Chinese-to-Chinese dictionaries -- why?

[Guest realmayo]

With the recent posts about dictionaries I was reminded how some people champion the use of Chinese-to-Chinese dictionaries from an early stage, even when your level of Chinese is not particularly high and the dictionary definitions can themselves be very difficult to understand. I wondered if this was a popular view, and if so why? I'm reluctant to stop using my Chinese-to-English dictionaries, but am not sure if that's because I'm sceptical of the benefits of Chinese-to-Chinese, or just am too lazy to put in the extra effort.

[skylee]

I think many people champion the use of English-to-English dictionaries by English learners from an early stage too.

[renzhe]

I have voted "only when it's easy to understand". I don't know if this is the best approach, but it tends to be what I do.

With English and Croatian, I always use native language dictionaries. With other languages, I prefer dictionaries translating into one of those two, even with German, with which I'm more than comfortable.

With Chinese, I sometimes have to go to Baidu or zdict or a similar site for words which are too slangy or represent cultural references, and cannot be found elsewhere. I can use them fine, but I sometimes have doubts about whether I've understood all the nuances correctly, especially since looking for rarer words will often give an explanation in terms of other rare words.

It's very important that your Chinese-English dictionary has decent usage examples, though, so you can get a feeling for usage. Perhaps I should start relying on Chinese-only dictionaries more, but the New Century dictionary is so good and I'm a bit lazy. At the same time, I encourage reading native-level materials as early as possible. Maybe it would be too much Chinese-only too early for me, and maybe that's why I liked seeing a concept which I definitely understand from time to time

[ma3zi1]

Interesting topic!

The way I see it, one might as well try and read the Chinese definition of a new word first to see if they can get it. If it is confusing or there are words/characters that you don't recognized, you can always look those up in English. If all else fails, or you feel like there is still something lacking in your understanding, you can always look it up in English.

The problem is that the deeper you get into the language (like reading novels or textbooks and such), the more words you encounter that haven't been defined clearly in English yet. I try to add to CC-CEDICT whenever I encounter this, but their editors can only work so fast, and I don't always check for an English definition if I immediately understand the Chinese definition.

To all those students who want to start using Chinese-Chinese dictionaries I say 加油! It can only help you. Maybe you don't understand the Chinese definitions at first, but as you start looking up the words in each definition, you end up learning more words – and that's the point of the whole exercise, right?

[creamyhorror]

It often depends on your primary purpose for lookups.

When I use Chinese-Chinese dictionaries, I often have to look up words in the definitions. This is certainly a good thing if I'm dictionary-surfing/word-browsing.

If I just want a functional definition and don't have time to browse, a good Chinese-English dictionary with examples is more efficient.

A prime example is the Kenkyusha Japanese-English dictionary (nicknamed the "Green Goddess"). It's a fantastic resource because it provides, in addition to its Japanese and English definitions, usage examples with translations. You can quickly get a feel for the scope and meanings of the word by skimming the example sentences. This is so useful that at least one other person I know of with a good command of Japanese often turns to it as his first choice for a lookup, even though he could easily read a Jp-Jp dictionary entry.

An analog for Chinese is the Times New Chinese-English Dictionary (时代汉英双解词典), which has example sentences with translations and full pinyin. Chinese-Chinese dictionaries like the 现代汉语词典 just can't give you the usage examples + translations + pinyin that the Times dictionary can.

In practice, I use multi-dictionary lookup on my phone. The only usage examples there are from Shogakukan's Chinese-Japanese dictionary, which is great and contains words and expressions that the other dictionaries (like the 现代汉语词典) don't.

I feel relying on a good Chinese-English dictionaries doesn't hurt you as long as you're still regularly reading, thinking in, and exposing yourself to Chinese.

[Caidanbi]

I like using them both. My main reason for using a Chinese-Chinese dictionary is to find the more rare meanings of characters that, a lot of times, are not put into Chinese-English dictionaries. This can be invaluable if you are translating something...

[anonymoose]

Using a Chinese-Chinese dictionary (in my case, that usually means the Chinese-Chinese entry on nciku.com) is useful for two-character words that are abreviations of two other two-character words. Just as one example that comes to mind, 英武 means 英俊威武. You don't get this sort of info from a Chinese-English dictionary, but I still like to refer to a Chinese-English first for most things. That is an advantage of electronic dictionaries - they often give you both at the same time.

