AM99 Electronic English Chinese Talking Dictionary for Learning Chinese

by BBK

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 4.6 x 2.7 x 0.6 inches ; 4 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• ASIN: B000CPS3SY
• Item model number: AM99
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #49 in Electronics > Office Electronics > Electronic Dictionaries, Thesauri & Translators > Foreign Language Dictionaries
• Date first available at Amazon.com: December 3, 2005

Product Description

For English speaker learning Chinese Mandarin, business travelers to China, AM99 is an indispensable tool that provides instant English-to-Chinese and Chinese-to-English bi-directional translations and dictionaries. The BBK AM99 provides authentic pronunciation in both Mandarin Chinese and American English, with both Pinyin and Phonetic display for the Chinese translations. Besides, AM99 includes English and Chinese idiom dictionaries, specialized technical dictionaries for Biology, Computers, Business, Western and Chinese Medicine. An uniquely designed and comprehensively grouped vocabulary with common dialogue phrases help travelers to navigate in Chinese, as well as convenience features including Calendar, World Clock, Alarm, Stop Watch, Timer, Calculator, and Unit and Currency Converters. Other functions include Knowledgebase for Music, Poetry, Arts, History, Chinese Handwriting, Travel Sites, and Chinese customs, training tools for Spelling, Pinyin, Phonetic, and US Citizenship quiz. AM99 comes with carrying bag, earphone, user manual, and AAA battery, with one-year parts and labor warranty.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lightweight and large number of dictionary entries, but can be frustrating for intermediate Chinese learners, August 20, 2007

By 

Tabitha Krug (Zhejiang, China) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: AM99 Electronic English Chinese Talking Dictionary for Learning Chinese (Electronics)

I bought this to replace the heavy pocket dictionary I usually carry around in my purse as I gallivant around China. As I am now at an intermediate learning level in Chinese, my checklist of important features might be different from that of other buyers.

Lightweight: check. It's still a noticable weight in my purse, but it's a relief from the thick pocket dictionary.

Sufficient dictionary size: check. I have already used this to look up hundreds of words and phrases, usually checking how it compares to my pocket dictionary. So far it has had almost every word I've looked for. As for phrases, it has some that my pocket dictionary doesn't have, but lacks others that the book does include. Overall, I'm satisfied with the number of entries.

Able to look up Chinese characters: check. If I see a character on the street that I really want to learn, I can use radicals to look it up. It's not easy, but it works the same way as standard dictionaries. BUT, the frustrating thing is this: when I look up a character, it doesn't tell me the pinyin. I can press the audio button to listen to its pronunciation, but the voice is somewhat muffled and difficult to understand. I often have to guess what the real pronunciation is and double check by looking up the character using pinyin. Also, there is another problem I didn't even consider. If I hear someone say "Jia(1) you(2)!" and try to look it up, I can't just enter the pinyin and hope to find a matching word or phrase. First I must enter "jia" and find the correct character. After I have the first character, I can then type in "you" and easily find the phrase. But if I only heard someone say the phrase on the street, I probably don't know what characters it's made up of. This makes it impossible to look up the phrase.

User friendly: fairly good. My biggest complaint is the inability to turn off all sounds. When searching for a character using pinyin, dictionary pronounces each part of the word I enter (quite loudly). Besides slowing things down and being almost pointless, it's impossible to turn off. I went to settings and turned off both "Music" and "KeySnd" sounds AND turned volume to zero, but the annoying voice was still audible. If I want to use this in class, I'll have to also plug in the earphones.

After using this dictionary for a few weeks, I think it's obvious that it was designed with Chinese speakers learning English in mind. As an example, you can't find "New York" or even "China" in the English-->Chinese dictionary, but look up the Chinese words and you'll find the English translation. However, it's still usable for English speakers and is the cheapest electronic dictionary I've found. It also came with ear buds and a soft black protective case. That was a nice surprise.

I would recommend this product, but be aware of the drawbacks.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars nice...but....., September 3, 2006

By 

G. Elam (OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: AM99 Electronic English Chinese Talking Dictionary for Learning Chinese (Electronics)

I found the AM99 to be pretty easy to understand and to begin using. It doesn't have all the words that I had been learning buy studying the Pimsleur Mandarin course but that was to be somewhat expected. My only disappointment was the Pinyin input capabilities. 1st you cannot enter tones. 2nd the results are all in Chinese and you have to select each character to get it's English meaning and you have to start all over to go to the next character. 3rd there were several Pinyin words that I tried to enter but the Am99 would not accept them. Try a simple word such as "nar3" and you can only input "na". Pinyin input was the #1 reason I went with the AM99 and after getting it Pinyin input is my #1 complaint. The AM99 also is limited due to its clock functions being set to Beijing. You set it for you local time (wherever that is) and the AM99 takes that to be Beijing local.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A cool way to learn Chinese, February 3, 2006

By 

J. Ma - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: AM99 Electronic English Chinese Talking Dictionary for Learning Chinese (Electronics)

I bought one unit as a Christmas gift for my eleven year old daughter who is learning Chinese. She absolutely loves it. I asked her why she liked it so much. She said: "It helps me to do my homework". So I sat down not too far from her one day watching her doing homework. I summarize a few points here.

1) Which character to use?
If she doesn't know how to write a character, but she knows the English meaning, she'd type in the English word in the dictionary, and then look for the character. Another way is that she forgets a character but knows its pinyin, she'd type in the pinyin to find the character.

2) How to pronounce a character?
When she reads, but then sees a character that she doesn't know how to pronounce. She then figures out the radicals and the number of strokes of the character, enters those in the dictionary, and then press a button, the dictionary will pronounce it in mandarin. It also shows the pinyin.

3) A booklet of essential Chinese
It comes with a booklet of essential Chinese. She thinks that it's easy for her, since she has been in Chinese school for a few years now.

I am really glad that I bought her this learning device. It's a helping hand, and she learns to rely on herself to study Chinese. It's not a headache any more to find the correct characters, and not knowing how to say a character she hasn't learn or forgets.