Dictionaries

[Eloise]

Specifically, Chinese-Chinese Dictionaries.

Two questions:

1. Is it worth getting one? Or perhaps, at what level of chinese proficiency do they become useful?

2. Can you recommend some good ones - preferably not too big and heavy?

Thanks.

[Guest Anonymous]

1. Is it worth getting one? Or perhaps, at what level of chinese proficiency do they become useful?

Whether it's worth getting one or not depends on the individual. As you may already know, when you translate one language into another, especially between two languages as different as Chinese and English, much of the meaning would be lost or distorted. It's generally better to define words in their own respective languages. Again, generally dictionary definitions are simple and straight to the point. I don't think you would much trouble if you're capable of understanding TV in Chinese. But this is just my opinion.

2. Can you recommend some good ones - preferably not too big and heavy?

I generally look up words, both Chinese and English online nowadays. I haven't really used a printed dictionary for years. However, if you were to get one, the best choice would be to get one that looks up words in Hanyu Pinyin, which is just about any dictionary published in China, and it's always nice to get one that has the Fanti form of the character sitting right next to the Jianti form. Although in China, you generally only have to deal with Jiantizi but knowing some Fantizi wouldn't hurt.

[skylee]

Consider these dictionaries -

<The Pinyin Chinese-English Dictionary> (漢英詞典) by the Commercial Press

<Xiandai Hanyu Cidian> (現代漢語詞典) by the Commerical Press

These are good ones. But they are also quite big.

[techie]

One of the dictionaries I use lots is:

"A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine" by Nigel Wiseman and Feng Ye.

Unlike others who only need to look up words only, I need to search for medical terminology which sometimes may consist of more than a "single" word lookup or even phrases.

Examples:

1- 心 脾 两 虚

xīn pí liǎng xū: Dual vacuity of the heart and spleen.

2- 肾 精 不 足

shèn jīng bù zú: insufficiency of kidney essence

I have a hardcopy of the dictionary and would like to find an equivalent source that is either online or that can be obtained in a CD-Rom format.

It is time consuming to have to look these expressions on my hard copy book and then type them into the computer, at least for me, since I am still a beginner with the Chinese language.

So far I have not found any Traditional Chinese Medicine or any other Chinese/English dictionaries online which will allow me to input more than one word or short medical terminology phrases.

If anyone knows of any such sources online or where to obtain this type of dictionary in CD-Rom, please let me know.

I wish I could scan my own book to my computer but I have not found either any good scanning software that will do a decent job in scanning documents with English/Chinese characters on the same page!

My anticipated thanks for any input you might provide.

Regards

[ChouDoufu]

Specifically' date=' Chinese-Chinese Dictionaries.

Two questions:

1. Is it worth getting one? Or perhaps, at what level of chinese proficiency do they become useful?

[/quote']

I also reccommend the Chinese-Chinese dictionary from Commercial Press. It's got a light brown cover and was revised in 2002.

I've been using a Chinese-Chinese dictionary for over 1 month and can say it's a mixed blessing. it is better to be able to define a word using the same language, but it can be tough. SOmetimes you have to look up 3 or 4 different words just to get the meaning of 1 word (on the plus side, you've just learned 4 words instead of 1) on the minus side it takes a lot of time. If it takes me 30 seconds to look up a word in a chinese-english dictionary, it could take me 2 minutes to do it in a chinese-chinese dictionary. And sometimes you look up words and don't have a complete grasp of the words meaning, just a hazy one.

It's also tempting as hell to go back to the chinese-english one, but it's important to stay on the path. At some point it should pay off dividends (I'm hoping).. it definitely has helped me learn how to better express the meaning of words I know and also helped me to express ideas I don't know the word for in Chinese.

Just to point out, if you are learning nouns, i've found it to be nearly impossible to use the chn-chn dictionary and usually preferrable to look it up in chn-eng dictionary (i was reading a history textbook and found the english term for things like Frigate or Galleon are a lot easier to understand than their descriptions in chinese.

I'd recommend it for anyone at intermediate or above. obviously the lower your level the more words you'll have to look up before you can find a simple explanation for the word you are looking for.