[feihong]

I still tend to use Chinese-English dictionaries to look up words when I'm reading, but all my flashcards are now made using definitions from a Chinese-Chinese dictionary. As I get more comfortable with the Chinese-Chinese dictionary, I may give up the Chinese-English dictionaries altogether, but that is a process that will take a while.

[doraemon]

Like most people, I also voted 'only when you find them easy to understand'. It's just like asking why do we have English-English dictionaries, native speakers of Chinese also need to understand words which they don't know, so I believe it's quite important.

However, in a foreigner's context, a Chinese-Chinese dictionary can be hard to use if you don't have very good control of the language, but the good thing about it is that it prevents stuff from getting lost in translation. Defining a Chinese word in Chinese best enables you to understand the meaning and usage of that word.

[gougou]

Using a Chinese-Chinese dictionary is useful for two-character words that are abreviations of two other two-character words

I hate those! If I didn't get the first word, chances are the two new words will not make things much clearer. I think it's a bit lazy for a definition of a term to use that term (or parts thereof).

[Don_Horhe]

Only when you find them easy to understand. If one tries to use Chinese-Chinese dictionaries too early, it will be counterproductive, since they'll spend a great deal of time looking up the definitions.

[doraemon]

LOL. It would be so funny if someone had to look up the definition of a definition of a word, I've had to do that a couple of times myself. It can get a bit frustrating though...

[skylee]

I am wondering ... there are not just two types of dictionaries out there. There are Chinese-Chinese ones, and there are Chinese-English ones. And then there are those which provide the explanations in both Chinese and English (IIRC I have one at home). These are good choices for people who are not completely ready for Chinese-Chinese dictionaries.

[Gleaves]

I voted as "early as is feasible -- even if it's a big struggle." I'm thinking about this in terms of electronic dictionaries. Pleco makes it so easy to switch between ABC (C-E) and Guifan (C-C) that I feel guilty if I don't try to use the Chinese version first. If it is a matter of choosing between one hard copy or the other, I'd probably vote for the second option. Either way, I think using both makes sense.

[wrbt]

I think it is a bad idea, too many subtleties can get lost in the translation especially if you're looking up other words in the definition. It's inefficient, since looking up characters is the most time-consuming aspect of studying any character in the definition I'm not familiar with is more pain and wasted time.

[Guest realmayo]

Thanks for the responses. Elsewhere I'd seen some very strident views pushing C-C as early as possible and perhaps assumed that lots of people held that view, but it's nice to see that it seems to be a minority opinion; I shall keep going C-E for the time being! & I agree with using example sentences to get a better idea of usage, context and so on.

[Manoz]

I've started to add Chinese definitions besides the English definition to my Anki decks. I'm not sure whether this is helping or not. I just feel as if I will never understand a word properly if I just look at the English definition (which means not being able to use it properly).

[Guest realmayo]

Really? But that wouldn't apply to words like "car" or "sun", or would it?

[Hugh]

I think if you can motivate yourself to put the effort in, using a Chinese-Chinese dictionary wherever possible would be beneficial to your Chinese. Obviously you need to reach a certain level first, but I don't think this needs to be when it's "easy". A good strategy might be to look-up a word in the Chinese-Chinese dictionary first, and try to understand what you can, even if it's hardly anything. Then use an English-Chinese dictionary to get a definition you fully understand. As your vocabulary grows, I think this method would help in forming associations for a more native-like understanding.

[wrbt]

Words like "car" or "sun" would be fine defined in Chinese but seeing Chinese definitions for something like "indignant" might be hard to get across since it has some relatively subtle nuances that distinguish it from anger, frustration, etc. One might not get the better meaning of what they are looking up, whereas if it was simply defined in English perhaps better off.

As I said I also don't like the wasted time of how often one encounters additional unfamiliar words or characters in the definition, so you're spidering out spending all this time trying to discover a meaning instead of progressing through whatever you're reading. I find I maintain interest better if I can keep marching forward with what I'm focusing on.