WCIF a ㄅㄆㄇㄈ bopomofo ONLINE dictionary?

Hello all,

I have been studying Mandarin for a few months now by myself. I have studied the ㄅㄆㄇㄈ way of learning Mandarin but I’m frustrated because I don’t know Pinyin so when I search for a definition of a character it gives me the Pinyin and not ㄅㄆㄇㄈ…

Does anyone know where I can find a ㄅㄆㄇㄈ online dictionary to help me out?

Thanks!

J :slight_smile:

I used this for a while: mandarintools.com/worddict.html
Input the character, select from the drop down list, and click “Look it Up”.

Its a cool tool cause if you just have the pinyin it will give you the whole list of possible characters. Even if you don’t know the tone, it will give you all the characters for all four tones for like “li”.

However, I noticed that it was missing a few definitions. Like my name 黎 (lí) comes up as “black/surname/Lebanon” but it also means “dawn” or something along those lines.

Edit://
Ok nevermind. I just realized what you were asking for and my source does not provide. Sorry about that.

You mean when you want to know the sound (reading) of a character that you don’t know but that you can copy and paste into a search box?
In that case this will work: tw.dictionary.yahoo.com/
If you want to google for more information, you may want to use the search terms “zhuyin” and “dictionary”… :wink:

While I think it’s admirable to learn and use zhuyin, IMO you really should learn to read pinyin, which won’t take any extra work at all. It’s a simple and fairly logical system.

The Yahoo one is good, you can also try using the Ministry of Education’s website: dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/index.html This gives bpmf, Hanyu pinyin, and Zhuyin 2.0 or whatever the English name is, if for some godforsaken reason you wanted that.

I did a two-minute search on the Android Market and found the Hanping Chinese Dictionary. It supports Pinyin and Zhuyin (Bopomofo), and it uses the CC-Edict, which downloads onto the phone, which makes it hella fast!

Hi Everyone!
Thanks for your replies to my query!
I have started using the Yahoo and the Ministry of Education’s website for the characters I need to read.
ehophi - thanks for the info on this app…I’m going to download this onto my phone!
Maybe I’ll start learning Pinyin too it does seem logical.
Thank you again everyone!

I know this thread is a year old at this point, but I thought I would reply with useful information if anyone else looks for “Online Chinese English Dictionary Bopomofo” as I just did and was routed here. I have found at least one semi-decent online dictionary, albeit very limited in the number of words available.

http://www.zhongwen.com offers many ways to look words up including by Bopomofo which I find very helpful, though again, it’s got a very limited vocabulary over all and thus isn’t always the best to use if you are trying to decipher today’s homework or read a book. The structure of this dictionary takes a bit to get used to, thankfully it was my first Chinese English Dictionary (in book form) and I mastered it quickly. I actually prefer it’s layout now to the standard radical / stroke count format which seems unnecessarily complex.

I just found (via the search that led me here) this little gem which seems decent enough at first glance. Words can be searched via a graph / chart that gives every PinYin pronunciation — but Bopomofo is across and down so you can check to verify it’s what you want. Here’s the link for that one. http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Lindict/

On the Android network I found an incredibly useful dictionary for free download called HanPing — it can be switched to Bopomofo… but it doesn’t stay there. Every time I change the battery on my phone I wind up having to reset my preferences. Not available as a purchase unless you do so from a market outside of Taiwan (at least it was this way last year when I first got it…) still it’s saved me countless hours of look up time and is probably the best dictionary I’ve encountered to date. Since it’s on my phone, it goes everywhere I do. No complaints — and you can actually write the word you’re looking for on the screen without care to stroke order, in my mind that’s a total bonus.

anyone else find anything out there that is worth checking into?

You can use Trainchinese.com.

There’s an AWESOME app, too, and you can even have it show the tones in colors!

I would recommend moedict.tw/

it also has an app.

play.google.com/store/apps/deta … t.dict.moe