Dict.cn has errors?!

[Strawberries513]

I read somewhere on this site that Dict.cn's [chinese] example sentences have lots of grammatical errors. Is this true? How frequent are the errors? I really need to know because I get ALOT of the sentences I use for Mnemosyne from this site.

Thanks for any help.

[self-taught-mba]

True.

How many? No clue. Maybe you can do a stat analysis for us and let us know.

Sample 1000 random entries at least.

[Yang Rui]

Every dictionary has errors because they are compiled by humans working to deadlines and, like everything else, end up being a compromise of the various great ideas everyone had at the start of the project. Also, language is not set in stone.

I've spotted quite a few errors in dict.cn. Often, for more technical things, if you google the translation you have been given, you will get hardly any hits, or find it only appears on Chinese websites. Not a good sign that you'll be understood by English native speakers.

The point is, don't rely on any one source. Use www.nciku.com too, or one of the big paper dictionaries. Use your own judgement. For more technical things, Google the words you get to make sure that they are in use.

I think the post that was talking about errors on dict.cn was referring to grammatical errors in examples. Well, maybe it was giving a more colloquial translation rather than the perfect formal version. Ultimately, although it's tempting and comforting to put faith in dictionaries, they're never going to be perfect, and you have to use them wisely.

[gato]

I've spotted quite a few errors in dict.cn. Often, for more technical things, if you google the translation you have been given, you will get hardly any hits, or find it only appears on Chinese websites. Not a good sign that you'll be understood by English native speakers.

I think she's asking about errors in the Chinese, whereas you are talking errors in English grammar. Since dict.cn's developers are mainland Chinese, its mistakes in English are likely to be more than the mistakes in Chinese. I haven't seen too many mistakes in its Chinese examples.

[Yang Rui]

I think she's asking about errors in the Chinese

Good point. I suppose i was just replying generally to the shocked tone of the title of the post, and was pointing out it shouldn't be surprising if there are errors.

I think the errors in Chinese sentences are more questions of style than grammar. As gato says, it's unlikely a sentence would actually be wrong.

[trevelyan]

@gato - Dict.cn gets a lot of its entries from the LDC (a variant of CEDICT). The rest appear to have been copied wholesale from Kingsoft. There are a lot of problems with both projects.

[tooironic]

I've been a regular user of dict.cn for, I dunno, about a year, and I've come across quite a few English mistakes. As for the Chinese though, I think 99% of the time it's pretty standard. After all, the compilers are Chinese native speakers themselves. But yes, of course, the English translation might be (and is often) a little off.