Chinese-Chinese dictionary and paper versions

David

举人
I would love to have a good Chinese-Chinese dictionary as one of the dictionaries. If you needed a recommendation on a good dictionary, I could recommend one, but it looks like you've done a good job in finding the NWP and ABC dictionaries. If Plecodict included a Chinese dictionary, I think any Chinese teacher would have no choice but to force her students to buy a PDA and Plecodict.

I didn't put this post under Plecodict because I also have a second idea. How about discounts on the paper versions of the dictionaries for those who have bought the electronic version? The NWP dictionary looks like it would be fun to browse through. And it looks like it would be hard to pick up a copy of it unless special arrangements were made. But I don't know if there'd really be much interest in this.
 

goulniky

榜眼
I second the idea of a C-C dictionary, that would actually be great (probably some implications on your choice of icons to switch dict). I often shy away from C-C paper dictionaries, that would involve to much manipulation when stumbling across something I don't understand in the explanation. But if there was a way to either switch back and forth between C-C and C-E, as well as highlighting hanzis in a definition and getting *their* definition, that would be terrific!
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
We've been trying to license a good C-C dictionary for a while now, but we haven't yet been able to make much headway with publishers - we're still working on it, though. (I'd love to see a great reference work like the Xiandai Hanyu Cidian available on Palm OS / Pocket PC)

And discounted paper versions are an interesting idea - maybe not so much for the Oxford since that's pretty widely available in bookstores, but the ABC/NWP dictionaries aren't quite so easy-to-find and might be something people would like to have. Negotiating discounts with the publishers could be tricky, though.
 
Put me down in favor of a Chinese-Chinese dictionary as well. I thought about buying a stand-alone device here in kunming for that purpose, but I'd prefer to keep everything, flashcards incl, on my palm.

Good luck with the search.
 

David

举人
Other than the ABC, the best dictionaries I've found are:

The New Century Advanced Chinese Dictionary
http://www.learners.com.sg/viewbook.asp?bookid=36
A Chinese-Chinese dictionary with easy-to-understand definitions. Also includes some extras, such as how to distinguish between synonyms.

and the Cheng & Tsui Chinese-Pinyin-English Dictionary for Learners
http://www.cheng-tsui.com/sb_catalog-csm.asp?grp=PT++&item=++++++++0887273165

This Chinese-English dictionary doesn't have a lot of entries, but the entries are the most comprehensive I've seen--lots of examples with pinyin and excellent English translations. Many words also include simple Chinese definitions.


All of these dictionaries concentrate on PRC Chinese. I haven't found a comparably good dictionary compiled in Taiwan (and I've done a lot of looking). I've heard the print version ABC contains information on Taiwan guoyu pronunciation and lists which characters are bound/unbound. We can probably look forward to that info on the PDA in a future release.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
We've already tried and failed to license that Cheng & Tsui one, but thanks for the recommendation on the New Century dictionary - I'll take a look at that.

And yes, the ABC does contain a lot of that reference information, and we received those data files along with the dictionary, so we should be able to include them in a future release. (if PlecoDict weren't so far behind schedule we'd have done them in 1.0)
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
We've already negotiated a license for one (not announcing which one just yet); we're still hammering out the contract, and it's quite possible that the deal could fall through, but assuing things proceed smoothly we're hoping to be able to make an announcement sometime in the next few months.
 
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