Big, Good Chengyu Dictionary with usage examples?

[HashiriKata]

Hi,

A friend is going to China and I wants her to buy me a good Chengyu Dictionary, but I have no idea what is available to tell her.

Anyone has used a chengyu dictionary which they are happy with? What I need is a fairly recent and comprehensive one (1000 pages upwards), with pinyin in the entries, and explanations in Chinese or both Chinese & English, and with plenty of examples of usage. Please leave the names of those dictionaries which you are happy with or would like to recommend, and I'll look them up.

Cheers,

[chrix]

That's a tall order, especially if English is a must. I don't think you'll find any good ones, because Chengyu are usually learnt so late in the game that most learners go straight to the Chinese-only ones.

If that's an option, I'd recommend the paper/CD version of http://dict.idioms.moe.edu.tw For the most common ones (I think something like 1900 chengyu) they have in-depth explanation of source, background, examples and synonyms.

[chrix]

Actually, even the English translations offered by various websites are more often than not atrocious. I would really like to know if somebody has made the effort to work on good translations for the 10,000 most common chengyu, not just those which happen to be included in a general dictionary.

[Daan]

I'm personally very fond of the 新世界城與用法詞典 (含應對炤） which I got in Singapore a few years ago. It was compiled by 潘維桂 and published by 華語教學出版社 (Beijing) and 怡學出版社 (Singapore). Let me just quote from the book:

New Century Dictionary of Chinese Idioms has been specially prepared for secondary students, as well as learners of Chinese as a foreign language. The dictionary has a collection of over 2,300 common Chinese idioms. All the meanings and usage are given in Chinese and English.

The main features of the dictionary:

- It covers common Chinese idioms.

- Chinese-English meanings and usage.

- Every idion is given its pinyin, meanings, usage and sentence examples.

- The usage of each idiom is explained in context, according to its occasion or collocation, amongst others.

1059 pages, has pinyin, explanations in both Chinese and English and with at least two examples for every 成語. If you want to know more, let me know

[chrix]

Great! Can you get in Taiwan too, in a 繁體字 version ?

[HashiriKata]

Thank you both for replying. They sound good and I'll have a closer look in the titiles mentioned.

That's a tall order, especially if English is a must.

How do you read "explanations in Chinese or both Chinese & English" into "English is a must" ?

The dictionary is intended as a reference tool, so no English is no problems. If I'm in China, I'd probably just look for a Chinese monolingual.

Chris: I've just looked at http://dict.idioms.moe.edu.tw

This seems to be a website for searching chengyu. Is this correct? I'm looking for a paper volume that someone in Beijing can buy & bring back to me.

[chrix]

oh I went over your email too quickly

[chrix]

No, it's the online version of the 成語典 published by Taiwan's Education Ministry. I'd doubt you'd be able to pick that up in Beijing.

But it's by far the best you can find online, at least as far as the core set of 1,900 chengyu is concerned. It has a wealth of appendices as well.

[HashiriKata]

Thanks Chris, even if it can't be bought in Beijing, I'll use the site when searching.

Daan, I've look at the title you provided. It sounds good but do you find it comprehensive enough for all the chengyu that you've happened to search so far? The size of the dictionary is compact and since it has both Chinese and English translation, I'm not sure 1100 pages is "heavy-weight" enough.

This is the version I've looked at: http://www.learners.com.sg/viewbook.asp?bookid=37

And I think this one may be another version of the same: http://www.chinabooks.com/cart/product.php?productid=17613&cat=303&page=1

[chrix]

OK, Hashirikata. Just one piece of advice about the site: when you search for chengyu, chengyu from the core set appear first, others are marked with "(附)", i.e. these are additional entries (maybe up to 20,000), and they don't include as much information as other sites would (such as www.zdic.net/cy). At first I didn't use that website because when I clicked on the core set chengyu, what appeared looked like a children's website. But don't be fooled by appearances, when you click your way through, you'll find a great dictionary waiting for you. (It might be that this dictionary is geared towards younger students, but the explanations and so forth used are quite suitable for intermediate learners of Chinese also )

[tooironic]

Tbh, I've never understood readers' concerns with chengyu. They've stayed fixed inside history for so many centuries and are packed with so much meaning that I've always found them one of the easiest things to understand. Sure, you might get the occasional vague one, but nothing a little googling can't help. Stuff like suyu or regional slang are, to my mind, a lot more difficult to comprehend or translate. Though I'd understand your need for a chengyu dict if you wanted to simply learn them, but then again, learning words from dictionaries is probably not the best idea.

[chrix]

They're actually much less fixed than you might think. Variations abound, semantic changes galore, and some have counterintuitive meanings! But in my view, the crux of the matter is that there are so many of them! From the 40,000 (maybe 10,000 if you eliminate the variants) or so, the intermediate-advanced learner might be well advised to find a core set of chengyu to study more in detail, so they can use them actively (as a long line of Taiwanese politicians ridiculed in the press for misusing chengyu can attest, there's a lot of pitfalls around using some of them correctly). This has been a pet project of mine and will be for years to come

[gato]

Whichever dictionary you pick, I would recommend that you get a 多功能 idiom dictionary, which typically means that each entry will have synonyms, antonyms, example sentences, as well as the usual definitions. Having a ready list of synonyms and antonyms for each idiom particularly is a great aid to learning idioms.

