ABC E-C/C-E: what's the story?

[Gharial]

What's the story with this much-anticipated dictionary? Is demand (preorders etc) seriously outstripping supply? It's taking forever to become stocked by Amazon, meaning that the only way of obtaining it at the moment appears to be ordering it direct from the University of Hawaii Press (without any discount, and paying proportionately more postage etc, not that I personally will mind paying that bit more for it if that remains the only option available!), who have informed me that copies are printed and ready for dispatch from the UHP warehouse.

[Daan]

I ordered three copies directly from the UHP through their online store. I got a 35% holiday season discount, which meant the price wasn't excessively high. If you're based in the United Kingdom, you can also order copies through Eurospan Distribution, which is apparently the official agent for UHP in Europe. I asked UHP where I could get copies in Europe, and they wrote back to me saying:

You can order through Eurospan Distribution at:

Eurospan Group

ph # +44 (0) 1767-604972 fax # +44 (0) 1767-601640

email: eurospan@turpin-distribution.com

Eurospan said:

We do supply this title ISBN 9780824834852 priced $20.00 postage cost would be 8.5% of the total order. This title is not yet published but we do have a expected publication date of 15.01.11.

I ended up ordering straight from UHP and received my books a few days ago.

[Gharial]

Thanks for the info, Daan! I myself will be ordering just the one copy (pour poor moi ), and like I intimated will most likely get it direct from UHP in order to cut out the middlemen completely (although I was going to try via Blackwell, who also had the 15/01/11 publication date, if I remember the details on their website correctly). I mean, the middlemen I've tried so far (the Book Depository, and Amazon UK) each took the order if not the money too (months ago now) but both kept pushing back the publication (reprint?) date...soooo, UHP direct really seems like my best bet (and I guess whoever else's, even if theirs also ends up a non-bulk order and/or without much of a discount applied to it. I suppose that the ideal would've been to be able to simply order it from Amazon and get the usual % off of the RRP that they'd have offered to any and all of their many customers/their share of the market!)! B) ^_^

[Gharial]

Hey, I just thought, you wouldn't mind revealing what indexing system the dictionary uses, would you Daan? And perhaps what sort of appendices it has (the original Desk/Pocket C-E ABC was pretty good for this). I know I shouldn't ask, and just try to wait until I get my own copy, but that could take a little while still!

[Daan]

Entries are obviously sorted alphabetically by pinyin, and then there's a stroke index and a radical index at the back. As for appendices, it's got: basic rules of pinyin orthography, Chinese historical chronology, a comparative table of a lot of romanisation systems, a list of major administrative divisions in the PRC, ethnic minorities in the PRC, graded word lists and a list of standard and variant character forms. There's also a Kangxi radical chart and a comprehensive radical chart. I only received my copy a few days ago, so I haven't used it much yet, but it appears to be an excellent dictionary. I could write up a review next week, when I'll have spent a bit more time with it, if anyone's interested.

[Gharial]

Thanks for the further info, Daan!

I think a review from you would be great (I for one would be pretty interested!). The 'graded word lists' and 'list of standard and variant forms' both sound intriguing, so I wouldn't mind knowing a bit more about 'em (beyond the little bits that can be gleaned primarily from point III at http://www.chinesestudies.hawaii.edu/abc/ ). I'd also be interested to know what the 'comprehensive radical chart' looks like (i.e. how it arranges and deals with traditional Kangxi versus modern simplified forms) vis-a-vis the Kangxi chart; I'm imagining the CRC is a bit like the Unified 201-radical system (search if need be for 'unified' in Daniel Kane's The Chinese Language - http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8OT_Sbk0yekC - and take a look at pages 40-42 (assuming they'll still be previewable when one goes to look)), but without any re-arranging of the items by initial stroke type*, leaving more or less just the same old usual traditional Kangxi jumbled arrangement of items. Oh, and lastly, if the contents (the number of entries, and the amount of detail contained within them) has changed much if any from the preview pdfs available from the University of Hawaii Press ( http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/cart/shopcore/?db_name=uhpress&page=shop/flypage&product_sku=978-0-8248-3485-2 > http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/books/defrancisEnglish.pdf and especially http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/books/defrancisChinese.pdf ) then that would obviously be worth knowing (though I'm guessing that the previews and the final product are virtually identical! ).

Thanks once again!

