Chinese-to-Chinese dictionaries -- why?

[Manoz]

No, of course not. In fact, there isn't much point in looking up the definitions for nouns (unless of course, it's some strange Chinese concept).

More for words that are translated the same into English, but are different words with different usage/meaning in Chinese.

[Ianbrown]

I don't think Chinese-to-Chinese dictionary should be used at the early stage. It's true that a Chinese-to-Chinese dictionary will be very beneficial, but can be used after you have some solid foundation. If you still have difficulties to understand the definition in Chinese. Use it to check the words you know. Because you have already known the meaning in English or your native language, you can see how the dictionary use Chinese to explain Chinese. This is the efficient way many total immersion Chinese program use.

[Kobo-Daishi]

Dear all,

Skylee wrote:

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.

Of course, Skylee is right.

There are quite a few Chinese dictionaries with glosses in both Chinese and English.

Here are some scans from ones I've downloaded off the Internet.

These scans don't have title pages included but I'm fairly sure the first one is the Xiandai Hanyu Cidian.

I think this is the one at Amazon but unfortunately they don't have the "look inside" option for this book.

Xiandai Hanyu Cidian at Amazon

The Chinese entries are the same as a copy of the Chinese only edition of the Xiandai Hanyu Cidian that I had downloaded before. Actually I've downloaded multiple copies. Too uploads using generic titles.

The second dictionary is some dictionary from the Shanghai Jiaotong University Press. Too many literary glosses for the non-specialist learner.

The third one just says new edition Chinese-English dictionary.

The dictionaries would be good for those who might be more advanced than the beginner but not quite above intermediate.

Those that might spend a significant amount of time looking up the characters in the definitions within Chinese-Chinese dictionaries.

A good bridge between Chinese-English and Chinese only dictionaries.

Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.

[langxia]

Does anyone know if there are good chinese-chinese kids dictionnaries ? I guess that they use a less difficult language to explain words and that for language beginners this would be more helpfull ?

(I don't mean anything with picturs in it, but more what you would use when you are around 11-15 years old as at that time you might still need something easyer than an adult dictionnary)

[Gharial]

Provided a monolingual dictionary isn't too terse with its definitions or stingy with its examples (and if I may make a distinction here, the terser and stingier are usually monolingual native dictionaries i.e. those designed for native speakers, whilst the less terse and less stingy are likely those supposedly "international" monolingual learner dictionaries), it will be of use, especially for learning how to generally define and thus paraphrase in roundabout ways those L2 (second language) words that one doesn't know but now needs in conversation. (If you're at all familiar with TEFL, and the "COBUILD defining style" in particular, you'll know what I'm on about here!). Then, the existence nowadays of a fair number of fully-bilingualized dictionaries, such as the C-C-E ones that Kobo-Daishi's kindly posted some scans from, or the E-E-C editions of (previously, strictly) MLDs like the Oxford Advanced Learner's, mean that students have the full back-up if need be of their first language, and can compare not only headwords but also definitions and examples between the two languages concerned. (Traditional bilingual dictionaries meanwhile tend to be pretty limited in terms of content, and often favour one or the other nationality of learner - for example, the Oxford/Commercial Press Concise E-C/C-E, and the big new Oxford Chinese Dictionary, would appear to be more designed for Chinese learners of English than for English learners of Chinese).

And if possible it's nice to have a dictionary that offers more than two languages! For example, when I was living in Japan (after a few years spent in China), I found Kodansha's dinky trilingual J-C-E Pax dictionary quite appealing.

[querido]

langxia: see my thread here.