Which electronic dictionary? plecodict or electronic dictionary

[F_Kal]

Greetings,

I've been using sometime now Wenlin and I feel excited about its features and also the builtin ABC dictionary. I have a PDA and long now have been tempted to buy either PlecoDict or one of those electronic dictionaries, that are really popular in the chinese market such as the koridy V680.

Searching around I've read some opinions of people that love plecodict, even suggesting it over a dedicated electronic dictionary.After installing the demo tough I've been disappointed. I may be wrong -since I haven't invested a lot of time/but how can you do it on a demo that has only a and b's!), but it seems, that it does not compare to wenlin.

-I really love the fact that wenlin tells you how commonly a word occurs and you can look up anything sorted by how common it is. It's invaluable identifying whether a word/phrase/expression is a common enough or not, or even deciding what to study next. All the additional information such as stroke order, components, and speculations around of the symbolism of the original form of a word really help studying and also the way you can jump from searching one word to others containing it even as compontent of the hanzi really makes it easy to depthen into studying one word without having to lose focus of what you where doing.

1)Do you think I could find this "word frequency" listing in any dictionary except wenlin?

2) If you happen to have some comments on that -especially people who use wenlin and use a "portable solution" aswell- I'd be glad to hear from them.

3)Another thing that I really hope for is examples and I guess -just a guess, never had one- electronic dictionaries (dedicated) offer a bigger variety on that. Isn't it the case? Especially in a C-C dictionary

4)Finally my PDA is very slow and very unstable especially since installing CEStar/Penpower and that adds to the concerns of whether I should invest on my PDA.

Bottomline, do you think plecodict surpasses a dedicated electronic dictionary, or I should look elsewhere? How about V680 or some other you propose? Up to 1500kuai/150euro I'm willing to invest.

5)Do you think that Pleco 2.0 will be a definite winner? It's going to include more dictionaries from what I see, but do they compare well to the licenced ones by companies such as casion/besta/koridy that can be found in such devices?

Thank you for your time, and sorry for a lengthy and not well-expressed email. I'm really not proud of the languge in my email, but since coming to china my already-poor English have significantly worsen:oops:

[self-taught-mba]

For so many reasons, Plecodict.

Other dictionaries often only have some other dictionary which is not nearly as good.

Pleco is also constantly being improved and updated and he has been quite generous with the upgrades. That's something you'll never get with another handheld dictionary.

A bunch of other reasons too. There's a reason our schools still suggests our students by them and include it in our full program.

Hands down market winner.

[Mauricioez]

Hi.

My name is Mauricio. I´ve been study Chinese for one year and a half.

I want to suggest use PLECO dictionary.

I have a palm treo, I can use this software very easily at the classroom but compare with some other electronic dictionary is very light in good and bad way.

Light and easy for write but sometimes to light than dont have all meanings compare with others dictionaries.

Your decision should depend how many want to spend in order how many time you will study Chinese.

Bye

[flameproof]

I use Pleco too and love it. Speed is OK on my 2001 h1940. No crashing issues.

[ipsi()]

I've only used Pleco and not any other electronic dictionaries, but from what I understand the majority are targeted towards those studying English via Chinese, and not the other way around. While you can change the interface language and such, it's still intended for people who can already speak Chinese.

I think I remember one person who commented that they had issues writing characters as it recognised them too fast - whereas Pleco will let you take as long as you like between strokes, which is very much a good thing if you're writing out a character you've never seen before.

It's also more than just dictionary software. If that's all you're using it for, then you're missing out, to some extent.

I'm not sure about the examples. But the ABC dictionary does organise phrases by commonality - the little numbers to the upper-left of the pinyin indicate how common that phrase is, relative to other phrases with the same pinyin.

I generally find the examples sufficient, personally. And with Pleco, you can keep adding dictionaries to get more examples.

Anyway, gotta go. Girlfriend needs sleep...

