Dictionary pens for Chinese (词典笔)

[liqi]

Anyone has any experience with those kind of devices? I was thinking of buying one because I honestly kinda hate how I have to use my phone for everything. I don't enjoy much reading on the phone, and having to pull it out to look up on the dictionary is annoying as I sometimes get distracted by other stuff (thanks ADHD!). So, instead of going nuclear and buying an actual dictionary heh, I looked up those 词典笔 on Taobao. They don't seem too bad actually, but they're obviously marketed towards Chinese speakers leaning English, not the other way around, so idk if it would work very well for what I want (mostly just single word lookups). Has anyone ever tried one? I have my eyes on 有道 because I like their website (even though idk how related they are) and it seems to be the best reviewed one (some of these can even solve math apparently😂)

[Flickserve]

If you hate pulling out a phone to look up on the dictionary, you will quickly hate pulling out a dictionary pen. 

[liqi]

I don't really hate the look up act itself, I don't mind taking a look at it, I hate the fact that I need to touch my phone at all. I know myself too well to know I'll get distracted ("oh look a new massage, maybe I should check my emails too, hmm what about that newsletter? Hm? What was I doing again?"). Doesn't help that ADHD medication in China is awful (and out of stock for 2 weeks 😮‍💨)

 

The dictionary pen is just so I can look up works on a device without those pesky notifications from the green bubble apps! That way I can just throw my phone out of view and forger about it when reading. I let curiosity take the best of me and ordered the 有道A6, it should probably arrive tomorrow, I'll update later if it's worth it or not 😛. Says it supports the 现代汉语规范词典, I quite like it on pleco, so fingers crossed it's not gonna be a disappointment

[mikelove]

There actually do seem be some of these optimized around English speakers learning Chinese now, for what it's worth - I got a Wo Hui F1 in a conference swag bag and it includes English definitions and HSK lists and even some weird AI stuff like a voice pronunciation evaluation function.

[liqi]

On 2/6/2025 at 2:26 AM, mikelove said:

There actually do seem be some of these optimized around English speakers learning Chinese now, for what it's worth

What an honor to have the Pleco creator himself chime in! 😂😆

 

That's good to know! I looked up online and indeed, there's a Wo Hui Mandarin F1 pen.... which is nowhere to be found in China . Going on a small tangent, I still don't really get where they're trying to go with Wo Hui Mandarin. They're clearly trying to build a comprehensive official platform for Chinese learning, but nothing ever seems to come out of it 🫠. The HSKMock website has some unfinished and not-that-great testing and practice features that are clearly meant to connect in interact with something bigger, but it's just not there. There's also no info on them besides them being a Singaporean based company and apparently they now also design the questions for the HSK? It's not a big deal, I'm just nosy hahaha

 

Oh yeah, and the 有道A6 Pro arrived! So far, it's actually been working pretty damn great! I don't think I've unlocked it's full potential yet, it seems like there's some stuff to download or configure on the app, but I'm not sure yet how to do it. Nevertheless, it seems to fullfill my needs quite well: it's super fast to read and it pops up a nifty dictionary definition along with the pronunciation being spoken out loud (and including sample sentences from 有道 too, which is a good addition). You can also scan full sentences and it'll translate everything at once, then you can click on individual words to look up their definition if you want. You can bookmark words and sentences and they'll show up on your phone (which also keeps an history of what you scanned). There's also an AI that does something but it seems to be focused towards english-learning (and they're a bit stupid too, sorry AI)

 

Overall quite a great little device! Definitely recommend if there's anyone like me that finds phones troublesome in some situations, it'll definitely change how I do sentence mining (hope to see pleco on it one day too 😝). Now I'm thinking I should've had this idea sooner hahahaha

[Luxi]

Hi @liqi, thank you 😻 for starting this topic. Normally, I can't resist a clever gadget, and you introduced one I hadn't even heard of (out in my rural retreat} Not only it sounded interesting but also useful, I have piles of books I bought but can't read because the typeface is too small or blurred, or because the unknown words are too many for me. This little gadget seemed more irresistible than most, and now I have this one from Amazon UK.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DL2W9KP6?ref_=ppx_hzod_title_dt_b_fed_asin_title_0_0

 

It wasn't easy to come up with the right search term in Amazon, but "scan translator pen" hit the right place after trying several different search prompts. Amazon UK has many though they are listed in some disarray. It's hard to see how they differ, there are some in the >£100 category but no better or different than those in the prevailing price range (between £30 and £50). The main differences between them seem due to different versions of the same software. The latest versions seem to have around 140-ish languages for on-line use (including simplified and traditional Chinese as well as Cantonese) and about 10 for off-line use, no doubt Chinese will be one of them. By the way, Temu has also quite a few though they will come set up for Chinese users, though the Ui language itself is not a problem because it is changeable in the Settings, and I think the software can also be updated in the device Settings.

 

As @liqi posted above, this little gadget is amazing, it has multiple functions and promises masses of fun. It isn't faster than searching on a phone or even an old fashioned dictionary, but no doubt speed will improve with practice. I still have lots to look at, but one useful trick I already discovered is: one can dictate the Chinese text (in Voice Search) to test one's pronunciation, yay!

 

One note of warning, watch out for possible trojans, hackers and other nasties, especially since this is going to be connected to your network at least some of the time. Make sure your devices and network security are 100% up-to-date. I haven't yet been able to see what's installed in the system but will get it scanned thoroughly. I'll post here if I see something suspicious. Please everybody, be alert!