I personally use 多功能学生成语词典 published by 上海远东出版社, a concise idiom dictionary (about 580 page). It has entries for about 4000 idioms.

http://www.amazon.cn/%E5%A4%9A%E5%8A%9F%E8%83%BD%E5%AD%A6%E7%94%9F%E6%88%90%E8%AF%AD%E8%AF%8D%E5%85%B8-%E5%BC%A0%E5%9B%BD%E5%BC%BA/dp/B00114IGW8#

多功能学生成语词典

作者:张国强 出版社：上海远东出版社

页码：582 页 出版日期：2006年04月

Its biggest innovation is its index, which for each character lists all idioms containing that character (regardless whether the position of the character in the word). The editors call this a 速查 (quick search) index. Other dictionaries usually only lists words starting with the character looked up. Naturally, this index takes a lot of space and over 100 pages of the dictionary is used for the index. However, this type of index is more than just an index but also a great learning aid. Knowing that 哀 can be used in both 哀鸿遍野 and 喜怒哀乐 will give you a better understanding of 哀 and all idioms containing 哀.

The biggest weakness of this dictionary is that it does not list the source of the idiom (usually a classical text)

I've attached a scanned copy of a few pages from this 多功能学生成语词典 in the attachment here.

For a more comprehensive dictionary, you might consider the 1000-page 多功能成语词典 published by 商务印书馆国际有限公司. It has about 8000 idiom entries. I'm not sure what kind of index it has, but it probably doesn't have the 速查 index that the dictionary above has. But it does have synonyms and antonyms, and has more detailed definitions, including source of the idioms. You can see a scanned page from the dictionary at the link below.

http://www.yaomaishu.com/bk10764417.html

实用全新版系列-多功能成语词典

作　　者：韦炳元，李艳，臧克娜　编

出 版 社：商务印书馆国际有限公司

出版时间：2009年04月

IdiomDictionary.pdf

Edited November 5, 2009 at 04:31 AM by gato

[Daan]

Great! Can you get in Taiwan too, in a 繁體字 version?

Despite having spent quite a few hours in bookstores here in Taiwan, I haven't seen a traditional-character version here, although I could always ask if they could order one. Lots of mainland material is republished in traditional characters here, although they are also selling books in simplified characters these days without having a traditional edition available. In fact, I saw the simplified edition in a bookstore only today.

Daan, I've look at the title you provided. It sounds good but do you find it comprehensive enough for all the chengyu that you've happened to search so far? The size of the dictionary is compact and since it has both Chinese and English translation, I'm not sure 1100 pages is "heavy-weight" enough.

On a few occassions I have indeed had trouble finding the 成語 I was looking for in this dictionary. However, what makes it worth the while for me is the plethora of usage notes, grammatical remarks and examples for the 2,300 idioms that it does list. I will be the first to admit, though, that I have had to resort to other, more comprehensive dictionaries at times.

[HashiriKata]

Thank you everyone!

For a reference tool, I'm inclined to go towards the more comprehensive ones, so I'm looking at the 2nd title suggested by gato. Looks very promising.

Cheers,

Edited November 5, 2009 at 08:13 AM by HashiriKata

[gato]

Another possibility for a comprehensive idiom dictionary is 新世纪汉语成语词典, which contains a whopping 16,000 idioms. .

http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=9170918

新世纪汉语成语词典

作　　者： 伍宗文 等编

出 版 社： 四川辞书出版社

出版时间： 2006-1-1

Its entries also include synonyms and antonyms. What it lacks, compared to the 8000-entry 多功能成语词典, are notes on pronunciation (“正音”), common typo 错别字 (“辨形”), connotation (“用法”), and comparison between similar words (“辨析”)

http://www.yaomaishu.com/bk10764417.html

实用全新版系列-多功能成语词典

“正音”辨正了成语中易误读的字的读音；“辨形”辨正了成语中易误写的字的写法；“语出”提供了文学经典作品中该成语的使用范例：“用法”提示了成语的感情色彩、语体色彩、适用语境等；“辨析”深入细致地辨别分析了两个或几个意义相近的成语在含义和具体用法上的细微差别；

By the way, I wonder anyone here has heard of 现代汉语分类词典, edited by 董大年. It's apparently a large volume but I don't know what 分类词典 means and whether this type of dictionaries suits my purpose.

It's a word dictionary (not idiom dictionary) indexed by word categories (i.e. animal, clothes, sad, happy, etc.)

Edited November 5, 2009 at 10:03 AM by gato

[HashiriKata]

Thank again, gato, you're brilliant!

What it lacks, compared to the 8000-entry 多功能成语词典, are notes on pronunciation notes (“正音”), common typo 错别字 notes (“辨形”), connotation (“用法”), and comparsion between similar words (“辨析”)

Actually, the idea of getting both has already crept into my mind

It's a word dictionary (not idiom dictionary)

I noticed this, and so editied out the question one minute before your post

[chrix]

Yeah gato, not including the source would be a dealbreaker for me, it also lacks information on "usage and grammar"... Having an index by character is IMHO essential as well, but unfortunately cannot be expected from many dictionaries (and a good thing the Idioms dictionary website from the MOE has this standardised in its search form)

[HashiriKata]

What it lacks, compared to the 8000-entry 多功能成语词典, are notes on pronunciation (“正音”), common typo 错别字 (“辨形”), connotation (“用法”), and comparison between similar words (“辨析”)

In the introduction by the Publisher, these items seem to be included to some extent:

辨析部分设有标注近、反义词，提示易误写、误读、误解的字词以及成语的感情色彩等多项内容。

[gato]

In the introduction by the Publisher, these items seem to be included to some extent:

Maybe the information is more tightly packed. It has twice as many entries but only 20% more pages (1260 vs. 1096).