*For example, the 札 'zha' method, which (as you probably already know, Daan - just explainin' this stuff for those who might not know!) runs 一丨丿丶乚 (as in the Unified 201-radical chart in Kane) and which seems quite popular with mainland publishers; or the CASS 189 system, which runs 丶一丨丿乚 i.e. simply has the first and fourth items switch places, seems popular with certainly western publishers, and was the system used in the original "non-comprehensive", primarily simplified-form ABC C-E Desk/Pocket dictionary. (I have to say that I am quite a fan of the CASS 189 system, and prefer to convert/add from that into the Kangxi than deal with the Kangxi system directly, but this only seems natural considering that most materials and resources use or deal primarily with simplified forms).

[mikelove]

FWIW, the graded word lists are actually available on our website as a free download (though you need to add your own definitions):

http://www.pleco.com/p2abcflash.zip

And most of the front matter (though not yet appendices) is available in our instruction manual:

http://www.pleco.com/ipmanual/abc.html

I believe the Comprehensive Radical Chart is using essentially the same system as its equivalent in the ABC Comprehensive, though I'd have to double-check.

Exciting to finally see this in print after about 6 months of having it be download-only...

[Gharial]

Thanks for the heads up, Mike! Those lists will be very useful for those who've not yet got (are unwilling to buy?!) the dictionary in order to get (among the plenty more in it!) the full lists. (Me, I'm going to get the dictionary still, if only so that I can add the official ABC definitions to the zipped lists.;)).

But seriously, many thanks.

[Gharial]

I was about to order via UHP today when I noticed Amazon.com finally has the ABC E-C/C-E in stock, so I've ordered it from them instead (and even with international shipping it works out the same as the 'discounted' pre-order price that Amazon UK was at one point offering - not that Amazon UK actually has the item in stock yet! ).

[Daan]

Great! If you're interested, I put up a review on www.sinoglot.com yesterday

[Gharial]

I popped over to Sinoglot and read your review Daan. Nice write-up! (I particularly like the bit where you say "Unlike in many Chinese dictionaries, you’ll find the pinyin for the characters, not the page number or the character number, in these indices", cos it made me appreciate that although that indexing style cannot but be an artifact of the alphabetical/non-head-character-entry format of the dictionary generally, it also has the advantage that it leaves one in no doubt ASAP regarding the pronunciation of a character [which may be all that one is looking up about it]! It's little realizations like that help make a dictionary and its features become ever more appealing!).

Regarding tone sandhi, the most important thing IMHO is that the end product is shown; that is, anyone who wants to absolutely learn/"overlearn" (rather than just be reminded of) the canonical 3rd tone value of jiě probably should be looking at contexts other than 'xiǎojie'!

About the only question I can think of is how comprehensive the list of variant forms is - could it stand in at times (though likely only at times I'm guessing) for the Xinhua, say?

Anyway, I just hope my Amazon shipment doesn't get hijacked by e.g. Somali pirates really going out of their way to study Mandarin! :ph34r:

[Daan]

I'm not sure - I don't have a copy of the Xinhua. But I assume there aren't a lot of Somali pirates on the Atlantic, so you should hopefully be able to see for yourself soon ;)

[Gharial]

Well, my copy arrived yesterday, so it took only ten days to ship to the UK (which is very good going for standard/non-expedited delivery!). The Amazon hydrofoil gunboats must've kept the pirates at bay!

Anyway, here is my own review.

The first thing that struck me upon opening the jiffy bag (note to Amazon: the book was slightly damaged because of this, so please use proper cardboard packaging next time!) was that the dictionary wasn't as thick as I thought it was going to be: it measures barely an inch in thickness, despite being over 1200 pages long. The paper used is therefore quite thin (bible-like almost), but of high enough quality (smooth, acid-free) that it should be able to withstand reasonably respectful handling.

The dictionary is bound in a yellow plastic flexicover that is aesthetically pleasing and should prove hard-wearing and durable. The overall width is 4.5 inches, the height just under 7.5 inches, and the weight just over half a kilo/just under one and quarter pounds - in all, a very compact and portable tome considering the amount of information that it contains. (For those who are familar with quality flexibound Japanese pocket dictionaries, this is basically what this ABC looks and feels like!). It would've been nice though if the page corners had been cut rounded rather than left square-cut (rounded would help the corners avoid getting damaged).

The print quality is, like in all ABC products, very good, certainly very clear for its size, and the overall impression when comparing this new work (which the authors call the ECCE) to the roughly similarly-sized original (that is, desk/pocket, non-comprehensive) ABC C-E is that, irrespective of the back cover figures of 71,400 C-E entries in the original ABC C-E versus now only 37,963 C-E entries in the ECCE, the density of the print is so much higher in the ECCE that it must easily have at least double the amount of information. The ECCE's C-E half is therefore in certain respects an expansion of the original ABC C-E and in others an abridgement of the ABC C-E Comprehensive (though the ECCE even expands in parts on the latter too - see below).

