Question about the Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters

[Pegasus]

Hi everyone, 

 

I'm a Chinese learner using the Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters (among other things) to help me learn. 

 

If you're familiar with this dictionary, I was wondering: Is there some kind of "how to guide" I could read to understand how to use the various features that are built into this dictionary. 

 

Besides that, I have one immediate question that I'm currently wondering about and which I'm hoping someone can answer: 

 

For the character meanings: 

 

I often see several lines...

 

The first line is usually the character's original meaning, and is denoted by "1 (orig.)" followed by the original meaning. 

 

Then, the second line will start with the number "2", and I've noticed may be followed by a circle similar to this "○" or maybe a rightward arrow similar to this "￫", followed by a meaning for the character. 

 

Then, there might be a third line that starts with the number "3". This line might be indented and might have a double bar rightward arrow similar to this "⇒", followed by a meaning for the character. 

 

My question is: What do the various symbols (○, ￫, ⇒) and indentation mean in the character meaning section?

 

Thank you for your help. 

 

Cheers! 

[wibr]

The arrows indicate the meaning tree, single arrows point to a meaning directly derived from the original meaning, double arrows are derived from the single arrow meanings etc. . Meanings with 〇 have no relation to the original meaning.

 

@OneEye It might make sense to include the explanation of the symbols, especially 〇, in the "How to use this info" section (btw in my version there is weird sentence "In order to reduce the number of items to be memorized, try A good rule of thumb ...")

 

 

[Pegasus]

Ah. wibr, thank you very much. 

 

Thank you for explaining the arrows and circles. That makes sense. 

 

Also, thank you very much for pointing out "How to use this info." I think when I first bought the dictionary (within Pleco), I did notice and read the "How to use this info" sections, but it's been so long that I forgot about them. (My efforts studying Chinese has been through a lot of starts and stops over the years. During the pauses, I forget things and then when I resume, I think I unintentionally gloss over things and not notice them again.) So, thank you for reminding me of the "How to use this info" links. I really appreciate it.

 

By the way, I think I might have the same version as you (inside Pleco). Mine also has that weird sentence: "In order to reduce the number of items to be memorized, try A good rule of thumb ..." It feels like something might have been accidently omitted.

 

Again, thank you. Cheers!

[OneEye]

Yes, @wibr has it. One other thing I should point out is that any meanings that show up below a sound loan meaning (〇) are also not related to the original meaning, but derived from the sound loan meaning above them.

 

Thanks for pointing out the weird sentence. We'll fix it in the next update, and add an explanation of the meaning tree symbols.

[vellocet]

It's my experience that that  〇 symbol is only ever used in Japanese, so they probably learned that somewhere along the way.  Also, there seem to be a lot of Taiwanisms in it, so they're probably not even aware they're doing it. After all, Traditional characters are the only "right" way to go while simplified characters are an abomination that should be abolished. As for the strange arrow symbols, I guess someone dug deeply into Unicode and went nuts. When I'm making lists I like to keep it simple with old-fashioned ASCII like --> and =>

Well, go figure, those two were two hyphens and a greater than and then two equals and a greater than and this board software, of its own accord, changed them without asking.  

[Pegasus]

@OneEye Thank you — to you and the Outlier team — for creating and working on the Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters. It's a great tool/resource for learners like me, and I really appreciate it. 

 

I am exploring and trying to learn to use some of the features of the Outlier character dictionary. 

 

When I was looking at the entry for 容, it said that the character was made up of two components: 

 

At the top of 容: 

1) 穴 as a meaning component 

and at the bottom of 容: 

2) 񲟩 (八 + 口), a variant 公, as a sound component

 

Then, I took a look at the entry for 公. 

 

At the end of the entry for 公, there is a link to "System level info for component 公". (I think this might only be available in the Expert edition.) That link opens a pop-up with the system level information for the character. (This is a very, very cool feature in my opinion, by the way.)

 

On that system level info pop-up, it says that there are 6 members in the sound series for 公: 翁、瓮、蚣、頌、訟、松

 

That got me wondering...

 

If 公 (or, in this case, a variant of 公) is a sound component for 容, then would that make 容 a member of the sound series for 公 too? 

 

Thank you for considering my question. I'm just learning and trying to understand the relationships a little bit better and also trying to understand the features of the Outlier character dictionary better. 

 

Again, thank you for the Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters. It really is a very cool character dictionary. 

 

Cheers.

[OneEye]

@vellocet, I'm not sure what you mean re: 〇 and "learning it somewhere along the way." We use it as a shorthand to mark a certain kind of meaning, as mentioned earlier in this thread. It doesn't really matter if it's mostly used in Japanese; it's a convenient symbol to use.

 

Re: Taiwanisms, we try to be careful about that, so please point out specific examples so we can fix them.

 

Quote

After all, Traditional characters are the only "right" way to go while simplified characters are an abomination that should be abolished.

 

We've never said anything like that. We use and teach both simplified and traditional, and have always been very careful about giving equal coverage to both character sets in all of our products.

