Kuaisu shunchang dictionary (chinese-french)

[Homogenik]

Dictionnaire kuaisu shunchang. Chinois - français. Les caractères chinois tout naturellement accessibles

汉法快速顺畅词典

by Roland Sanfaçon (published by Presses de l'Université Laval, Québec)

On impulse, last night I bought this book. Actually, I suppose it wasn't that impulsive as I browsed through it for 20 minutes before deciding on the purchase... The first time I saw it, I was skeptical and even thought it looked silly. But yesterday I decided to look through it at the library and I was convinced : it is amazing. I have never seen another dictionary like it for chinese (but I haven't seen that many of course). It's very complex and complicated to understand at first because it's completely unfamiliar and unlike any other chinese dictionary. What makes it amazing is the huge amount of useful information it features (of course for french speakers). It translates only from chinese to french, contains both simplified and classical characters, features many different translations (unlike the dreaded

Larousse chinois-français dictionary...).

But that's just basic stuff. What's special is that each entry notes the order in which to write the character (for instance, 华 is accompanied by 人七十, and basic but detailed order of traits explanations are put at the end of the book). Also, pinyin is included in the entry as is the radical (and the classical character, if there is one). The main way to search for characters is not by pinyin but by the characters themselves. It postulates that by identifying the first two parts of a characters, one can find the character they are looking for very quickly. It synthesizes the written language, and simplifies its global understanding, as far as I could gather. I tried it last night after a while of reading the intro and parts of the book (mandatory reading before using it) and it seemed to be working very well. I'm not familiar with it yet though but I expect to be soon.

The dictionary also features a pinyin index if one wants to look for a character in the traditional way. It also features an index to look for characters based on the radical, as most dictionaries do. That's the great thing about the dictionary : it covers every ground.

It also groups the same characters together. Many of those have different pronunciations and meanings and are thus separated in other chinese dictionaries. Here, when you find the character for 数, you find both shǔ (to count) and shù (number) together. Of course, 数 isn't that confusing, but other cases are, for me anyway.

As for criticism, at first glance I would say the font chosen and the printing is subpar, which is a shame. Of

course, it does not feature a français-chinois part, but that's hardly important as other dictionaries do this

fine. I supppose it's more an intermediate, advanced dictionary, but even though I'm not there yet, I find it fascinating and absolutely exciting.

[li3wei1]

what do you mean by "detailed order of traits explanations"?

[Homogenik]

At the end of the dictionary is a section detailing the order of strokes for all the basic characters (which are basically included in the more complex ones). So once you find out, for instance, the dictionary entry for, let's say, 疑, and you want to know how to write it, you will see next to the character the order of its parts, something like this : 匕矢乛丶疋, and for each part, you can refer to the end of the book if, for instance, you want to know what is the exact stroke order for 矢.

The whole book actually functions according to a particular sequencing of the characters and their parts, regrouped. For instance, the first section includes 一　二　三　兰 and characters whose first character is the same. The second groupe is based on the 水 radical, the next is based on 人, and so on. As far as I understand, they are regrouped according to the strokes themselves and how they define the characters. The last group and section is made up of special characters, either less common or different in shape, such as the occidentalized zero. It's hard for me to describe but you can see it for yourself on this site where, under the ISBN codes, there's a little preview icon through which you can see examples from the book, including the table of contents, so to speak, which is more a basic guide of the structure of the book.

http://www.pulaval.com/catalogue/dictionnaire-kuaisu-shunchang-chinois-francais-les-9788.html