辭典 vs. 字典 vs. 詞典

[tuxoar]

Hello everyone-

My 3rd year mind is still somewhat confused about the difference between the 辭典, 字典, 詞典 in terms of contents, use, etc. Could someone describe the difference? My efforts to search the forum for such a topic turned up fruitless. Thanks alot!

Shaun

[amego]

HiHi =) Its seems that they all mean "dictionary" but in Chinese, we don't really learn individual characters, we learn compound-words, like 尴尬 gan1 ga4 "embarrass", each of these both words rarely appear singly.

Well 词 means compound-words, so actually 词典=辞典 ci2 dian3 (they're both pronounced the same) is compound-word dict, giving you the rough meaning of the character, followed by all the 词s...haha

And 字典 zi4 dian3 is word dict, usually much smaller and thinner as they left out so much!!! 字典 usually tells you the meaning of the character with a few 词(without stating therir meanings), which is pretty incomplete and useless....

eg

you know 心 xin1 is heart, but if I just throw you a 词 like 小心 xiao3 xin1, you can only guess it means "small heart" in a 字典, but in our dear 词典, it'll tell you it means "be careful, take care", and might even have some examples of its usage, like

买字典时千万要小心，不要买到字典，一定要买词典! "Be aware when buying dicts, get a compound-word dict, don't get a word dict!" (Take note that the 1st "字典" in the sentence means "dictionaries in general":mrgreen: )

Haha okie I crapped this sentence up but really, get a 词典 if you wanna learn properly!

[HashiriKata]

Ci2 dian3 is the normal word for "dictionary".

Zi4 dian3 means specifically "character dictionary".

Ignore the (academic) distinction between 词典 and 辞典 (That is the reason I just used ci2 dian3 above. Anyway, nowadays, the word 词典 is more commonly used than 辞典). You should already know the difference between a normal dictionary and a character dictionary, so I won't go into it.

[null]

字典:Characters only

词典: Characters + their compounds

辞典:Characters + their compounds + encyclopediaic entries