Why is Pleco so popular?

[XiaoZhou]

I've tried using Pleco, but it's interface and the information given by the dictionary seems clunky in comparison to iCED, which is what I normally use. Pleco does have the OCR as a paid add-on, which is great, but I've never had enough need to invest money in that.

Could some of the fans of Pleco explain to me what they love about Pleco, and why they think that it is the best option for an iPhone user?

[roddy]

Which actual dictionaries do you have installed on each? Are you sure you're not comparing CC-CEDICT with the ABC or something?

I suspect for most people it's the range of dictionaries on Pleco, plus the complete dictionary + flashcards + reader integration.

[耳耳语语]

I value the tactile input. (Much much more usable than the OCR module).

And in the results, you can switch between the defintions of several dictionnaries.

[XiaoZhou]

向Imron同志学习: With ICED I use CC-CEDICT and on Pleco I also use CC-CEDICT. I don't have a problem with the data, I just think that the layout of PLECO isn't as compact and clear.

耳耳语语: I have to admit that switching between multiple dictionaries quickly and easily is a very nice feature.

[ZhangKaiRong]

I guess OCR is the least important thing for a Chinese learner. Though I bought the basic bundle for Pleco, I've never ever touched the OCR during my stay in China. However, I love the Pleco's flashcard system, the reader is handy as well, and with the ABC and 21st Century additional dictionaries installed I rarely encounter expressions outside these two dictionaries. Cantonese pronunciation is also a good feature.

[mikelove]

Interesting that you mention iCED as they actually seem to have modified their app to make its interface considerably more Pleco-like after our app came out. (Chinese character icon at the top left corner to switch between languages, capital Roman letter icon at the top right corner to switch between dictionaries, reorderable Unihan fields screen, radical input, etc - all changes from their pre-Pleco design)

Anyway, the interface is indeed getting a little long in the tooth but we're about to release an update that hugely improves matters; we've spent far too much time the last few years focusing on Android but have come away from that with some insights that we're now applying on iOS. Here's a screenshot (lots more of them on our Facebook page). This should hopefully be out at about the same time as iOS 7. We've also started merging results from multiple dictionaries together in the same result list / definition screen, so there's no longer generally even any need to fiddle around with switching dictionaries.

EDIT: also, not sure which aspect of our layout you're referring to but the search results list at least is extremely customizable; go into Settings / Dictionary / Entry List (Chinese-English) and set the "List layout" option to "Head Pron / Defn" and that will put the characters and pronunciation for each word on the same line instead of separating them. You can also turn off tone coloring in Settings / General if you find it distracting.

[muyongshi]

Honestly I have never liked the interfaces of other dictionaries, Pleco may seem to be too information heavy but that's why I like it. I have tons of paper dictionaries that I use but they are ONLY for where Pleco leaves off. I haven't touched my regular Chinese/English English/Chinese in years because Pleco does that much more. (And By the way I don't use

Flash cards - probably why my Chinese sucks but thats off topic). My paper dictionaries are dictionaries of word comparisons or reverse look up (which Pleco does almost as well if not better).

For me the info heavy interface is perfect for power users and if you want good advanced dictionaries (I almost exclusively use 规范) and when I don't know a word I don't have to leave that screen to look it up-just tap and even switch dictionaries in the pop up window.

(Mike is in no way paying for my comments-however if he threw a few free dictionaries my way, who would I be to argue ;) )

[roddy]

Even if Pleco did have design issues (which frankly I've never even considered) the range of dictionaries and the flashcard and reader functions would blow anything else I know of out of the water. If you're only using CC-CEDICT (but how, if you're upper-int? Presumably you have other resources.) and don't need the add-ons, fair enough. You've only tapped a fraction of what it can do though.

[imron]

Could some of the fans of Pleco explain to me what they love about Pleco

The Chinese-Chinese dictionary, integrated dictionary lookups and flashcards, the fact that it's smaller and lighter than the big paper dictionary I used to lug around.

[character]

As Roddy alludes to, Pleco can be a lot more than a dictionary, or set of dictionaries. The add-ons can make it a powerful, multifaceted learning system. Look up a word in one of many dictionaries, add the word to flashcards. Choose a character or common word and listen to how it sounds in both a male and female speaker's voice. See the animated stroke order of a character and radical information about a character. Use OCR to look up unknown words, capture text for the reader, or add words to flashcards. View a text in the reader, tap on an unknown character to get its definition and optionally add it to flashcards. Choose from many different kinds of flashcards, so you can focus on different parts of Chinese, such as tones.

Check out the manual for much more information:

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

[carlo]

Personally I'm looking forward to seeing the new Cantonese resources that Mike has mentioned should become available this year.

