Best Chinese - English and E-C Dictionaries, and WCIF them?

Language Learning Chinese
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[quote=“Jack Burton”]My other worry is that most of these gizmos are tailored towards Chinese speakers learning English, and not the other way around. Or do you find this not to be so.[/quote]I think you’re right about the purpose-built electronic dictionaries sold here.

The Oxford software for Palm is better, although I have one gripe; that when inputting an English word, the Chinese word is given in pinyin and characters, but the example phrases for its use are given in Chinese characters only.

Still, around the end of the year the company that make the software, Pleco, will have a completely new version, based on the John DeFrancis dictionary if I remember rightly. That may possiblyl give example phrases in pinyin as well.

Also, a Palm is a good thing to have in any case and you may end up using it for a number of things in addition to the dictionary.

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[quote=“Jack Burton”] what do you think of the quantity and quality of the dictionary? I’ve heard some can be quite poor.

overall, would you recommend an electronic dictionary, or a trad dictionary? my friend also said there’s a trad dictionary out there for foreigners who can look up words based on a break down of any component of a character ie u don’t have to use a radical, u can just recognise a part of a word, like the “roof” bit to find a path to your word.[/quote]

First, the electronics I’ve seen are limited in content, but so are most pocket dictionaries. Both are basically useful for carrying along; and the on-screen character recognition (you write the character on the screen and it recognizes it, so you don’t have to know the dict. index key) is great. So get one, but back it up with a larger desk dictionary like the DeFrancis ABC Comprehensive, which is an excellent, highly recommended book. And then later, when you need other, specialized dictionaries, you can add them. Or if you’re doing translation, or are a Virgo like me, you can add other dictionaries to your collection later, such as 遠東漢英大字詞辭典 Far East Chinese-English Dictionary, 1992. The Far East Book Co., Ltd., Taipei. ISBN 957-612-228-7; 漢英辭典(修訂版) A Chinese-English Dictionary (Revised Edition) Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, Beijing 1995 ISBN 7-5600-0739-2. Basically, no one dictionary is the final, authoritative solution. Each has its flaws, and you have to use them with discretion, and pencil in your own margin notes. Having a native speaker as conversation partner – esp. one who majored in Chinese at a top university – is the best complement to good dictionaries.

As for using the non-index-key part of the word, I believe your friend is referring to Harbaugh, Rick (1998). Chinese Characters: a Genealogy and Dictionary 中文字譜 - 漢英字元字典, Zhongwen.com publ., ISBN 0-9660750-0-5. A very handy little book using innovative genealogical charts (family trees of characters), facilitating searches for characters by graphic component, whether phonetic or semantic. Not recommended for etymology info, as etymologies are traditional, chiefly Shuōw

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Thanks to both you guys for your input.

I already have quite a few dictionaries and a thesaurus, both small and large, PRC, HKG, and Taiwan-origins, some specialized and some general, some pictorial, etc.

I would rather not buy another dictionary as I think my collection is sufficient for all my needs.

The problem now is portability. I’d like to be able to have something in my pocket when i’m out and about, instead of at my desk with my library at hand. i do okay with most of the radical-lookups except for the obscure, less obvious words.

I think I might go with the Palm path. but I still would like to be able to have Cantonese audio as an option.

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Thanks for everyones input.I electronic chinese dictionary sounds about right. Coincidentally this will also serve to help out my mom because her electronic dictionary had been broken for 2 years and she wanted a new one :slight_smile: I forgot about that thing. You could push a button and all the voices turned into cantonese or mandarin. I don’t know the model number or anything because she threw it away but I know it could speak in both languages and had eng/chin menus. I may try to find an old manual to see what it was and maybe buy a new version of it. In the meantime, since I’m not in Taiwan and I can’t just go buy one off the shelf, anyone know of a comprehensive electronic dictionary that I can buy online or do comprehensive E-dictionariies exist? :smiley: Sorry for all the questions I’m needy :smiley:

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To find such things, just type key words like “Electronic Chinese English Cantonese Dictionary” into Google. The first thing that crops up, cantonese.sheik.co.uk/review … naries.htm, looks like a fair bet, but you can browse a bit. Google is God. :notworthy:

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Here is the cheapest dictionary that I could find with cantonese voice functionality. The ectaco md6250 ectaco.com/dictionaries/view … ct_id=1115
Has anyone had experience with this? I also found another one, although I’m not sure if this is up to date or from a reputable company. chinesemall.com/inecox.html
A good dictionary with accurate translations and definitions is obviously the number oen concern but the second requisite is also decent hand writing recognition for character input.

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I posted in the want ads, but thought maybe here might get more hits. Sorry for the cross-posting.

