Dictionaries explaining meanings of composite words

[rtf]

Hello!

 

Does anyone know if there`re any online dictionaries out there explaining (preferably in English) the meanings of composite words/phrases in Chinese like 电话 = ‘electric + conversation’ = 'telephone', 预报 = ‘in advance + report’ = 'forecast'， 道歉 = '?' = 'to apologize'? 

 

 

 

Thank you.

[tysond]

Most electronic dictionaries (e.g. Pleco, or MDBG) allow you to break down words into component characters and see their individual meanings, which may help you figure out  meanings.

 

道歉 dào qiàn to apologize HSK4

 

道 dào direction; way; road; path; CL:條|条[tiao2],股[gu3]; principle; truth; morality; reason; skill; method; Dao (of Daoism); to say; to speak; to talk; classifier for long thin things (rivers, cracks etc), barriers (walls, doors etc), questions (in an exam etc), commands, courses in a meal, steps in a process; province (of Korea or Japan) HSK3

 

歉 qiàn to apologize; to regret; deficient HSK4

 

Is that what you are after?  

[XiaoXi]

I think you just mean a dictionary of Chinese words....try Pleco.

[Shelley]

I think I am repeating myself   but yes try Pleco, its not online but it works on a smart phone or tablet.

[Luxi]

There are many online Chinese-English dictionaries that will do that. Two of the longest running ones are:

 

The MDBG dictionary gives you the word and each of the components. Offers several ways of searching.

 

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=0&wdqtm=0&wdqcham=1&wdqt=%E9%81%93%E6%AD%89

 

There's also the YellowBridge dictionary. Advertising can be annoying in the free version but still is a good dictionary with several additional tools.

http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php

[xiaokaka]

I think what she is after is not a dictionary that shows all the possible meanings of the the characters in the words, but rather only the relevant ones.

The only one I can think of that does this explicitly is the Tuttle dictionary (available in as paid add-on in Pleco and as a printed book). However it is rather limited with only a few thousand entries (and not all has character breakdowns). For example for 道歉：

[v+obj: 道 say + 歉 apology]

NOUN

apologize, say sorry

你应该向他们道歉。

Nǐ yīnggāi xiàng tāmen dàoqiàn.

You should apologize to them.

[rtf]

Thanks,everyone.

 

@xiaokaka: Exactly! That`s what I`m looking for! And I`ll try the Tuttle,thanks.

[Shelley]

only the relevant ones.

 

How does it distinguish between relevant and irrelevant ones. I assume you mean relevant to the person looking up the word.

 

A dictionary can only show the definitions for all possibilities and then it is up to you to choose the relevant one.

 

If I have got this wrong, please explain to me where I have misunderstood.

[xiaokaka]

Only the relevant character definitions for the word in question, e.g., when you look up the definition for 道歉 it has the line '[v+obj: 道 say + 歉 apology]' instead of you having to go through all the definitions for each character by yourself.

[Shelley]

Oh I see when you are talking about multi character words, the 2 characters together usually only have one meaning (which is half the point of multi character words) so you don't need to search through loads of stuff.

 

Ok I get it.

[Shelley]

So taking all that in to account I still have to say try Pleco. If you put in 2 or 3 characters, if they are usual combination, it shows this at the top of the list. (just tried it with yubao.预报)