://www.worldlingo.com/products_services/worldlingo_translator.html

This site will allow you to translate one language into another. However, you may need to know what version of a written language you are using, in particular, Chinese. There is simplified Chinese, used in China and Singapore, whilst if you visit a site from Hong Kong or Taiwan, it is likely to be in traditional Chinese.

It seems amazing, but a small amount of Japanese daily language is words which have been borrowed, mainly from American English. The two syllabaries has about 46 characters each, and used for slightly different purposes. The Chinese characters called 'kanji' are also used with them, but you'd need to learn the language for that. An introduction can be found here Japanese Kana Orthography I and Japanese Kana Orthography II.

There is a japanese language newgroup archived at

• http://www.deja.com/group/sci.lang.japan

devoted to things about the Japanese language. You are best not to ask about names for Tattoos here, as you will be given stupid names in return for you superficial interest in the language.

For other languages, you may like to visit:

• http://www.deja.com/group/sci.lang

Thank you reading, and sorry to disappoint if the above was what you were going to ask about. I hope the above links go someway to fulfulling your needs.

Dylan.