German dictionary

heijopai

秀才
Dear all,

I am thinking about buying a German dictionary as I think Handedict is soso.

However I am a little overwhelmed by the number of dictionaries available. Is there a good resource for comparing them or do you have experiences with some of them?

Best regards and thanks

Hjp
 

Shun

状元
Dear Hjp,

in my view, the "Das Neue Chinesisch-Deutsche Wörterbuch" is clearly the most useful, most extensive Chinese-German dictionary available on Pleco, with detailed definitions and plenty of realistic example sentences. I rarely feel the need to use any of the others, whose definitions are much shorter. Even though the "Das Neue Chinesisch-Deutsche Wörterbuch" project was started in the 1960s, it still seems to work well with present-day Chinese in most cases. The printed version also looks well made, it's a rather massive red tome:

Das Neue Chinesisch-Deutsche Wörterbuch.jpg


I noticed that it sometimes shares example sentences with one of the Oxford dictionaries. I don't know if that was an official cooperation between the two, or just copying.

Hope this helps your decision a bit,

Shun
 
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heijopai

秀才
Thanks for the answers! That helps a bit.
Maybe as additional information: I am creating Anki flashcards with Pleco. Thus, I want the definitions to be rather short. Otherwise, one side is very unhandy and hard to grasp. ...

Can you say something about this @Shun?

@HW60 Is that also available in Pleco or do you offer this as a hard copy alternative?
 

Shun

状元
Hi heijopai,

You're welcome! I'm glad. There is a setting to export the cards without example sentences, which will make the definitions much shorter. Just be sure to read enough Chinese on the side, so you will get a good feeling for how the words are used. Here's a sample of four random entries without example sentences:

-------------

如今 ru2jin1 heute; jetzt; gegenwärtig; heutzutage; in der heutigen Zeit
忽然 hu1ran2 plötzlich; unversehens; unerwartet; auf einmal; jählings
开放 kai1fang4 1 展开 blühen vi; sich öffnen; (Knospe) aufgehen vi 2 解除禁令 ein Verbot (bzw. eine Einschränkung) aufheben 3 允许使用 für den Verkehr (bzw. den öffentlichen Gebrauch) freigeben (od. öffnen)
根 gen1 1 植物的根部 Wurzel f 2 数 Wurzel f 3 化 Radikal n 4 下部 Fuß m; Ende n; Basis f 5 本源 Ursprung m; Ursache f 6 彻底 gründlich; vollkommen 7 量 (用于细长的东西)

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I also checked if the "Das Neue Chinesisch-Deutsche Wörterbuch" lets you export definitions at all, and as you can see, I found that it does. (Not all dictionaries allow you to do that, because of licensing restrictions.)

Have fun, Shun
 
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