[character]

If you want Wenlin on the go, have you considered a UMPC such as an OQO? You could get a used UMPC as Wenlin doesn't require the fastest processor, etc.

[youpii]

I have a V680. It does not have your "frequency list" feature.

I don't think Pleco has that either.

[F_Kal]

Actually I'd like a comparison between the features of Plecodict and V680 (since these are probably my two-under-consideration-options) if anyone has experienced both, it would be nice to hear about the highlights and especially abou the dictionaries quality.

youpii:I don't really expect to find the frequency list, but tell me, when you look up a word, how do you know if it's relatively important or not? Doesn't it have some statistics of how often this word appears out of 1000000 text characters for example (like Wenlin does)?

character: I've already considered the UMPC (I was impressed by U1010), but it's too much money(more than I can afford) and therefore it's also not something that I'd easily carry and throw around...

Mauricioez: I don't mind about handwriting speed, since I'm already used to writing fast in one single move with no breaks. Actually, having to press the "recognise" button is something I really didn't enjoy in pleco, but I was intending to use pleco with CE-Star (or MonsterSIP) and not the built in system-if I decide to take the leap...

As for how often I'll be using it, the answer is close to "non-stop" since I'm studying chinese in china I've already been using my PDA for the past 6months with a lingosoft dictionary but it's inadequate. 3 things were my major complaints: I needed actual examples, since thats the only way you can put a word and its use in your(mine) head.

I also need the examples so that I can judge whether the word I look up can be used in a specific case. For the same reason I need a way to determine the frequency in which something is used.

By the way, are there free dictionaries/databases with examples eg.for mdict?I've been using mdict, but I couldn't find any dictionary with pinyin (or it may have been my PDAs fault)

Thank you all for your help! I've been trying to decide what to buy for the past 6 months and I'm almost leaving china and haven't yet bought one descent dictionary for my class lessons and my out-of-house-study

[character]

For frequency, you could try making a text file from one of the frequency lists available and searching it.

[Shadowdh]

Hi there mate... I have answered the questions I could in bold below...

2) If you happen to have some comments on that -especially people who use wenlin and use a "portable solution" aswell- I'd be glad to hear from them.

I have used wenlin alot when I first started learning Chinese... then I found Plecodict and have not looked back since... I found that my use of wenlin declined rather rapidly to the point that I really only use it when I am on the laptop if I cant figure out some characters and thus copy and paste... the portable solution as you say is so ideal as its easy to use, easy to carry around (thus making it easy to look up new characters/words when out and about) and has proved time and again a blessing when trying to find the right words in a conversation... by portable solution I am assuming that you mean a pda like device as well as the dedicated dict type...

3)Another thing that I really hope for is examples and I guess -just a guess, never had one- electronic dictionaries (dedicated) offer a bigger variety on that. Isn't it the case? Especially in a C-C dictionary

I am really not sure here, as I have only played a little with friends bubugaos or similar dedicated dictionary... and to be honest I did look at buying one for a little while... perhaps the grass was looking greener, but after trying a couple of different ones out I stayed with Pleco as its easier to use, has great examples (esp in the ABC and Oxford dicts) and once I put it on my new pda/phone much more simple to carry around.

4)Finally my PDA is very slow and very unstable especially since installing CEStar/Penpower and that adds to the concerns of whether I should invest on my PDA.

Bottomline, do you think plecodict surpasses a dedicated electronic dictionary, or I should look elsewhere? How about V680 or some other you propose? Up to 1500kuai/150euro I'm willing to invest.

Cannot help you alot re this... sorry, but I would perhaps invest in a new pda and Pleco if thats possible... but pleco ran fine on my old pda (acer N50)...

