Vocabulary books, bilingual dictionaries ordered by semantic fields, etc

[z0rgg]

Hello, my first post at this forum at last. I wonder if you can help me, please.

I'm looking for a language tool which I don't know if it does even exist. I hope yes.

I'd like to buy one of those typical books to learning vocabulary in a massive way since I'm very slow piciking words from the dictionary one by one and I often doubt wether I chose the right term for the term I think I'm learning in each case.

I mean, I need one of those bilingual dictionaries for self-study where you have tons of lists of words ordered by semantic fields (The kitchen, at the public transport, clothes, the hospital, etc) and a direct translation next to each word plus, if possible, a sentence example or so... This kind of dictionaries are very useful to learn a lot of vocabulary.

If you can tell me about any other kind of book focused on increasing vocabulary please tell me.

Chinese/English or Chinese/Spanish if possible. I'd prefer Spanish, but English is ok.

Both simplified and traditional if possible.

Thanks four your time

[Shadowdh]

Is this the kind of thing you're looking for... it has heaps of vocab that is specific to different daily situations.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schaums-Outline-Chinese-Vocabulary-Yanping/dp/0071378359/sr=8-30/qid=1162225036/ref=sr_1_30/202-7538423-0835047?ie=UTF8&s=books

[z0rgg]

No, sorry. That looks more like a conversation guide. I'm looking for a vocabulary book properly: list of books, not lists of casual sentences. Not a book with a good glossary to learn vocabulary, but a glossary itself. Just like a conventional dictionary but ordered by semantic fields instead of alphabetically.

I got very used to this method studying other languages and it works very well. At least to me... Thank you anyway.

I found a book that seems to be what I'm looking for. But it looks to be very bad according to the comments posted there:

http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Chinese-Vocabulary-Jerome-Hu/dp/0844285277/sr=1-6/qid=1162229057/ref=sr_1_6/102-0285584-6373768?ie=UTF8&s=books

Anybody else could help?

[Shadowdh]

Hmmm... The book I linked to has pictures with a whole lot of words to expand the vocab of a situation or place (eg at the train station) but it is true that there is some emphasis on sentences and usage of the vocab... its broken into categories that seem to mimic an arrival in China (eg at the airport, on the plane, passport control, on the train etc) and each section has a pic with words to build the vocab but also a part that seems to reinforce the vocab you have learnt. If I see anything else I will link it... cheers

*Edit*... actually after thinking about it and re-reading your post and seeing the bold bits I really think this is a good start... it has all the bolded bits in it...

[Qiuyue]

I know you can find what you are looking for at the Foreign languages bookstore at Fuzhou Rd, Shanghai. Very thick piece with pictures and the words used for them, in detail. About 300 Kuai.