Paper Dictionary Versus Electronic Dictionary

[geek_frappa]

I noticed that since I bought a new type of dictionary that I don't use the electronic as much. Are paper dictionaries better for the most part?

After I understand the indexing, it's faster to use the paper dictionary than turning on a computer, going to the Internet and searching the term.

Is anybody else seeing this? has everybody else seen this and I'm just coming late to the party?

[beirne]

I have both but the only factor for me is the quality of the dictionary. I don't have a real good Chinese-English paper dictionary, but I have Wenlin on my PC and the Oxford dictionary on my Clie. I have my PC up all the time and my Clie is always at hand so it is no problem using the electronic dictionaries.

I do have a good English-Chinese paper dictionary, the English-Chinese Pinyin Dictionary. It is much better than both Wenlin and the Oxford dictionary, so I normally use it. The Palm Oxford dictionary will be upgraded this year with the ECPD as its English-Chinese component so I don't expect I'll use the paper one much at all after the upgrade.

So what type of dictionary did you buy?

[sunyata]

i think electronic is still better, but the good kinds are a bit expensive...

the ones with handwriting recognition and pronunciations are nice if you have the $$$

[kentsuarez]

The content of electronic ones tends to be limited, so I use mine (with onscreen writing recognition) only for quick lookups when I'm too lazy to search for an unknown character by bu4shou3, or to carry with me since it's more comprehensive *for its size* than any paper version. BTW, it's an InstantDict, and built very ruggedly. It has lasted me 8 years without problems.

Another drawback is that you can't add your own notes in the margins; my small Learner's (Umum), despite its terrible content, long ago became my first choice because my incredibly extensive margin notes, accumulated over 11 years, are invaluable. For most folks, however, I recommend getting DeFrancis's excellent pinyin-based Comprehensive CED (see my review on Amazon and abstract at bottom here), as well as a large traditional dictionary in either traditional (e.g., FarEast: 遠東漢英大字詞辭典 Far East Chinese-English Dictionary, 1992. The Far East Book Co., Ltd., Taipei. ISBN 957-612-228-7) or simplified (e.g., 漢英辭典(修訂版) A Chinese-English Dictionary (Revised Edition) Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, Beijing 1995 ISBN 7-5600-0739-2. I have a large dictionary collection; in case you have any questions on specific ones you can ask.

I hope this helps!

Kent

ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary, DeFrancis (ed.), 2003. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-2766-x. An excellent expansion on the smaller ABC, this full-sized work has 196,000 entries, and also improves upon the earlier work by adding traditional characters where relevant beside all entries, as well as incorporating information on measures words, and whether characters can stand alone or are bound in compounds.