Customer Reviews

A Chinese-English Dictionary

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This dictionary ("A Chinese-English Dictionary"; [...]) was first published in 1978 in Beijing, and reprinted several times later on, both in PRC and elsewhere. The copy I own (ISBN 7100001307; but the cover looks exactly like the one shown at Amazon's listing for 7100005302) was printed in 1988, but the text is apparently identical to the original edition.

Despite its age, this is still likely one of the best big Chinese-English dictionaries in existence.

The size of the dictionary (976 p main body + 31 p preliminary matter), alows it to be quite complete. It includes some 6000-7000 characters, apparently covering practically every character that one is likely to encounter in modern printed matter from PRC. However it is not a "character dictionary" "zidian"), but a word dictionary ("cidian"): character articles are arranged in the Pinyin alphabetic order, and within each character article there are numerous articles for 2-, 3-, 4-character words and expressions that start with that character, all alphabetically ordered. For the users who don't speak the language, a radical-based character index is provided as well. There is no stroke-count based index, though.

The coolest feature of the book are numerous examples it gives. Two particularly interesting categories of examples may make one read the disctionary just for its entertainment value. First, pithy folksy sayings [...]: "Don't pull on your shoe in a melon patch; don't adjust your cap under a plum tree" -- don't do anything to arouse suspicions). Second, political phraseology from the eras of the Cultural Revolution and the Four Modernizations. [...] zou3gou3: running dog; lackey; flunkey; stooge; servile follower).

Dictionary articles are well provided with explanations and, when necessary, usage markers (labeling some words or meanings as measure words, archaic words, colloquialisms; regional expressions, scientific terms, etc.). However, as the dictionary as mainly intended for Chinese users, most of this explanatory matter is in Chinese as well.

English translations are good, and -- unlike certain other dictionaries -- rarely appear unidiomatic or stilted (as much as it is possible to achieve that when translating the subject matter...). Considering the conditions of the time, both the Chinese and Anglo members of the production team did an admirable job.

Written in simplified characters, the dictionary is not as convenient for reading texts written in traditional characters. There is an appendix with traditional characters alright; but, unfortunately, the way it is arranged, it is more suitable for looking up the traditional form based on the simplified character, rather than vice versa (which you'd probably want to do to read a book from Taiwan or Hong Kong).

As pretty much all standard Chinese dictionaries, it is focused on Putonghua (Standard Mandarin), so, not surprisingly, it
will not be of much help for reading something written e.g. in Cantonese.

Typographically, my edition (1988 printing -- which I bought a few years ago as the only Chinese dictionary that happened to be sold in my then-hometown in Canada) is in a rather poor shape, with printing not always easy to read, and binding not surviving heavy use too well. Hopefully, later reprints are better printed and more sturdily bound.

Overall, even though I don't know the language, and am not likely to ever learn much, the purchase was worth it for me. There are many smaller dictionaries on the market, specifically designed for a student or traveller, and they will serve their practical purposes better. But as a cultural artefact and a standard reference, this one was certainly worth it for me.

If you are only going to get one chinese dictionary, this should be it. The format is extremely convenient and the content superb given its size and price. Also, since it was written under the auspices of the Communist Chinese government, most of the example sentences are about american imperialists and so forth, which is very funny to read. It is hard for us, living in a democratic society, to really appreciate what it would be like under a totalitarian regime, and this gives us a taste of the blatant propaganda. So, not only is this dictionary useful, it is also entertaining!

The dictionary is great if you speak Chinese but are a little rusty on writing the characters. The format is simple. The characters are organized by the Pinyin system. If you want to look up "friend" then you look for "Peng" and then there are four subgroups of "Peng" according to tone. After you are to the right tone you look up the second character "You". There it is. Pengyou

I was looking for a Chinese dictionary and this seemed quite concise. However, the print is very small so what I intended to give as a gift was not to be so. The paper is not good quality. The positive is that it forces you to look carefully at the tone and character when you look up words.

I agree with the other two reviewers in every thing they said: this is an easy to use dictionary, and very entertaining, but the thing that sold me was that a) in addition to being organized in alphabetical pinyin order (though it still has a radical index of course) all the words have the pinyin pronunciation (though not the example sentences of course) and b--very important to me- there is also a table in the back to find the TRADITIONAL forms of characters that are still used in the ROC (Taiwan), Hong Kong and the US!!

Also included are charts comparing the various phonetic systems for transliterating Chinese (including the international phonetic alphabet). It has a Chronology of Chinese History, the periodic chart in Chinese, metric/imperial conversions, a pretty comprehensive list of Countries, Capitols and Currencies....even a list of the "12 Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches" and the "24 Solar Terms" (whatever they are!)

Finally, what really truly tickles me are the example sentences, most of which are full of Maoist propaganda ("We're in the new society, grandma; your OLD WAY OF DOING THINGS is no good anymore." or... "Revisionism is an International bourgeois ideological TREND ) Then there are the example sentences that are just so very Chinese ( "The water buffalo SQUELCHED up and down the paddy fields, pulling the plow")