 

Quote

As for the strange arrow symbols, I guess someone dug deeply into Unicode and went nuts. When I'm making lists I like to keep it simple with old-fashioned ASCII like --> and =>

 

Our use of the arrows was covered earlier in the thread. Using ASCII to make the arrows would be an eyesore (and becomes untenable when we get to things like ⇛ and ⭆), and unicode seems like an odd thing to complain about in a Chinese character dictionary (which naturally makes extensive use of unicode). 🤷‍♂️

[OneEye]

On 8/28/2024 at 10:41 AM, Pegasus said:

At the top of 容: 

1) 穴 as a meaning component 

and at the bottom of 容: 

2) 񲟩 (八 + 口), a variant 公, as a sound component

 

Then, I took a look at the entry for 公. 

 

At the end of the entry for 公, there is a link to "System level info for component 公". (I think this might only be available in the Expert edition.) That link opens a pop-up with the system level information for the character. (This is a very, very cool feature in my opinion, by the way.)

 

On that system level info pop-up, it says that there are 6 members in the sound series for 公: 翁、瓮、蚣、頌、訟、松

 

That got me wondering...

 

If 公 (or, in this case, a variant of 公) is a sound component for 容, then would that make 容 a member of the sound series for 公 too? 

 

Thank you for considering my question. I'm just learning and trying to understand the relationships a little bit better and also trying to understand the features of the Outlier character dictionary better. 

 

Again, thank you for the Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters. It really is a cool dictionary. 

 

Cheers.

 

For the system data (and for many things in the dictionary), we go by the surface-level structure, not the deep structure. So for example, 心 and 忄 have separate entries in the system data, even though they're "the same component," and they are linked together so you can tap from one to the other. The same would be true for the bottom of 容, if there were any other characters containing it. We generally only make system entries for components that show up in at least two characters.

 

There's definitely an argument for lumping them together, but that often becomes confusing for learners ("how are they the same if they look nothing alike?") and it gets a little hairy trying to decide where to draw the line. So we think it's a bit simpler doing it this way, albeit maybe not perfect as you can see. 

 

Glad you're enjoying the dictionary!

[vellocet]

On 8/28/2024 at 10:35 AM, OneEye said:

We've never said anything like that.

Others certainly do. You've never seen that attitude among Taiwan foreigners?

 

On 8/28/2024 at 10:35 AM, OneEye said:

Re: Taiwanisms, we try to be careful about that, so please point out specific examples so we can fix them.

 

Well, I wouldn't know as I haven't been to Taiwan. I just know on occasion I've looked words up in the dictionary, spent time memorizing them, and when I actually try to use them in China I get blank looks. 国语 is a good example.  Nobody calls it that. It's always 普通话. Well maybe it's not a blank look, but the word isn't in common usage. The point is that we won't be familiar with those Taiwan usages unless we live there, which most of us don't. 

There's one Taiwan foreigner out there with this really weird idea of how the third tone should be pronounced. Despite having read his teaching I have yet to see any textbook or learning material produced on the mainland with the same pronunciation, it's probably a Taiwanization.  Qualified language teachers  who graduated with a degree in teaching Mandarin to foreigners never teach it. He's probably not even aware because he lives in Taiwan, or considers mainlanders "wrong".  

[Tomsima]

On 8/28/2024 at 11:20 AM, vellocet said:

There's one Taiwan foreigner out there with this really weird idea of how the third tone should be pronounced

who is this? quite curious to learn more

[vellocet]

Don't know, saw him on youtube some years back.

[OneEye]

On 8/28/2024 at 7:20 PM, vellocet said:

Others certainly do. You've never seen that attitude among Taiwan foreigners?

 

I guess I'm not seeing what that has to do with us and our dictionary.

 

Quote

Well, I wouldn't know as I haven't been to Taiwan. I just know on occasion I've looked words up in the dictionary, spent time memorizing them, and when I actually try to use them in China I get blank looks. 国语 is a good example.  Nobody calls it that. It's always 普通话. Well maybe it's not a blank look, but the word isn't in common usage. The point is that we won't be familiar with those Taiwan usages unless we live there, which most of us don't. 

 

Again, I don't see what this has to do with our dictionary. There is no entry for 國語/国语 in our dictionary, because ours is a character dictionary, not a word dictionary.

 

Quote

There's one Taiwan foreigner out there with this really weird idea of how the third tone should be pronounced. Despite having read his teaching I have yet to see any textbook or learning material produced on the mainland with the same pronunciation, it's probably a Taiwanization.  Qualified language teachers  who graduated with a degree in teaching Mandarin to foreigners never teach it. He's probably not even aware because he lives in Taiwan, or considers mainlanders "wrong".  

 

I think you actually may be talking about us here. A while back we uploaded a video to YouTube and someone had a very similar complaint about Ash's use of the half third tone—it basically boiled down to "I've never heard it that way, teachers in Beijing don't teach it that way, this is wrong and it must be a Taiwan thing."

 

It's called the half-third tone (or 半上聲), and it is not a Taiwan thing. It's a well-known and extensively documented part of standard Mandarin. And yes, unfortunately it isn't often taught to foreigners, and many textbooks don't mention it, but if your teachers aren't teaching it, then they're doing you a serious disservice. The third tone is pronounced as half-third way more often than as the full third (falling and then rising) in real speech.

[mikelove]

This has gotten way off track - and bordering on personal attacks - so I'm locking the thread and hiding the final post.