[akdn]

I use the 'Contemporary Chinese Dictionary' (Foreign language teaching and research press, 2002 ed).

It says it's Chinese-English on the cover, but the definitions are actually in Chinese as well. So, if you are very strict, you can try to read the Chinese definition first. Treat the English as a back-up.

It was 99.9 RMB from Xinhua, dark blue cover (with red spine), weighs a ton, and Da Shan promotes it (there were loads of lifesize cardboard Da Shans in the languages section of the bookshop - scary).

[Guest Yinyue Mike]

I have one Chinese-Chinese dictionary and it can sometimes be very enlightening and helpful. For most purposes I would recommend using a Chinese-English dictionary. It is a little idealistic to think that using a Chinese-Chinese dictionary will help you think in Chinese, it will help with that, but our main goal is to remember and understand the word, right? In memory, we remember things by associating them with something we already know, and the more familiar we are with something, the easier it is to remember the new information. So, associating a Chinese vocabulary item with a very familiar English word is best initially. Afterwards, a Chinese-Chinese dictionary can be very helpful. If a word doesn't have a perfect equivalent in English or if the English translation is broader than the Chinese it can clarify this. Also, many Chinese words combine two characters which are sort of like "abbreviations" in which each character in turn refers to another two character word to form the new meaning. These can be more or less idiomatic and more or less helpful at times. I (of course) can't think of a good example right now, but I know it's very, very common! But, even true abbreviations may not be in a Chinese-English dictionary -- 世貿組織 for 世界貿易組織 (WTO). Just my feeling!

Mike

百毅敏

[yonglan]

1. Is it worth getting one? Or perhaps, at what level of chinese proficiency do they become useful?

If you're working on reading authentic Chinese writing, then you can take a stab at a Chinese dictionary. But do you need one? Generally not. Truth is a good quality C-E will do most of what you want for general modern mandarin. Of course, if you want to study the classics or you need to know a particular character in excruciating detail and it's more archane meanings, then a Chinese dictionary would be of good use.

I've never met an educated Chinese speaker who uses a Chinese dictionary, unless they're seriously into the classics. In fact, many educated Chinese speakers I know don't even own a Chinese dictionary. They have C-E and E-C, but not Chinese!

2. Can you recommend some good ones - preferably not too big and heavy?

Well, if depends on what you're looking for. There are _generally_ speaking two kinds of Chinese dictionaries: 字典 and 辭典/詞典. Theoretically a 字典 only deals with individual with characters, though they do tend to have a few multi-character words, usually undefined. A 辭典/詞典 has characters and words. Some 辭典/詞典 have individual characters definitions as thorough as 字典, others don't.

It's important to note that in my experience Chinese dictionaries are often missing the sort of common words that even a fluent foreigner might not know. They tend to have 50,000 words, with a large one having 100,000 words. There are also expensive multivolume dictionaries, but the ones I've looked at are mostly filled with quotations from the classics rather than more useful words.

Having spent endless hours searching through scores of dictionaries in bookstores and libraries in Taiwan -- I have a dictionary fetish -- I think the two listed below are the best general dictionaries.

新編國語日報辭典 (NB This is not one of their kiddy versions)

辭海 (鍾文出版社) (NB There oodles of dictionaries called 辭海. It's like Webster in the US. I've listed the publisher of the one I think is good and very cheap.

Also, note that you can buy specialized dictionaries for measure words, idioms, etymology, and what not. The two I recommended above I like as good general dictionaries.

I only have one Chinese dictionary from China (Xinhua's bilingual edition; actually I have the traditional character version published in Hong Kong -- available in Taiwan) which is ok, so I can't really comment on China's dictionaries.

[skylee]

I've never met an educated Chinese speaker who uses a Chinese dictionary, unless they're seriously into the classics. In fact, many educated Chinese speakers I know don't even own a Chinese dictionary. They have C-E and E-C, but not Chinese!.

It's important to note that in my experience Chinese dictionaries are often missing the sort of common words that even a fluent foreigner might not know. They tend to have 50,000 words, with a large one having 100,000 words. There are also expensive multivolume dictionaries, but the ones I've looked at are mostly filled with quotations from the classics rather than more useful words.