But I’m looking for an English->PinYin->Chinese Dictionary
[url]English -> PinYin -> Chinese Dictionary

TIA,

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I use the Times English Chinese Dictionary. Bought it at caves. It gives English - Chinese chicken scrathes - Pinyin, and then example sentences in each. So it looks about like this. Are you lonely? Chicken scratches and squiggles. Ni ji4mo4 ma. Not a bad system everything considered and some of the example sentences are ones that you might actually use!

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Excellent bob! But er, where’s caves?

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Oops. Sorry I thought everybody knew caves. Anywho it is on Zhongshan North road about two blocks south of Minchuan on the east side of the street between the KFC and Subway.

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Bob, you realize this is the Learning Chinese forum, right? I’d say the overwhelming majority of people on here enjoy learning Chinese (and characters are a major part of it). Just shut up.

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Nix. There are also a lot of people who would rather study Mandrin using Pinyin only, but that is made more difficult to do by other people who insist on characters or accept characters being pushed on them. Mine is a valid perspective that doesn’t get enough air time so I have no intention of shutting up thank you very much.

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The Far East Book Co. has good pinyin dictionaries. Their English-Chinese dictionary, at least the one I have, is not nearly as comprehensive as their Chinese-English dictionary.

One thing I like about their pinyin dictionaries is that they have a lot of entries not often found in language dictionaries, such as computer terms and very useful appendices (countries, cities, phrases).

Also, they use very readable fonts. You can even make out the “chickenscratch”. (I’ve found that the characters in many dictionaries are too small for learners.)

And I agree with Bob’s message, though not with his choice of words. We learn languages in whatever way suits us, and learning is always OK.

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Sure, if one only wants to learn the spoken language, pinyin if just fine and dandy. Afterall, a person who learns a character will also have to learn the pinyin in order to be able to listen/speak the word. But a person can’t get the full experience living in China or Taiwan without understanding the written as well as spoken language, just as a person living in the United States who could not read a lick of English would equally be at a disadvantage. It is the difference of being literate or not being literate. Vainly hoping for China or Taiwan to suddenly abandon characters in favor of pinyin is simply unrealistic. I can’t imagine consigning myself to illiteracy, which is why I push myself so hard to learn the characters, as well as the pinyin, and I live in the United States!

But hey, whatever rocks your boats friends.

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I agree entirely with your argument with regards to literacy, but for people wishing to learn ‘survival Chinese’, the first step most people naturally choose to take is to learn to understand and use the spoken language, for which pinyin is better suited as a learning strategy. I would disagree with your comparison between an English learner and written English with a Chinese learner and characters. Written English is at least somewhat phonetic, and learners of English have no choice but to use the written forms of English words for learning (and it can be argued that Chinese characters are somewhat phonetic as well, but not nearly to the same extent as written English.)

Exactly, and listening/speaking precedes reading/writing in natural language acquisition. So, I don’t think learners of Chinese need to make any excuses for wanting to only focus on pinyin. It’s a learning strategy. Your argument with regards to literacy is undeniably valid, but let’s not put the cart before the horse. A person who can speak the language with at least some fluency will be far better off in Taiwan than someone who can read but not ask a simple question. After all, there are plenty of illiterate Chinese, just as there are plenty of illilterate Americans, but they can still communicate. And isn’t communication the whole point?

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Where is the Far East Book Co., hoedad? I may need some “professional” or advanced dictionaries for some of the work I’ll be doing. I know there’s some software I can get out there, but, they’re pretty pricey and I’d probably have to go to China for them as Taiwan doesn’t sell them as far as I know.

Thanks for the info.

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You should be able to find Far East Book Co. dictionaries in any well-stocked bookstore. Try the major department stores. I don’t like Caves, but you might be able to find them there. (Cave’s is full of themselves. Result of too little competition.) I"m not in Taipei so I can’t be much help beyond that.

They’re a major publisher. Shouldn’t be a problem. Go to the high-end bookshops (the ones with wooden floors and such) and browse.

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Um…if you want professional dictionaries, please do steer clear of Far East. Their dictionary quality has plummeted in the days since Liang Shi-qiu was contracted in a big coup for the present owner’s father (who, I believe, recently passed away). Dictionaries “for learners of Chinese” are mere tired retreads of existing dictionaries, “edited” to “suit” non-native speakers (b.s.) and then re-edited by Chinese editors who “know better”. Trust me on this one, I have insider info.

I think there are some threads elsewhere about professional-level dictionaries. Frankly, I don’t use many these days. If you know how to Google well, you can get around many things we used to use dictionaries for. I have a good-sized C>E dictionary on hand, and 2 different C>E technical dictionary sets, and a few miscellaneous medical things, but most things I can find faster and more easily on the Net these days.

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Thanks for the tip ironlady, hoedad.

Question, have any of you used the Transwiz Translation software? Supposedly this is a top-of-the-line software dictionary that includes a number of professional and technical dictionaries in one.

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U still find the best dictonary in Mainland. Taiwanese dictonary I’ve used so far suck, even if they have a pinyin index…