The ECCE's E-C section meanwhile is pretty much entirely new, with full Pinyin for all the simplified hanzi in its appreciable number of examples. (Traditional characters are only supplied in the C-E half of the dictionary, and then only as equivalents to head entries rather than in example sentences). And although the dictionary overall is probably going to be more popular with English learners of Chinese than with Chinese learners of English, the E-C section has quite a few features that cater for those Chinese learners of English: IPA is provided for every English headword, with 'West Coast American' (əˈbɑ:mənəbəl! ) the standard chosen; a short guide to spelling-pronunciation ambiguities is provided (c- > , [k]; ch- > [tʃ], [k]; etc, all very similar to the guidance found in ESL/EFL learner dictionaries like the Oxford Learner's Pocket Dictionary); and the guide to the entries, and the guide to the English part-of-speech labels[1], both supply Pinyin, hanzi and English in their explanations (which will all be useful to Chinese students of English, as well as potentially to their [native] English teachers (but that's only if the students really need those teachers, once the students certainly have bought the ECCE!)). Now for the only snag: the English user however will sometimes need a minimal level of Chinese (that, or to double-check in the C-E section first) in order to confidently select between translation-senses when examples are lacking, potentially ambiguous, or a bit "spread out" (consider for example the entries at the verb 'start': start [stɑrt] BE# V.I. 1) kāishǐ 开始 2) chūfā 出发; dòngshēn 动身 3) jīngtiào 惊跳 | She ~ed when the shot rang out. Qiāngjī shēng bǎ tā xiàle yī tiào. 枪击声把她下了一跳。 4) qǐdòng 启动 | The car ~ed without a problem. Chē qǐdòng de hěn hǎo. 车启动得很好。 V.T. 1) kāishǐ 开始; yǐnqǐ 引起 | We'll ~ our trip from Beijing. Wǒmen de lǚxíng jiāng cóng Běijīng kāishǐ. 我们的旅行将从北京开始。 | His comments ~ed me thinking. Tā de huà ràng wǒ kāishǐ sīkǎo. 他的话让我开始思考。 2) kāichuàng 开创; chuàngbàn 创办 3) qǐdòng 启动. (NB: The BE means Basic English, and the # is meant to represent a single large bullet - see next paragraph for explanations - while the bolded Pinyin vowels are meant to represent where tone sandhi should be applied, i.e. the tone be changed from the canonical tone for that syllable-character. See below, four paragraphs down, for an explanation of how tone sandhi are actually represented in the ECCE). Or, as an Amazon reviewer puts it: "And now the major con: -There is no differentiation in the English-Chinese side between different words that share the same English translation [i.e. no real disambiguation of the various meanings~translations that any given homonymous or polysemous English word may have - Gharial]. For instance, if you're looking for 'star', you get several Chinese translations, but nothing in parenthesis before each one to indicate (astronomy), (celebrity), etc. The entry for 'heart' has seven translations, but you'll need to look up each one to have a chance at guessing the differences, which can be significant. Sometimes an example sentence will help clarify things, but this isn't always the case. In another dictionary, say, the Langenscheidt Pocket Dictionary Mandarin Chinese, you may get far fewer words, but it's much clearer what the context for each translation is. That makes it easier not only to find the right Chinese word you're looking for, but also to browse and pick up new vocabulary quickly. This is a huge oversight of the ABC dictionary and really mars what is an otherwise tremendous scholarly effort." ( http://www.amazon.co...R36UOWE0ZM0ESX/ ). Disambiguation of meanings isn't a problem for the English speaker in the C-E side of the dictionary however, where English translations are obviously and necessarily provided across the board.

The E-C section is rounded off by E-C lists of prefixes and suffixes; an English-only list of irregular verbs; a quick E-C guide to the English number system (cardinals, ordinals, fractions, dates, addresses etc); an E-C list of US states and major cities; an E-C list of selected countries and their capitals; and finally some English-only, utility- if not frequency-based, graded lists of words: there is a short and rather superfluous list of the 850 words of Ogden's so-called Basic English[2] (which are marked BE in the dictionary entries) before a much more substantial and dependable list of 6,500 English words (that is, single words, i.e. there are no apparent compounds, certainly none with their components separated by any spaces) entitled 'Word List for University Teaching Programs' (published by SFLEP, 2000), which is broken up into four bands of roughly decreasing importance, with the most important comprised of 1,800 words and marked with a single large bullet, and the other bands of 2,400, 1,300 and finally 1,000 words marked with two, three, and finally four progressively smaller bullets. ('Unmarked entries can be considered as a fifth and lesser level of importance'). This 6,500-word list is a lot more similar to the defining vocabularies and word lists in learner dictionaries from the likes of Longman and COBUILD, and therefore much more representative of an actual language (the English language, obviously!), than Ogden's all too "selective" and therefore sparse a list could ever be. But there is obviously some overlap between the BE list and the 6,500 ones (and indeed, sometimes both the BE label and bullets are to be found in the same entry, as one can see in the above entry for 'start').

