Tuttle Concise Chinese Dictionary

[Chief123]

I really like this little dictionary - it isn't perfect but it's nice. It's for learners and has C-E and E-C with plenty of pinyin and examples for almost every entry.

However, one thing drives me crazy and I'm not sure what to think about it.

What it does is that it uses example sentences that are not part of the entry or are different than the entry.

1. problem.

nántí kùnnan are the first two words.

However the example sentence uses chūwèntí which is not one of the entries (wèntí is the second entry though but this example is for these 2 words).

2. meet

huiiàn and jiànmiàn are the entries but jiànguo is in the sentence.

And there are a lot more examples. I don't know if this means the sentence way is the more proper way of saying these things or what.

Anyone else use this dictionary?

[Gharial]

What you're describing isn't unique to that dictionary, but is found in almost every dictionary (that is, I'm sure many of us have noticed the same thing in other works). The problem (if it can be called a problem) is that whilst out of context a certain word will more often than not bring to mind or elicit a corresponding and consistent basic "ballpark" translation or two in the other language, the dictates of each example sentence (its context, co-text, collocations etc) may call for a slightly different, less word-for-word translation, and a dictionary that confined itself to showing only basic meanings and denotations in every example would probably be a pretty stilted and boring one. In any case, one can always go to the corresponding "basic" Chinese entry/entries and see if the examples there are more suitable for one's purposes. Then, thesaurus-like works ((E-)E-C ones include the Longman Lexicon, and Oxford Wordfinder) can be useful.

[Chief123]

Thanks for the reply. I guess I probably knew that but I just wish they'd find a sentence that includes the entry word.

Mark

[Gharial]

I'll need to become more familiar with the Tuttle Concise, but I'm pretty sure that the Oxford Chinese Beginner's/Starter/Minidictionary uses the actual entry items more often than not in its examples; then, there are books like Yong Ho's C-E Frequency Dictionary that blur the line between dictionary and textbook and thus contain shall we say quite "pedagogically-oriented" examples.