HarperCollins Pocket Chinese Dictionary [Paperback]

HarperCollins Publishers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2005

The most up-to-date and easy-to-use pocket dictionary available

• Clear color layout for maximum ease of use
• More than 60,000 words, phrases, and authentic examples of Mandarin Chinese and English
• Comprehensive radical index
• Pinyin romanization of every entry for ease of reference
• Clear notes explaining difficulties of grammar usage
• Unique Chinese In Action supplement offering practical help with essential expressions

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

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HarperCollins Publishers is one of the world's leading English-language publishers with headquarters in New York. The company is part of News America Publishing Group, a division of News Corporation. The house of Mark Twain, the Bronte Sisters, Thackeray, Dickens, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Maurice Sendak, HarperCollins was founded in New York City in 1817 by the brothers James and John Harper. The worldwide book group, which was formed following News Corporation's acquisition of the British publisher William Collins in January 1990, has significant publishing interests in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1280 pages
• Publisher: Collins Reference; Bilingual edition (February 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060595329
• ISBN-13: 978-0060595326
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 3.9 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #817,738 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Has Its Good Points, but No Pinyin for English-Chinese, May 16, 2005

By 

M. Natraj (Oslo, Norway) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: HarperCollins Pocket Chinese Dictionary (Paperback)

The biggest drawback of this dictionary is that in the English-to-Chinese portion, the translations are written only in Chinese characters. For the novice or conversational Chinese student, this makes that half of the dictionary unusable, as there is no way to know how to pronounce the words.

In general, however, the layout of the dictionary is quite nice. The paper is thick enough that printing on the back of the page doesn't show through as it does in some dictionaries. Also, the word listings are printed in blue, which allows you to quickly scan a page when looking for a particular entry.

The Chinese-to-English section is actually quite nice. The words are ordered alphabetically by their pinyin pronunciations, and the listings are printed with both the Chinese character (in a larger font which makes it easier to see the details) and the pinyin phonetic spelling. There is also an index to look up Chinese words by character (using one of the stroke count systems).

Overall, the dictionary appears extremely well laid out and easy to use, but the lack of pinyin in the English-Chinese translations really makes the book useless for a beginner like me!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars lack of pinyin for English->Chinese a huge problem for English speakers learning Chinese, January 22, 2010

By 

L. David Baron (Palo Alto, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: HarperCollins Pocket Chinese Dictionary (Paperback)

As mentioned by another reviewer, the lack of pinyin in the English to Chinese part of this dictionary is a huge problem; it means that if you look up an English word and want to know how to pronounce the Chinese equivalent, you need to look up the Chinese (which requires looking up each character by radical and stroke count). Likewise, to learn more about each character within the Chinese, you need to look up each one by radical and stroke count rather than going directly to the character (since the Chinese part of the dictionary is sorted by pinyin, with a radical/stroke index).

The Collins Chinese Concise Dictionary is very similar to this, but has that one glaring problem fixed, and is therefore much more useful. Its extra inch of width and half inch of height is definitely worth it.

4.0 out of 5 stars Chinese to English part is quite good, May 20, 2009

By 

Romans 6:23 - See all my reviews

This review is from: HarperCollins Pocket Chinese Dictionary (Paperback)

I am a Chinese grew up in Hong Kong and finish high school before I came to America. Since my native dialect is Cantonese, I use this dictionary to learn pinyin. My comment here is only regarding the Chinese to English part: when I compare this dictionay to Pocket Oxford Chinese Dictionary ISBN 978-0-19-596-8330, I found that HarperCollin Pocket Chinese Dictionary has better and more Chinese phrases and idioms than the Oxford one. For me, I enjoy relearning those common and traditional Chinese phrases and idioms more in the HarperCollin dictionary.

However, for beginner/intermediate students wanting to learn Chinese, the Oxford Chinese Dictionary may be better overall:
1. The typeset is a little bigger and easier to read.
2. It has both Simplified and Traditional words.
3. It has pretty good translation overall.