Turning to the C-E section, the guide to the '(Chinese) Parts of Speech and Other Entry Labels' is very valuable, and could be an education in itself for those quite new to studying Chinese, or even those coming back to it (and perhaps in need of a Chinese grammar refresher). Then, those features that made the ABC C-E Comprehensive an improvement over the original (desk/pocket, non-comprehensive) ABC C-E have been carried over into the ECCE, most notably the indicating of bound forms (versus genuinely free forms - the weakness of the original ABC C-E was that it gave what it claimed were all perfectly free forms their very own individual-character entries, but actually failed to point out what were in fact bound senses or sub-senses), and the giving of the appropriate measure word(s) for each noun. Often the bound form information makes the user aware of compounds in which the character in question isn't initial (though obviously those cases where the bound character in question is initial/head also need listing, what with the ECCE being primarily a Pinyin-ordered, rather than an initial/head-character-arranged i.e. character entry-based, dictionary), but in all cases it helps direct the user to the compounds that will flesh out meaning and usage aspects that a too "lone-character" approach would fail to recognize. For example, one is directed from āi 哀 (a bound form) to not only āidào 哀悼 but also bēi'āi 悲哀; then from āi 埃 to chén'āi 尘埃; and then from ǎi 蔼 to hé'ǎi 和蔼; and so on. As a result of all this bound form information there has been a substantial increase (compared to the original ABC C-E) in numbered single-character entries (but many are of course now, as has already been said, essentially bound-form cross-references which serve only to point to bisyllabic compounds elsewhere in the dictionary).

Some learners (especially beginners) might prefer Chinese compounds with the same head character to all be arranged in one super-entry (i.e. under that head character, as in more conventional dictionaries, in order to get quicker to the phrasal instances/instantiations of any given meaning for the head character), rather than as in the ECCE to be spread out due to the the whole Pinyin-string ordering often separating compounds in which the head character is the same; there can be no doubt however that the ABC dictionaries' strict alphabetical ordering is very useful for looking up items that one already knows the pronunciation of, or has only heard (i.e. not yet seen the character/-s for in print or writing).

"New" in the ECCE's C-E half is the supplying of simplified hanzi alongside the Pinyin in the examples sentences (whereas in both the previous ABC C-E dictionaries one had to know or guess what the hanzi were from just the Pinyin). The equivalent traditional characters are (as has been mentioned before) supplied in head entries, but not in example sentences (which use only simplified characters). Occasionally the Pinyin in the C-E example sentences has mistakenly incorporated apparent database superscript numbers (for otherwise indicating the relative frequencies of Pinyin homonyms as entries in themselves) before certain syllables (see for example the 2shì(r ) in the example at the entry ǎ 啊, the 2fále at áifá 挨罚, and the 3zuò at àikèsīguāng 爱克斯光, all on the very first page of the C-E pdf from the University of Hawaii Press, the link for which is given in a post above), but these are very minor distractions and hardly faults, being just slight artefacts of the computerized compilation process. And completely new (and in not only the Pinyin of its C-E half's head entries and examples generally, but also in the Pinyin of all the Chinese translations in its E-C half too - see for example the entries for 'a' and 'abate' in the E-C University of Hawaii pdf) is the indication of tone sandhi as an aid to learners. This is achieved by 1) placing a small dot under those Pinyin vowels that should change to a second tone (so this dot is applied to the first in any sequence of two[3] third tone syllables, as well as to yī 一 and bù 不 when those two syllable-characters appear before any fourth-tone ones), and 2) placing a short line under the i in the syllable yī 一 to indicate when it should be pronounced as a 4th tone (which is basically when it comes before any first-, second- or third-tone syllables), all whilst retaining the original tone graph over each syllable to act as reminder of its canonical/"textbook" tone. These seem very useful and significant innovations.[4]

