Chinese-English Dictionary (A Chinese-English Dictionary Compiled for the China Inland Mission) [Hardcover]

Robert Henry Mathews (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1943 | ISBN-10: 0674123506 | ISBN-13: 978-0674123502 | Edition: Revised

This volume meets the demand for a small dictionary which is at the same time comprehensive enough for the needs of the ordinary student. It contains 7,773 Chinese characters and 104,000 compounds taken from the classics, general literature, magazines, and newspapers. Published in 1931, it has been thoroughly revised and brought up to date in this new edition. All necessary corrections in regard to pronunciation have been made; the tones of the characters have been checked; and a large number of new terms have been added in order to facilitate the reading of contemporary periodicals and newspapers--whether political, economic, chemical, or military.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1226 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press; Revised edition (January 1, 1943)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674123506
• ISBN-13: 978-0674123502
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.6 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #970,172 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #51 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Geography

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Old, but still valuable, January 11, 2000

By 

William E. Smith (L.A. Calif.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chinese-English Dictionary (A Chinese-English Dictionary Compiled for the China Inland Mission) (Hardcover)

What does a dictionary first published in 1931, last revised in 1944, uses an antiquated system of Romanization and is weighted towards expressions from literary style Chinese have to offer the student of modern Chinese? The answer is plenty. This dictionary, for all of its shortcomings, is an indispensable tool for the serious student of Chinese. It covers material that is not in many of the more modern dictionaries; material that was omitted for reasons of economy. It also provides an invaluable mechanism to cross check the entries of the more modern books, providing alternate and additional meanings for words. Moreover, it provides a snap-shot of the language as it existed decades ago, providing insights into how best to translate material from the period of time when modern Chinese prose was taking form.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A useful old dictionary, but be careful with it, December 22, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Chinese-English Dictionary (A Chinese-English Dictionary Compiled for the China Inland Mission) (Hardcover)

Some of the other reviews on this page point out that certain Chinese-Chinese dictionaries are better than Mathews. But that's hardly a fair criticism; you have to compare it to other Chinese-English dictionaries, and those that take the classical language into account are hard to come by. (One work that is rapidly gaining in popularity is the Taiwanese Far East Chinese-English dictionary, which is expanded from an older dictionary compiled by Liang Shih-ch'iu.)

There are several problems with the Mathews dictionary, and the old Romanization is the least of them. More disturbing are Mathews's erroneous pronunciations, which are too frequent. You cannot rely on him at all for tones, for example. In the second edition, the great Y.R. Chao went through all of the entries and corrected many of Mathews's errors--but the press did not re-alphabetize the entries to reflect the corrected pronunciations, so if you are looking up a character with a pronunciation that Mathews happened to get wrong, you'll have to go back and use the stroke index to find it, unless you want to try and guess which mistaken reading Mathews might used. Both alternatives are irritating.

As another reviewer pointed out, Mathews does not provide any historical context for his definitions. One simply cannot tell whether a compound is modern or ancient--or, more dangerously, how the meaning of a compound may have changed over time. To be sure, there is a limit to how comprehensive a one-volume dictionary can be. But it still should be possible to give some brief indication as to whether a particular sense is attested in the classical language.

In sum, this dictionary is still useful, and a student will want it on his or her shelf, but it can be both frustrating and misleading.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great for starters, but Chinese sources better down the road, April 25, 2001

By 

Scott Honey (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chinese-English Dictionary (A Chinese-English Dictionary Compiled for the China Inland Mission) (Hardcover)

When I first started studying Classical Chinese, I used this book so often that I photocopied the character indexes to save time. However, I haven't opened it too often since those first classes.

The definitions seemed adequate at the time, and it is in English (especially useful when the word is some random object from centuries past), but I found the following things got in my way:

1. It uses an odd spelling system (Wade-Giles is more difficult than pinyin and zhuyin)
2. It sometimes didn't have the depth of the word I was looking for (forcing me to consult Chinese sources -- I should have started off with the Chinese sources.)
3. There is little context for definitions (historical notes or quotes from classical texts).

Although it's a good start, once you're relatively comfortable with modern and classical Chinese, it's probably a good idea to move on to Chinese sources -- at Berkeley we often use Gu hanyu changyong zi zidian for words that we don't need ALL of the information for, and the hanyu da cidian (or zhongwen da cidian, etc.) for stuff that needs lots of detail.