Unbelievable!!

Recently I have bought two 朗文中文高級新辭典（第二版) (ISBN 9620051521), one for myself and the other for my niece. It is new, modern, in traditional Chinese, with hanyu pinyin, zhuyin fuhao, cantonese pronunciations, cangji codes and about 60,000 entries with good explanations. I spent hours in a Commercial Press bookstore browsing through all kinds of Chinese-Chinese dictionaries and chose this one. And I recommend it.

[geek_frappa]

is it this one?

http://www.hkbmta.com/products.asp?book_id=-1167

[skylee]

Yes it is. It is particularly suitable for use in HK as it has Cantonese pronunciations. 現代漢語詞典 is good but simplified characters are confusing to us who use traditional characters (I am not going to repeat here how confusing they are). Even if it has now published a version of traditional characters still it lacks Cantonese pronunciations (I think not many people except HKers need them).

I have also recently bought a 成語熟語詞典 published by the Beijing Commercial Press. It is interesting to note that to avoid the aforesaid confusion, the publisher has chosen to print the book in traditional characters.

[sunyata]

Dear Skylee,

Do you know of any places I could buy these 2 dictionaries you mentioned in the US? They look really nice...wish I could buy em here...Does Commercial Press ship to the US?

[geek_frappa]

Dear Skylee' date='

Do you know of any places I could buy these 2 dictionaries you mentioned in the US? They look really nice...wish I could buy em here...Does Commercial Press ship to the US?[/quote']

i can't find them here in the US. but i'll keep looking.

in the meantime, i already have good friends buying some copies for me.

if you want a copy, private message me your mailing address. when they get to the U.S., i'll send you one.

[skylee]

sunyata, take a look at HK Commercial Press's website (it only has this partly-English page, otherwise it is in Chinese). They do arrange shipping to North America by charging a fee of HKD25 minimum per book (read this).

[geek_frappa]

skylee, my friends said that i won't need the other dictionaries once i get this one. is that true?

[skylee]

Which one? What others?

If you meant 朗文中文高級新辭典, I think it is quite adequate for my use and do not think I would need to buy another Chinese-Chinese dictionary in the near future (I told my niece that she wouldn't need another one until she finished high school). These are its features (copied from the company's website) -

‧ 收字、詞 60,000條

‧ 提供部首、筆畫、漢語拼音、倉頡碼四種檢索方法

‧ 字頭附倉頡碼

‧ 近義詞辨析獨立編排，便於查閱

‧ 增加香港用語與規範語對照，提高讀者對漢語的認識和寫作能力

‧ 附讀音電腦光碟，提供全部字頭的普通話讀音及粵音

‧ 詞條標注漢語拼音，方便讀者學習普通話

‧ 圖注全面修訂，突出主題

‧ 全新插頁，彩色印刷，更能配合內容

The English/Chinese dictionaries published by Longman are usually quite good (another realiable publisher is of course the Commercial Press).

[sunyata]

Thanks guys!

Geek_frappa - if you can really send me a dictionary - cool. We can work out the money somehow. But if you had other plans for those extra copies, don't mind me. I mean, this dictionary seems really cool, so I definitely want to buy it at some point, but don't sacrifice your extra copies, if you bought them for someone else.

Skylee, thank you for the links!

[ala]

Why not just get the good old 新华词典 Xinhua Cidian？ It's pretty good and cheap (43.00 RMB, although when I got mine it was 5.50 RMB.. inflation...) The equivalent of Webster's.

[skylee]

新華詞典 is not as good as the Longman dictionary IMHO (I need it to be in traditional Chinese AND with Cantonese pronunciations).

[sunyata]

新華詞典 is not as good as the Longman dictionary IMHO (I need it to be in traditional Chinese AND with Cantonese pronunciations).

Yeah, that's what I want as well. Even though I don't speak any Cantonese, I think it may be useful in the future to have both Cantonese and Mandarin pronunciations for each character...

Does the Longman one include Cantonese pronunciation on top of pinyin?