Upon starting the Chinese Language Aid (CLA) software, the welcome screen will appear. This screen features some of the elements that appear later in all other screens, namely a top toolbar (which is clickable if your phone has this capability), as well as a command menu:
The icons represent the main functional areas of the application, namely:
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Chinese to English Dictionary |
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English to Chinese Dictionary |
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Thematic wordlists (colours, parts of the body, fruits, etc.) |
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Practice with flashcards |
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Navigation buttons, for screens displaying several pages of information. |
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Add the currently displayed chinese word and its meaning to the set of practice flashcards. Does nothing if the word is already in the set. |
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Remove the currently displayed chinese word and its translation from the set of practice flashcards. Does nothing if the word is not in the flashcard set. |
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Progress charts, based on the flashcards practice tests. |
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About - Shows the welcome screen, as well as copyright and version information. |
If your phone does not have a touch-screen, you can press the "Menu" button, which will bring a pop-up menu with the same options:
In most screens, all chinese characters are clickable. Alternatively - for phones without touch screens - you can use the arrow keys to move the red selection rectangle to the appropriate character, then hit the "fire" button (whichever it is in your mobile - usually the center one) to select that character. This action brings up the character information screen:
This screen shows:
In this screen, you can look up the meaning of a chinese word. To enter the chinese word, you enter the pinyin phonetics of each of the characters. You can do that either using the keyboard of your phone (either the numeric one or the expanded keyboard, if it has one), or by tapping on the virtual keyboard displayed on the screen (note that this virtual keyboard is only displayed is your phone has a screen that is over 210 pixels high). As you enter the pinyin transcription, the virtual keyboard will update itself showing which next letters are possible. For example, once you type "n", only the vowels will remain:
Use the virtual backspace or the clear button of your mobile to correct a wrong input.
Once you have finished entering a pinyin syllable (for example, "ni3"), a set of possible chinese characters with that pronunciation will appear. Tap on the correct one (or, alternatively,use the arrow and select key) to choose it:
Once chosen, the character will be copied near "Word", and the system will be ready for entering the next character. Continue until you have entered all the characters comprising the word whose meaning you want to look up:
Once you have the full word, type on the virtual "Enter" key (or press the Select/Fire button of your mobile), and this will start the dictionary search:
You can use the 
and 
to add or remove this word from your set of flashcards.
This screen is much more straight-forward. Simply write the english word you wish to look up and press Enter/Fire/Select. You can enter only a part of the word (for example, entering "ice" will find not only "ice", but also "nice", "dice", etc.)
The thematic wordlists show a set of commonly used words, organized by topics:
Click on the wordlist you want to see (or use the arrow keys to position the selection rectangle, then press select/fire). Once you are inside the wordlist, use the navigation buttons to see the different words in that list:
In any of the previous screens, you can use the button to add a word to your set of flashcards. Flashcards are stored in the persistent memory of your phone, and you can use them to practice and keep track of your progress. Once you add a flashcard to the set, the following message will appear:
If nothing appears, then the word is already present in the set. The amount of flashcards you can store depends on the memory of your phone. Note that some phones have different memories for persistent storage (like contacts and appointments) and volatile memory for applications.
Once you have a set of flashcards, you can enter the flashcard practice screen. In this screen, the system chooses a flashcard randomly from all the stored ones and presents it to you (either the english word, or the chinese one):
Try to guess the meaning of the word, then press the 
icon (or the "3" key on your phone) to check your answer. If you guessed correctly, press the 
button (or the "7" key). If you didn't, press the 
button (or the "9" key). In any case, the system will count the number of succcesses/failures and pick another flashcard. Statistics for the current test are displayed at the top of the screen:
