If you want to try finding Chinese script for your own phrases here is an approach:
1. Find the phrase you want
2. Find the Chinese characters in electronic form
3. Make sure you have the phrase in modern simplified characters
4. Use a calligraphy tool to get the script characters
1. Find the phrase you want
If you are not an expert on the language, it is pretty much impossible to translate accurately from English to Chinese and get something meaningful.
Note that the “translation” of a phrase bears little resemblance to the order or meaning of the individual characters.
Google translate is quite poor and translations from English can be clunky.
So it is best to collect real Chinese phrases: sayings (chengyu) proverbs & poetry. Sources of phrases include CBPS calligraphy books, TC Lai’s book Chinese Couplets, There is a lot now available on the internet eg The Chinese Sayings podcast.
Note that the “translation” of a phrase bears little resemblance to the order or meaning of the individual characters.
Google translate is quite poor and translations from English can be clunky.
So it is best to collect real Chinese phrases: sayings (chengyu) proverbs & poetry. Sources of phrases include CBPS calligraphy books, TC Lai’s book Chinese Couplets, There is a lot now available on the internet eg The Chinese Sayings podcast.
2. Find the Chinese characters in electronic form
If you have the characters written, you may be able to find the electronic version by using:
– excellent phone app Chinese/English dictionary PLECO. This includes the facility to write the character on the screen and it finds the electronic version.
– online dictionaries are useful if you know how to look up character using radicals or pinyin. Or you can just put the characters into a search engine, which often gives a Chinese wiki result that you can then translate.
– I have also installed a Chinese character set on my laptop, which is really useful if you know the pinyin. (e.g. Microsoft Language bar)
– ask a Chinese friend to email you the correct characters.
3. Make sure you have the phrase in modern simplified characters.
You will need the phrase in modern simplified characters, as most online tools are produced by mainland China and so do not recognise traditional characters.
eg use Google translate, choosing Chinese Simplified Characters.
4. Use a calligraphy tool to get the script characters.
I use this one as a starting point. (There are a couple of others). Paste in the simplified characters and choose the script that you want. This tool will do whole phrases. If you get a gap in the phrase, then you have probably not used a simplified character input.
Note that this tool gives quite a bland version of most of the scripts.
If you want authentic ancient examples, then you can use a physical script dictionary, or online tools, but these are entirely in Chinese, so you need to recognise what you are looking for. e.g.:
Put in each character to find carved and written versions. Under search box select which script:
不限 all scripts
楷书 regular script
行书 semi-cursive/”running”
草书 cursive
隶书 clerical script/Han official
篆书 seal script
Scroll down to see the many possible versions of that character.
– Similar content is also in the phone app Yunzhang, which seems a bit easier to use.
Note that Chinese apps and websites might have security issues.