The character indexing of the ECCE appears to be the same as that used in the ABC C-E Comprehensive, i.e. is a mixture of the traditional and the innovative. There is an index arranged by total stroke count, and sub-arranged by the initial and then recursive application of the stroke order seen in the character 札 (i.e. essentially the 'zha' [zhá] method, as often used in mainland dictionaries). Traditional forms that have a simplified equivalent elsewhere in the index have a small raised dot printed to their right. The radical index meanwhile is essentially a Kangxi-based one, with the third sort (after 1) identifying the radical and 2) counting the residual strokes) again the zha method (i.e. residues beginning with 一 come before those beginning with 丨, and those beginning with 丨 come before those beginning with 丿 and so on). An extensive (eight-page) guide to the 214 Kangxi radicals is provided, giving their traditional and colloquial names (and the restrictions that apply in usage to the former especially), their simplified and/or variant shapes, and plenty of examples to show how and where all the forms appear in characters; particularly frequent radicals, of which there are apparently 25, are prefaced with an asterisk. A 'Comprehensive Radical Chart' (CRC) in the dictionary's end papers lists the Kangxi radicals and all their simplified and/or variant forms by their actual stroke count and initial stroke type[5] (again, the zha method) rather than in the traditional "jumbled" arrangement (though a traditionally-arranged 'Kangxi Radical Chart' is also provided opposite the CRC), so those who are more familiar or more comfortable with simplified radical systems (e.g. the CASS 189) will be more easily able to locate forms and thus their Kangxi-indexing section numbers. For example, one can look in the CRC for the simplified variant of the horse radical, and will find it in the CRC's 3-stroke section's items beginning with a 乛-type stroke, and with the Kangxi number 187 supplied immediately below it. One can then look for item(s) 187 in the Kangxi Radical Chart immediately to the left of the CRC if one wants to establish that the traditional form for horse has...10 rather than 3 strokes, or obviously flip straight to section 187 of the index if one is wanting to look up further characters with the horse form taken as their radical (and the ECCE's index invariably lists both simplifed and traditional forms slap-bang side by side, one above the other; then, the running column on the outside edge of each page, which is described in more detail below, makes it very easy to locate each traditional/Kangxi-ordered radical with something approaching the ease of a Rolodex or thumb-tab locating system). The numbers of the items in the CRC arrangement are therefore not sequential, due to the perfect logic of arrangement by stroke count and form overriding the traditional Kangxi "by the conventional/arbitrary numbers only" arrangement; in the CRC one thus observes the sequence (spread first and foremost horizontally like as follows, across the page (rather than in the primarily vertical arrangment more usually found in radical charts despite the fact that a horizontal arrangement makes scanning a lot easier IMHO!)): One-stroke: 一 1, 丨 2, 亅 6, 丿 4, 丶 3, 乙 乚 乛 5; Two-stroke: 二 7, 十 24, 厂 27, 匚 22, 匸 23, 刂 18, ... 讠149, ... 刀 18, ... ; Three-stroke: ... 氵 85, ... ; Four-stroke: ... 水 85, ... ; Five stroke: ... 氺 85, ... ; Seven-stroke: ... 言 149, ... ; and so on. ("Bonus" thought: one could perhaps use this CRC with other Kangxi-based dictionaries, to help increase their look-up speeds!). The CRC looks therefore like a more consistent and streamlined version of the Unified 201-radical system (which is mentioned in a post above, with reference to the chart included in Kane's The Chinese Language), and in the CRC one is always directed from simplified to traditional forms (e.g. from 龙 to 龍) rather than (as is the case of the Unified 201-radical system/chart) often from traditional to simplified; one thus finds all the Kangxi forms in the CRC and as radical index section-headers in the ECCE (whereas in the Unified 201-radical system some traditional forms have effectively been replaced by their simplified equivalents). Simplified and/or variant forms of the traditional radicals and characters are therefore assigned to the appropriate Kangxi radical/number section of the radical index (so one will for example find characters with the 3-stroke variant of the water radical still in section number 85 ultimately, and find the 3-stroke variant of the horse radical-character still in section 187 ultimately). Once again, characters that have simplified equivalents elsewhere in the radical index are marked by means of a small upper-right dot. Every page in the radical index has on its outer edge a running column that highlights (in larger, bold, square-bracketed font) the actual radicals/radical numbers and sections appearing on that page, whilst also informing the user of the general number of strokes and (in smaller, non-bold, unbracketed font) what radicals come before and after the radical(s) that are the focus. Again, this is a useful feature carried over from the ABC Comprehensive C-E. The font used in both indexes' actual character listings is substantially larger than (i.e. about twice the size of) the font used in the dictionary generally, so it is easy to find characters and with little or no strain on the eyes. The total stroke-count index is just over 37 pages, whilst the radical index comes in at 60 pages (due to the need for more section headers, and the running column each side). Note that it may be quicker to use the stroke-count index to find certain simplified (or apparently simplified) characters, because although the radical index claims to list a character under alternative radicals if the radical is not obvious (to those unfamiliar with the conventionally-assigned radical at any rate), 个 for example (not that this is that infrequent and difficult a character!) is only to be found under 丨 in the radical index, but is very easy to locate by looking in the total stroke-count index (under three strokes beginning with 丿 ).

