Customer Reviews

Chinese-English Dictionary

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
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The only other English-Chinese dictionaries w/ Cantonese pronuncation I can find are: One from Rita Choy, which is just a 3200 character list without compounds, another one from Rita Choy which is a beginner's guide that includes (among other references) compounds for 801 characters, and one from Roy T. Cowles, first written in 1914, which contains ~5300 characters including a lot of "Cantonese" characters (ones not found in regular Chinese publications), but requires you to flip to other page(s) to look up compounds, and I sometimes can't find modern newspaper characters in it. Please let me know if you know of other C-E dictionaries w/ Cantonese romanizaton.

This one is more complete, ~6000 char's, and so far, I haven't found a newspaper/magazine character I wanted to look up that's not in it. It lists the compounds (usually 2 per char) along with their Yale Cantonese pronouncation underneath the main char. The pinyin Mandarin pronounciation is also given for the main char. Char's can be searched by radical, stroke count, and Cantonese pronouncation. It even has a plastic coated cover to protect it from wear!

Its main drawback is that it only lists traditional char's, without the simplified ones used in mainland China. Also, because of the limited number of compounds, it is best used along side a more comprehensive C-E dictionary.

Oops, to correct a mistake in my previous 1/12/01 review, I meant to say that the indices only lists traditional characters and traditional radicals, so you can only look up traditional characters. So if you want to look up a simplified character, you need to know its traditional form first. The simplified form, as well as the common traditional variant(s), is listed in parenthesis after you've found the traditional one.

This is an excellent resource for native cantonese speakers. I agree with another reviewer that in chinese you use a combination of words that create a whole word. If that is what the other reviewer is looking for then I'd recommend the "Glossary of Common Colloquial Cantonese Expressions," by Simon So; "Dictionary of Cantonese Slang," by Christopher Hutton and Kingsley Bolton.

This dictionary is very helpful because it has 6000 listings of characters and within the definitions it gives examples of how words are used. I find it useful and I am very happy with this dictionary. If as other reviewers are looking for a dictionary with simplified characters, look elsewhere. This is a traditional character dictionary geared toward traditional chinese. Within each definition it includes the mandarin pingyin pronounciation for those who are reading the characters using the traditonal format in mandarin.

This is a much needed dictionary for people wanting to learn Cantonese. It is very useful, well printed, and nicely done. However I have 2 minor issues: (1) it lacks a Mandarin index so if I know how the character sounds in Mandarin, I have to resort to tedious radical and/or stroke lookup to find the Cantonese pronounciation; and (2) the Cantonese romanization used doesn't explicitly distinguish between a short 'i' and a long 'i'.

This dictionary is excellent for finding individual characters and their meanings. However, it is not a ready source for finding whole words (most chinese words consist of 2 or more characters). In other words, a person could find the characters ¤ơ and ¨® and they're respective meanings, fire and car, quite easily, but ¤ơ¨® (train)- is not listed.

The dictionary's strong points are that it uses Yale romanization for Cantonese and standard pinyin for Mandarin; that characters can be looked up in three ways: radical, number of strokes, and Cantonese romanization; and the detail of its listings.

If it had a Mandarin pinyin index and simplified characther look up as well it would be a much more useful tool. As it is, it is indespesible for a Cantonese speaker learning Mandarin and one of the easiest dictionaries to use to look up a character. I recommend it highly for intermediate to advanced Cantonese speakers, and I would even suggest it to students of Mandarin (although not as strongly).

Hello, Everyone, I have used this dictionary for over 2 years. This dictionary does come in handy with most characters, but some characters having a hard time pronouncing the tonal and sound. I would recommend that you buy a supplement cantonese dictionary. I'm kind of a native cantonese sometime, I have had a hard time pronouncing the yale romanization using this dictionary. For basic character or characters, you can use this dictionary for pronouncation or definition. I have used this dictionary and other supplementary cantonese dictionary to back up my correction pronouncation. Basically, this dictionary is very handy for learning prnouncation for cantonese and definition.

Compact size, but has Cantonese pronunciation too. For a Chinese dictionary, the layout is standard with mandarin pronunciations, use of the characters in the sentence, but the cantonese aspect was the ultimate selling point for me. For someone who is a beginner Chinese learner, Greta for carrying around and will have more than sufficient characters. The character search is based on the strokes of how each character is written, which I be lelieve reinforces the language. Great buy.

This book is the most useful Cantonese book ever. Where I am now, victoria bc, I cant find any good books on Cantonese at any bookstore and all they have is mostly Mandarin. They dont have any dictionaries either. So, Im SO glad I bought this book. Now I don't have to keep asking older people what each character means. Its really handy if I don't have a computer too. Even though I bought a used one, it looked brand new. It was a sweet deal.

This book has been an incredible help to me in trying to learn to read and write Cantonese on my own. It is the first book I have found that has the English word, the Chinese character, and the Cantonese Romanised Yale. I just wish that someone would write a comparable dictionary in English/Cantonese. If you have to have one book out of all the choices there are, this is the one to make

I can find the characters I want with ease. You can find by # of strokes or Romanization or 'radical index (Bouh sau)'. Very nice work. So far, I never had any problems. BTW, this '# of stroke' look-up feature comes in handy when you have no clue of radical or pronounciation.

While this also includes the pronounciation of Mandarin Chinese (which by the way can come in handy for Mandarin Chinese study), it is a Cantonese dictionary.