Good online dictionary with classifiers for all nouns?

[Skyelar]

Is there a good online dictionary that lists all the classifiers that can go with all of its noun entries? MDBG does this with some of its nouns, but it would be nice to have a reliable source where I can see what the appropriate classifier to use when I don't know it.

[tooironic]

As far as I know, among the online dictionaries, MDBG has the best coverage of classifiers. Chinese dictionaries produced in China have never covered them. You may find this Wikipedia page, List of Chinese classifiers, useful though.

[liuzhou]

Not a dictionary, but you may also find this interesting.

[Johnny20270]

Pleco does it too it appears 

[Walkingtree]

I second Johnny20270 - Pleco points out the classifier when you look up a noun.

[imron]

Pleco has several dictionaries, some better quality than others, some free and some paid. Which one are you using?

[Skyelar]

Thanks for your replies - I was hoping for a online dictionary, i.e. one that I can access easily from my computer's web browser, but I'll check out Pleco. I use MDBG as my main dictionary, although sometimes I also use Line Dictionary to double-check and to get example sentences.

[Demonic_Duck]

The default Pleco dictionary has no classifiers. The only Pleco one that I have myself with any classifiers is the CC-CEDICT (Chinese-English), and it's patchy in its coverage, although it's generally OK for reasonably low-level concrete nouns.

 

Some of the paid C-E ones might be better for this, though.

[Walkingtree]

I was getting my dictionaries confused - it's actually Hanping. I have Pleco, but when typing I substituted the two.

[mikelove]

CC-CEDICT actually is a default Pleco dictionary now (has been since the beginning on Android and from pretty early on on iOS), though as Demonic_Duck says the coverage is patchy. ABC C-E includes classifiers too but also with patchy coverage. Not aware of any C-E dictionary that does this comprehensively (yet).

[Johnny20270]

as a matter of interest Mike, where do your example sentences come from?

[Demonic_Duck]

CC-CEDICT actually is a default Pleco dictionary now (has been since the beginning on Android and from pretty early on on iOS), though as Demonic_Duck says the coverage is patchy.

Should have been clearer, by the "default Pleco" one, I meant the one named "Pleco Basic Chinese-English Dictionary". I couldn't remember if CC-CEDICT was also included by default or was a free extra download.

 

Not aware of any C-E dictionary that does this comprehensively (yet).

Does that mean that there are C-C dictionaries which do it?

[mikelove]

as a matter of interest Mike, where do your example sentences come from?

 

The PLC dictionary is based on 《汉英词典》from 外研社 (currently 2nd edition, but update to 3rd is coming soon). So the examples in our free app at least (mostly) come from there.

 

Does that mean that there are C-C dictionaries which do it?

 

Sorry, should have been clearer - I'm not aware of any comprehensive C-C ones that do it either. Most references on the subject seem to consist of lists of measure words + samples of nouns that use them.

[Skyelar]

Looks like I'll just have to stick with using 个 for the majority of words until I get around to learning a good deal of classifiers.

[Demonic_Duck]

Not really, I'd recommend CC-CEDICT for this very purpose. If you're still at “very basic” level as per your profile, it should have classifiers for the majority of nouns you'll need to learn. This dictionary uses “M” as an abbreviation for “measure word”, but they really mean “classifier”.

 

Examples from CC-CEDICT:

牛 - cow M: 条/头

马 - horse M: 匹

羊 - sheep M: 头/只

骆驼 - camel M: 峰

羊驼 - alpaca (no classifier listed)

 

As you can see, all the “basic” animals tend to have classifiers listed, and to some extent you can generalise from this (you'll notice that long animals can often take “条” as a classifier, large animals can often take “头”, small animals can often take “只” etc.)

 

EDIT: just realised CC-CEDICT is also the one used by MDBG. At any rate, it's a decent resource for those basic-level nouns.

[Johnny20270]

I find Wikipedia and digchinese not bad. I am making a flash card list them all. Will give me a "best guess" approach I think

 

However I think few are historical, for written purposes,etc   dunno