Rounding off the C-E half are appendices on the following: 'Basic Rules for Hanyu Pinyin Orthography' (essentially the same as in the original and Comprehensive editions of the ABC C-E, except now with the addition of simplified characters to complement the Pinyin for the example words and phrases); a chronology of the Chinese dynasties and periods; a conversion table between Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Guoyeu Romatzyh, Yale, and Zhuyin Fuhao systems of phonetic-phonemic transcription; a list of 'Verb Complements in Chinese'; a list of 'Major Administrative Divisions in China'; a list of the ethnic minorities in China, and their locations; a list of 'Standard and Variant Character Forms' (essentially a 新旧字形对照表 of the type you can see here http://www.chinese-f...__1#comment-228797 , but a lot clearer and with decent notes and explanations); and finally a Pinyin-only list (those who want the characters too, please refer to the linked zip files that Mikelove from Pleco very kindly provided in a post above) of 8,822 items (mono-, bi- and poly-syllabic) of HSK-derived vocabulary (adapted from 'HSK Cíyǔ Yòngfǎ Xiángjiě/A Guide to the Usage of HSK Vocabulary', BLCP 1998) again divided into 4 rough levels of importance (Grade A/# = 1033 items, B/## = 2018, C/### = 2202, D/#### = 3569 (again, # is meant to represent bullet(s))) and indicated as such throughout the dictionary by means of bullets.

Overall then this is surely one of the best reasonably comprehensive two-way (E-C, C-E)[6] bilingual dictionaries, with certainly one of the very best C-E sections, now available, and it will appeal to a very wide range of customers, from relative beginners[7] all the way through to relative experts. Sure, the lack of diambiguation in English in the E-C section could be a bit of a problem for beginners (but is ultimately no different from previous dictionaries from Oxford etc), and there may still be things that not everyone will be convinced of (for example, one could, as David Prager Branner does on pages 86-87 of his belated but still very interesting review of the ABC C-E Comprehensive, continue to gripe on about how the ABC '"alphabetical single-sort method" is based on English orthographic rules, without regard to Chinese phonological structure. The dictionary mixes together different Chinese sounds based on the fact that in alphabetical English they would be adjacent' ( http://branner.ameri...blications.html > http://branner.ameri..._dictionary.pdf ); and personally, I think the dictionary could generally do with more examples in exchange for somewhat fewer head entries, than trying like it is to maybe be a bit too comprehensive ("spread thin")), but all that would be missing the ultimate point. The C-E section is a real achievement, and no other dictionary manufacturer has to date produced a work that overall can really compete with the ABC ECCE, so it has in effect superseded them all as the one-stop Chinese resource for post-elementary students at least.

(Edit: I've recently written a review of the new Collins Chinese Dictionary, Third edition, which is followed by a quick comparison of the CCD3 with the ABC ECCE: http://www.chinese-f...post__p__241450 . Then, there are further book reviews here: http://www.chinese-f...post__p__266600 ).

Notes
[1] The grammar terms used are limited in number but traditional enough...meaning that the student if not English teacher using this dictionary had better know and appreciate that e.g. 'rain' being labelled 'intransitive' [V.I.] and thus apparently - prototypically? - banishing objects doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility of adverbials/adjuncts such as 'Here, it rains a lot' etc. The actual examples at 'rain' by the way are Volcano ash rained down on the village - but what about The volcano rained ash down on the village - and rain cats and dogs [but that at a deeper level really means 'heavily', the grammarians will insist!]. Then, one might question the intransitive label being applied to 'smile' - what about He smiled a happy smile - and so on. One can't however fault the transitive [V.T.] guidance this dictionary gives (and many verbs can of course be both instransitive or transitive, and are thus marked simply V.!), and the discussion of the parts of speech is overall very good.

