Anybody know where I can get a copy of the Hanyu Da Cidian CD-ROM edition?

[NinKenDo]

Hey guys, I've been tyring to get a copy of the Hanyu Da Cidian electronic/CD edition but finding it a little hard to track down an easy click and ship option. I'd rather not send email off to publishers and await responses. I just wanna click a button and buy it.

 

Also if anybody knows if there's a demo version available that would be great, its known for janky compatibility issues and I was preferably going to run it under wine, as opposed to running it on a VM which is less ideal, so I would like to test it before I shell out ~$250.

[889]

HK Book City is selling it for about US$150.

 

(But buy at least 60 copies and you'll get a 20 percent discount.)

 

Note that international shipping at the moment is really expensive because HK Post has stopped most overseas airmail service, so the store's using DHL etc.

 

http://www.hkbookcity.com/showbook2.php?serial_no=116294

[Demonic_Duck]

It's available on Pleco for ~$50 (if you don't mind using or emulating Android/iOS).

[roddy]

Unless there are advantages to the CD Rom version I don't know about (nostalgia? cutting and pasting from desktop?), that sounds like far and away the best option. The $200 you save will easily buy you a decent android tablet to sit next to your monitor.

[889]

Is the search function the same? I know on the OED CD-ROM, the function which allows you to search not just for dictionary entries but for any word or phrase appearing anywhere in the text of the dictionary is invaluable.

 

I'd also make clear whether you're getting the dictionary downloaded to your device, or whether you're just buying online access.

 

Of course you need to make sure you're getting the unabridged original dictionary. Dictionary names and how they are sold can be confusing.

[Demonic_Duck]

8 minutes ago, 889 said:

search not just for dictionary entries but for any word or phrase appearing anywhere in the text of the dictionary

 

In Pleco, you can use #this syntax (for example: #胡说八道) for a full-text search, then restrict it to a specific dictionary you have installed by long-pressing on the language/dictionary select button in the top-right corner, then choosing the dictionary.

[NinKenDo]

I already have it on Pleco. TBH, I don't like using Pleco. I would honestly rather just use the books if I could afford them since I have the HDC Index add-on for Wenlin which makes using the books much easier. I use Pleco when I'm studying on my phone away from home and have no alternative, or if I can't find a better option for an affordable price for the dictionary I need.

[NinKenDo]

OK guys, I've ordered the version off HK Book City (big thanks to 889). Shipping wasn't completely outrageous since I'm nearer to HK than most of you probably. Still a bit painful considering the thing probably weighs about 2 grams, but oh well. I will let you guys know how I go getting it running under Wine as hopefully I won't have to resort to a whole virtual machine. Unclear whether it's the version which supports "later" Windows versions. But that's not necessarily an issue if I'm trying to run it through Wine/a virtual machine. One thing I imagine is going to be a nightmare is that I'm fairly sure it's Big5 encoding based?

[mikelove]

18 hours ago, NinKenDo said:

One thing I imagine is going to be a nightmare is that I'm fairly sure it's Big5 encoding based?

 

It's in Unicode, actually, or at least my copy of it is. But it's limited to basic CJK Unified without any extensions, so Wenlin's index plus the print version will get you entries for some rare characters that aren't on the CD-ROM.

 

(and FWIW we do have the rights to distribute it on desktops too at whatever point we have something to announce on that front ?

[xinoxanu]

On 8/12/2020 at 11:58 AM, Demonic_Duck said:

It's available on Pleco for ~$50 (if you don't mind using or emulating Android/iOS).

 

Soon that won't even be necessary:

 

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/5/21355997/microsoft-your-phone-app-windows-10-android-support

 

So far it's only available for selected Samsung phones, but If it's true that Microsoft and Google are working together to bring this to the general public then we will all be finally able to leave our phones plugged on the outlet most of the day and work seamlessly from good ol windows.

 

And since we are talking about Pleco, @mikelove, I have a technical question: through this method, do you think that Android's Pleco will be able to properly cast the screen on windows without having to unlock the phone or displaying a black screen? In the past I've tried Dell/Samsung prototypes of this product, but Pleco was rather unresponsive, image was blurry, etc (I blame them and the technology, not Pleco on itself) 

 

By the way, @NinKenDo, what's so special about this dictionary that you are willing to fork so much money for it? 

[mikelove]

6 minutes ago, xinoxanu said:

through this method, do you think that Android's Pleco will be able to properly cast the screen on windows without having to unlock the phone or displaying a black screen? In the past I've tried Dell/Samsung prototypes of this product, but Pleco was rather unresponsive, image was blurry, etc (I blame them and the technology, not Pleco on itself) 

 

We don't do anything to block screencasting, so as far as I can tell from that article there's no reason why it shouldn't work, but I haven't actually had a chance to test it yet.

 

To be honest, I'm skeptical whether it'll be anything like a native app experience - too much lag/wonkiness - but with Google/Microsoft increasingly finding ways to team up to fight Apple, I also think there's a strong chance we see some sort of revival of official Android-apps-on-Windows support (to combat Apple's silently bringing more-or-less the entire App Store catalog to ARM Macs); otherwise, as of next year Microsoft is going to find themselves at an app disadvantage on desktops for the first time in 3 decades.

[NinKenDo]

On 8/17/2020 at 8:51 AM, xinoxanu said:

By the way, @NinKenDo, what's so special about this dictionary that you are willing to fork so much money for it? 

 

Yes. Good question. The most straightforward answer is that it's the most comprehensive dictionary of Chinese there is. It was not uncommon for me to be looking up words on Wenlin's combined ABC and Hanyu Da Cidian Index and have no definition for it, but a reference to Hanyu Da Cidian, so I'm definitely at the level, or at least exploring content, which makes the HDC something which will expand my ability to parse texts.

 

I'm also interested in slowly referencing a good Monolingual dictionary to get used to that.

 

HDC also features good coverage and explanation of historical usage as well as modern. Since I've begun reading Classical Chinese this will be very helpful to me. I also like that it uses quotations as the basis for its sentences. I also appreciate that it's a traditional character based dictionary (albeit, perhaps with Simplified definitions? Unsure about that in the edition I bought). That's a strong feature for me since I always want to know about the traditional character with as little ambiguity as possible, and not having to cross reference to check the trad glyph is always a timesave.

 

The amount of money is quite high, but to be fair, dictionaries are bloody expensive. As above, it's ~50USD on Pleco and I would say that's a very competitive price.

 

And finally, and this is a bit of a weird reason, I have a general interest in early-to-mid-term CJKV computing, and getting this program to run and exploring it is kind of its own kick for me. I dunno if that's weird.

[xinoxanu]

Wow! After that answer I'd say it's definitely money well-spent and I am sure you are getting an 888% return in your own way 哈哈

 

 

[NinKenDo]

Well... Unfortunately after a long wait, HK Book City have let me know they don't have the item in stock...