monolingual offline computer dictionary

[murrayjames]

I'm looking for a Chinese monolingual dictionary for my computer. Something like this, more-or-less:

1) Chinese-Chinese

2) Runs offline

3) Copy/paste is a must

4) I don't mind paying for a good program

What do Chinese people use? Is there something akin to the Oxford dictionary that comes bundled with Mac OS, WordWeb for Windows, etc... ?

I downloaded a few free programs just to see. One was an offline version of 现代汉语词典. A great dictionary, but you couldn't copy/paste (with my version, anyway). Another was 育星词典。You don't get a full dictionary with the trial, plus the interface is odd--they separate 字 from 单词，so you have to search words and characters separately.

Any other ideas?

[bob22222]

Been on the look out for something similar myself for quite a while without much success... Would be interested to see if others here have something to offer...

[gato]

You can try StarDict. Google for it.

金山词霸 is also quite popular.

[Tommi]

Lingoes has plenty of downloadable dicts. Youdao Dictionary is nice too, but it's mostly online.

[natra]

You must get 汉语大词典. It is extremely thorough and entries are Chinese-Chinese.

[aristotle1990]

Not really directed at the OP, more of a general statement:

Problem with a single dictionary is that, no matter how big it is, it's not nearly comprehensive enough to cover the needs of an advanced student of the language. I have at least 15 Chinese-English/Chinese-Chinese dictionaries in Lingoes, including 高级汉语大词典, all the online ones -- Google, dict.cn, etc., sentence searchers, and several massive English dictionaries translated into Chinese, but it's *still* not enough. I frequently encounter phrases/terms that can only be found by searching Baidu. And they're not exactly uncommon, either. For example, I was watching a fairly popular TV show aimed at a general audience and 不着调 came up. What does that mean? Not in any of my dictionaries or the sentence databases. But it gets almost two million hits on Baidu, and you can find it translated here -- in the context of the show, the meaning was indeed 形容一个人不干正事，没有明确的生活目标，生活状态懒散. Okay, it's "方言", but that word gets thrown around too much -- if it's on a relatively popular *dubbed* TV show on a Taiwan channel, I'm pretty sure it's not strictly 北方方言.

[murrayjames]

All very helpful. Thank you.

[tooironic]

FYI, aristotle1990, Wenlin has an entry for 不着调

Oh, and I've also added an entry for it on Wiktionary. Let me know if you think the translations are accurate.

[murrayjames]

My goodness Lingoes is incredible. I had no idea this program even existed. Thanks you guys.

I now have six monolingual Chinese dictionaries running on my computer. One search calls entries from each and lists them in order of my preference. Copy/paste A-Ok. The program runs offline; free online dictionaries are also available. I disabled CEDICT by default but it's there, too, if I want it.

For anyone who's interested in retracing my steps.

1) Download Lingoes from this page. Install.

http://www.lingoes.cn/zh/translator/download.htm

2) Download individual dictionaries. Open individual dictionaries with Lingoes to install them.

3) Here's the complete list of 汉 → 汉 dictionaries.

http://www.lingoes.cn/zh/dictionary/dict_cata.php?cata=2.c

So these are ones I downloaded. Some are comprehensive, others concise; one is a character dictionary, one is for words. Many others kinds (C->E, E->C, 成语, 古语) were available.

汉语大词典

现代汉语词典第3版

高级汉语大词典

国际标准汉字大字典

高级汉语字典

汉语辞海

I put 现代汉语词典 at the top, because it's the only dictionary that was thorough enough without entries running on for pages. I'm sure I'll see the value in the bigger dictionaries eventually. (Or like Aristotle1990, move beyond them...)

Thanks again, everybody.

[creamyhorror]

I use StarDict instead of Lingoes, but they seem to have removed one or two important dictionaries from their Dictionaries page so I can't recommend it quite as strongly anymore.

It would be unfortunate if people, not knowing better, paid for second-rate programs when good free applications like Lingoes and Stardict with many dictionaries are available.

[roddy]

Ahem, which "one or two important dictionaries"? It would be unfortunate if we ended up with second rate dictionaries because piracy means there's no money in decent ones.

(unless they were important open-source ones, in which case ignore me . . .)

[creamyhorror]

Ahem, which "one or two important dictionaries"? It would be unfortunate if we ended up with second rate dictionaries because piracy means there's no money in decent ones.

If private money is the only thing backing up dictionaries, then yes. But I'd hope dictionaries were funded by government or donations towards academia, so the basic motivation isn't market profits. Don't want to get off-topic though so I'll leave it at that.

[simple101]

Hello

I'm just wondering if anyone knows an offline monolingual that uses traditional and works on Mac OS X. Lingoes looks great but unfortunately is Windows only and stardict doesn't appear to have any Traditional monolinguals.

Thank you

[null]

http://cidian.qq.com/

Lite version: 50,000 words in English and Chinese

http://dl_dir.qq.com/invc/qqdict/QQDict_Setup_10_142.exe

Pro version: 1,000,000 words in Englis and Chinese

http://dl_dir.qq.com/invc/qqdict/QQDict_Pro_Setup_10_142.exe

Web version:

http://dict.qq.com/