[2] One can get an idea of just how limited this list is, and how forced any resulting paraphrase of words and concepts not contained in it would have to be, by considering what Ogden's recommended/"official" paraphrases were for some of the words that his list lacks. For example, 'want' (which is not in his BE list) could, and apparently should according to Ogden, be expressed with the paraphrase "have a desire for"! (It's not that Ogden's paraphrases are bad, but they should be viewed more as definitions only - I have his General Basic English Dictionary as reprinted by the Hokuseido Press, and often his paraphrase-definitions are actually quite good, and similar to the definitions and defining vocabularies in dictionaries for plain good old-fashioned English, rather than newfangled-mangled Basic English, learners - and one certainly shouldn't be forced to use the definition, and pretty much that definition only, simply because somebody has cut a perfectly good word [i.e. the "headword" being defined] from the word stock! Then, there is the oft-made point that whatever you gain on the swings - the vocabulary list shrinks to apparently "only 800 words" - you have to make up for on the roundabouts with all the paraphrase, so the learning burden is about the same in the long term, yet there is little guarantee, in fact absolutely none, that that paraphrase will be of much use in the wider world beyond the confines of Basic English). Anyway, you can if you really want(!) read more about Ogden and his Basic English in A.P.R. Howatt's A History of English Language Teaching, but ultimately it is a bit surprising that such an unrepresentative relic (unrepresentative that is of the 'vocabulary control movement' in general) was included in the ABC ECCE.

[3] Sequences of two or more third-tone syllables appear in the ECCE to involve examples (more or less unrelated to the head entries) rather than the head entries themselves. For example, Nǐ géi wó bǎ yì bǎmài, hǎo ma? 你给我把一把脉，好吗？ (at: bǎmài 把脉), and Ní bá wó gǎo de hěn ~. 你把我搞得很 ~. (at: bèidòng 被动). (See also my post #20 below).

[4] Regarding the "xiǎojiě" > "xiáojiě" > "xiáojie" that Daan picks up on in his review over on Sinoglot, at least there is a dot placed under the xiǎo of the final entry-form of xiǎojie, and a bound-form indication in the entry for jiě itself: jiě 姐 N. (elder) sister. B.F: young woman xiǎojie.

[5] "This CRC lists the 214 radicals by stroke count. Radicals with the same stroke count are ordered by their initial strokes according to the five stroke types 一丨丿丶 and 乛. Different forms of the same radical appear separately according to their respective stroke counts. For example, radical 64 ('hand') is under 扌 three strokes as well as 手 four strokes."

[6] One will however still need to sometimes use larger, one-way (E-C, versus C-E) bilingual dictionaries, such as those (E-)E-C works produced by and/or licensed from ELT publishers and based on their flagship advanced learner English dictionaries (e.g. the Oxford Advanced Learner's; the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English; the Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English; the Oxford Wordfinder dictionary; and the Oxford Dictionary of Collocations), and C-E dictionaries such as the Far East and obviously the ABC C-E Comprehensive (the original ABC C-E meanwhile seems slightly in danger of going out of print i.e. has in effect been superseded by the Comprehensive, and is probably eventually going to become mainly of historical interest only!).

[7] Those who are complete beginners should probably get something like the Oxford Chinese Beginner's/Oxford Chinese Minidictionary, by Yuan & Church, which will serve them very well (what with all its examples, usage notes and labels, grammar glossary, and appendices) up until pre-intermediate if not intermediate level. The only real drawback of the Yuan & Church however is that it only supplies simplified characters, and may not always have even quite basic words in it. Ultimately then, it and the ABC ECCE are inexpensive enough that complete beginners ought to consider buying the pair of them together really, with the ABCE ECCE being an investment that will definitely come in sooner or later!

Edited August 19, 2017 at 03:30 AM by imron
Removed strikethrough

[Daan]

Thanks for posting another review, Gharial! I really think other forum members should try and get a copy of this dictionary as well, unless of course they don't "do" paper dictionaries anymore ;)

But I'm not quite sure what you mean here:

Those sequences of more than two sequential third-tone syllables generally involve/come to a clear space in the Pinyin alphabetical string, which would appear to effect a break in the tone sandhi in at least this dictionary. That is, the change in tone from third to second tone appears in the ECCE to only apply to the first of two alphabetically-continguous/phraseologically-"compounded" third tones.

Could you give an example or two?

[Gharial]

Well, I wasn't quite sure what I meant by that either! (It wasn't originally in my review, but I thought I'd throw it out there to see what others thought! EDIT: I've gone back and altered that third footnote so that it actually makes some sense rather than continues to read as gibberish! See also my post #20 below).