Pleco came a bit too late in my own Mandarin learning curve (by that time my reading vocabulary was good enough that I could survive with a paper dictionary -- had it been available in 2002, like Wenlin was, it would have been a different story), but for Cantonese, the timing couldn't be better. A dictionary like 廣州話方言詞典（商務印書館）, or an offline version of Sheik's Cantodict, would be worth killing for (ok, I've no idea what the market demand for this would be).

[mikelove]

廣州話方言詞典 is one of the titles we've licensed from them, actually. No luck on CantoDict (in spite of repeated attempts) but we've added Cantonese readings to our PLC dictionary (tediously generated / checked by a native speaker we hired) and hope to eventually cover a few thousand common items of Cantonese 方言 in that too, though we've also got a couple of little Chinese-English titles from CP.

We've also got Cantonese audio and search working for the update, and readings in Jyutping and Yale though you can currently only search in the former (Yale is tricky to parse due to the tone-indicating 'h's).

[tooironic]

Are there any other C-C dictionaries available for Pleco apart from Guifan? Something a bit more comprehensive?

I just bought it and I've been trying out some words but it appears to be missing some senses, e.g. the extended meanings of 厉害, 同志, 伯乐, 黄脸婆, 主儿, 笑点, etc.

[mikelove]

At the moment the other C-C's we offer are a Classical and a primarily traditional-oriented one from HK. We have at least three more coming out this fall, though (along with the Cantonese one I mentioned in my last post), and there's also the free 国语词典 from Taiwan available as a user dictionary in our discussion forums. (user dictionaries require our flashcard add-on - we'd happily make 国语词典 an official free add-on but their licensing terms currently seem to preclude that)

There's also a new edition of Guifan that we'll be offering as a free update, though a quick check doesn't suggest any new senses for your first two words at least. (remember these are mostly from the mainland, so the alternate sense of 同志 e.g. may not be something they're likely to print)

[OneEye]

the free 国语词典 from Taiwan available as a user dictionary in our discussion forums

Thanks for mentioning this! I didn't realize this had happened.

[Johnny20270]

i installed pleco yesterday and I'm impressed. i have been using Hanpin Chinese pro up to now.

The primary reason i like it it's because of the PLC dictionary and example sentences. I just tried searching for 就, a word which always confused me, due to its different uses. The pleco dictionary has loads of great entries which made it very clear.

[Lu]

I only have the two free dictionaries, but I like it mainly because it works well offline and those two dictionaries are already really good. I don't know why people like the Pleco flashcards though, you can make a new flashcards really quickly, but then you have the entire dictionary definition, with all possible nuances, on that card, which seems unpractical to me.

[Johnny20270]

I only have the two free dictionaries,

Does anybody else use other dictionarys?

Might try the OCR but I have Hanping Pro and that's not bad

LU: agree with you on flashcards. I use ANKI, learnt it now and have my own decks so no need for another flash card system

[ZhangKaiRong]

@Lu

"but then you have the entire dictionary definition, with all possible nuances, on that card, which seems unpractical to me"

That's not entirely true. If I just want to a practice one specific meaning, I use the ADS dictionary as the source dictionary for that card. This dict. has several entries for a word, one for each meaning. So no problem. You can also create custom entries, but it's rarely necessary.

When I started to learn Chinese, I also used the Anki. But after a month, I deleted it because got really pissed off. It takes an awful lot of time to create the cards and the decks, and you need to do two sets for Chinese-English and English-Chinese! The UI is also not my cup of coffee, so eventually I dropped it. If you have limited free time for studying, you don't want to spend time to create your cards IMO. Pleco is much faster, and that makes it the best flashcard app for me.

@Johnny20270

In most cases I use the ABC dictionary, which is a paid one. IMO this is the best Chinese-English dictionary. During my one year in China, I only encountered 5 or 6 chengyus during the classes which were out of the ABC dict. My classmates only used the PLC and CC-EDIT dictionaries, and they had some issues with the chengyus or the unfrequent meanings of some words. Recently I started to use the Taiwanese MOE dictionary, which is a Chinese-Chinese dict, it's also a nice and detailed one. I plan to buy the 规范 as well, heard that it helps you a lot if you've reached advanced level.

[Johnny20270]

It takes an awful lot of time to create the cards and the decks, and you need to do two sets for Chinese-English and English-Chinese!

I create / amend decks using a spread sheet and just import the file into ANKI. I'm not sure about images & sounds though and exporting is a problem as it exports to a TXT file which messes up the Hanzi

I thought you can have 2 way flash cards in ANKI so can de C-E and E-C, I never tried it as I think its better for have separate decks as the C-E relationship is not always same as E-C (i.e. not a one to to relationship)