5)Do you think that Pleco 2.0 will be a definite winner? It's going to include more dictionaries from what I see, but do they compare well to the licenced ones by companies such as casion/besta/koridy that can be found in such devices?

so far I love Pleco 2... its such an awesome tool. Once its finished I think this will be the bench mark for all other pda Chinese tools of a similar ilk. I like the dictionaries and love the inclusion of the C-C one... I know I sound like a Plecoophile but its hard not to be when the product and its support is this good... its damn near too good to be true...

[Qiuyue]

PLECO:clap

[ange9s]

I have Wenlin, Pleco, and some pretty cool electronic dictionaries. I use Pleco at least 90% of the time, it's the best Chinese learning tool I've invested in. I still like having the other dictionaries, though. Although the ABC Chinese-English dictionary in Pleco is really good, the Oxford English-Chinese is kind of weak, so I have a 文曲星 dictionary I bought at Wangfujing bookstore for about ￥240 that works really well for that.

I'd consider Pleco indispensible for any English speaker learning Chinese, and the customer service/ support is better than almost any I've ever experienced.

[F_Kal]

One of the things my korean friends keep raving about, is the fact that their e-dictionaries have "grammar and idiom guides" and also rich Measure Word listings.I'm aware that ABC has some MW, but also aware that it's far from complete. How about Pleco 2.0?

As for me my current interest is to buy a strong dictionary so the quality of the dictionaries licensed is my foremost priority. Considering that Pleco 2.0 has a C-C dictionary it seems to stand better against the dedicated e-dictionaries that pleco 1.0, but still, do you think it is up to the challenge? Additionally I'm worried if my old rx1950 (with 9MB free ram and 10MB-15MB free internal memory) will be good enough to support Pleco 2.0 and all the bells and whistles it has...

Thank you again for bothering to reply...

[roddy]

I'd be very surprised if that will run Pleco 2. Which now means everyone has to persuade you to buy a new PDA to run it on

Edit: Just saw your post on Pleco's forums, looks like I was wrong and it'll work fine.

[F_Kal]

Yeah!I guess buying a new PDA at this point wouldn't have been an option...hopefully it runs, otherwise I will start a new thread called "who wants to donate* a high-end PDA?":mrgreen:

-Thanks again

*(to me)

[character]

"who wants to donate* a high-end PDA?"

Not me, but Pleco runs on some smartphones, so you may be able to get some "deal" through a cellular service provider.

[F_Kal]

I've borrowed a V650 from a friend and I've been giving it a test drive. It seems that there are some shortcomings such as no pinyin suggestions - so that means that if you just hear it you can't reproduce it, unless you know the ideograms aswell. Yet there seems to be a far better character recognition than either mosterSIP or CE-Star have, while on the other hand its Contemporary dictionary, "现代汉语词典" looks amazing: It has examples for every single word (yet to find one not having) and has them also translated in english.

I'm still trying to decide whether I should invest in pleco (even though I'm now more interested in Pleco than the other options) and I've been wondering if Pleco 2.0 "Standard Dictionary of Modern Chinese (现代汉语规范词典)" stands on the same level with the above mentioned one. It would be nice If you could direct me to some() example entries of this "new" dictionary to see for my self... I think I found some place a link, but couldn't make use of it at that time

Another thing is idiom phrases. Is there such a feature covered in Pleco, or is limited to ABCs pre-existing ones?

Thanks again

:-)

[gato]

I've been wondering if Pleco 2.0 "Standard Dictionary of Modern Chinese (现代汉语规范词典)" stands on the same level with the above mentioned one. It would be nice If you could direct me to some() example entries of this "new" dictionary to see for my self.

See here for some sample pages:

http://gfcd.fltrp.com/guifan.asp

《现代汉语规范词典》

http://www.amazon.cn/mn/detailApp?ref=DT_TS&uid=000-0000000-0000000&prodid=zhbk003450

现代汉语规范词典

[F_Kal]

Thanks a lot!That's most useful!

[Sgt_Strider]

Which version of Pleco 2.0 do you guys recommend? There are three version and does Pleco run on Windows Mobile 6.0?