I guess an example (in/from the ABC ECCE) would be kě(ké)yǒukěwú 可有可无 (which as it happens has no spaces at all of the sort that I was positing might effect a break in the tone sandhi process/chain), though I'm sure others could be found by looking for strings beginning with other third-tone characters.

Ultimately I am just going by the basic sort of guidance in courses like the original Colloquial Chinese course, that informed me that e.g. wǒ hěn hǎo spoken fast should be wó hén hǎo, that sort of thing.

[Gharial]

Oh but wait, that could be keyou + kewu I guess, which might explain the marked sandhi regardless of the actual spacing. Perhaps not the best example then, and probably not ultimately much of a point that I was pursuing! (sh) (My question I suppose was ultimately, [Why] do references not bother with indicating possible changes to third tones in sequence when there are more than two such syllables/characters involved?).

[Daan]

I see what you mean now. That's actually a good question. For the record, the new ABC indicates the pronunciation of 可有可無 is kéyǒukěwú. I rarely use this word in spoken Mandarin, but inside my head it sounds like kéyóukěwú. Is there anyone who knows how this word would be realised in spoken Mandarin? Any native speakers in, perhaps?

[Gharial]

For the record, the new ABC indicates the pronunciation of 可有可無 is kéyǒukěwú.

Heh, I was trying to represent that with my 'kě(ké)yǒukěwú' (perhaps I added the bracketing in an edit as you were posting on the basis of an unbracketed version). Shame we can't add the dots under the canonical tone like they do in the ABC ECCE!

[mikelove]

Shame we can't add the dots under the canonical tone like they do in the ABC ECCE!

Sure you can - ạẹịọụ or a̱e̱i̱o̱u̱; magic of Unicode Combining Diacritical Marks. (might not render correctly on all systems / browsers but it works beautifully for me in Safari at least)

You can generate these on a computer yourself using the "Symbol" feature in MS Word or the "Show Character Viewer" feature in the input method menu in Mac OS X - just type the letter you want, then use the appropriate insert command to put a "combining dot below" (U+0323) or "combining macron below" (U+0331) after it.

[Gharial]

Ooh you techie Mike! I'll perhaps try that later (I could come back and edit my post), but I'm a bit whacked at the moment and just want to get this posted as is. Thanks for the tips though!

(Daan) I had a quick look through the A-C sections of the ABC ECCE and noted those entries and examples that had more than two 3rd tone syllables/characters in a row. I've changed the tones to what they should be after the sandhi that the ECCE gives is applied, and indicated this with underlining. Here they all are (I'm pretty sure I've reproduced them accurately enough, but by all means double check 'em if you like! ;) ):

Head entries:

báoshǒudǎng 保守党

báoxiǎngyǎnfú 饱享眼福

bénléidǎ 本垒打

(bícǐ bícǐ 彼此彼此 - simple repetition)

cáocáoliǎoshì 草草了事

chū'ěrfán'ěr 出尔反尔

chúlǐpǐn 处理品

cíqǐbǐfú 此起彼伏

cíqǐbǐluò 此起彼落

(Note how in most [but not all :blink: ] of the head entries it is only the first syllable to which the tone change is applied).

"Examples in passing":

Nǐ géi wó bǎ yì bǎmài, hǎo ma? 你给我把一把脉，好吗？ (at: bǎmài 把脉).

Tā nèige rén duì zìjǐ hén yóu ~. 他那个人对自己很有 ~. (at: bǎwò 把握).

Ní bá wó gǎo de hěn ~. 你把我搞得很 ~. (at: bèidòng 被动).

Zhège xiǎo yīyuàn zhíyóu jǐ zhāng ~. 这个小医院只有几张 ~ . (at: bìngchuáng 病床).

Shuí lǐ yóu hěn duō ~ . 水里有很多 ~. (at: chéndiàn 沉淀).

Xiàyǔ le, bǎ yúsǎn ~ qǐlai ba. 下雨了，把雨伞撑起来吧. (at: chēng 撑).

Zhè zhǒng páizi de chánpǐn yuǎnjìn ~. 这种牌子的产品远近 ~. (at: chímíng 驰名).

Qíng nǐ géi wǒmen chū ge diǎnzi. 请你给我们出个点子. (at: chū diǎnzi 出点子).

It would seem (to me anyway) that the logic of the sandhi given is easier to appreciate (figure out) in the "examples in passing" than in the head entries. (By the way, if anyone is wondering why I haven't posted examples for the head entries, the answer is because there either weren't any examples, or quoting them would've been pointless and redundant, due to the fact that the only tone changes involved were those already shown in the head entry and [thus] represented in their examples purely by a ~ symbol).