A Practical English-Chinese Pronouncing Dictionary (Tuttle Language Library) (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition) [Paperback]

Janey Chen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 1992 | ISBN-10: 0804818770 | ISBN-13: 978-0804818773

Containing more than 15,000 common words, this concise volume provides both Mandarin and Cantonese romanizations and pronunciations along with traditional characters (appendix with simplified characters is provided) arranged in a clear four-column format - English word, Chinese character(s), romanization in Mandarin, and romanization in Cantonese.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Chinese --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Janey Chen is a graduate of the National Southwest Associated University of China. She is a former teacher of Mandarin at the Taipei Language Institute in Taiwan and of Cantonese at the Chinese Language Center, the New Asia Colllege, and the Chinese University in Hong Kong.

Product Details

• Paperback: 600 pages
• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing (September 15, 1992)
• Language: English, Mandarin Chinese
• ISBN-10: 0804818770
• ISBN-13: 978-0804818773
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,306,243 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful reference in back, decent main vocab list, January 10, 2001

By 

E. Chan (Bay Area, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Practical English-Chinese Pronouncing Dictionary (Tuttle Language Library) (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition) (Paperback)

This book consists of a long vocabulary list and a reference section. The vocabulary list is kind of old. I got a real kick when I opened its map of China and still see "xikang" province - I did an internet search and found out that this province was split up between Tibet and Sichuan provinces back in the 50's! Kind of shows you the dating of the vocab list, which uses the bopomofo/Yale mandarin romanization (NOT the commonly used Pinyin) and Yale cantonese romanization.

A useful part of the vocab list is that it lists the "spoken" Cantonese pronunciation. For example, a cockcroach is written as jeung1long4, but spoken as gaat6jaat2.

I find myself using the reference section more than the vocubulary list. It includes the pronuncations for christian and bhuddist religious terms, including the books of the bible (protestant & catholic), as well as a list of military terms. It also has lists of Simplified/Traditional Chinese characters, chinese calendar solar terms, summary of chinese dynasties, 100 surnames, and a pretty deep discussion of family relation appellations.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciation., December 22, 1997

By 

Dale Dellinger - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Practical English-Chinese Pronouncing Dictionary (Tuttle Language Library) (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition) (Paperback)

This dictionary's strong point is that it has both Mandarin pronunciation (bo-po-mo-fo and Yale romanization), and Cantonese for each word. There are also appendices on religious terms (apparently for use by missionaries) and military terms.

On the downside, the book appears to be from pre-WWII so newer terms are not present. Also, the definitions have no explanations or usage examples. The typeface for the Chinese characters is a serif style which makes it harder to read than it should be.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great, but with serious typos!, July 1, 2005

By 

Jerry L. the Bibliophile (California, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Practical English-Chinese Pronouncing Dictionary (Tuttle Language Library) (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition) (Paperback)

I found this book pretty useful - many of the phrases are the ones you normally hear in everyday (Taiwanese) conversation. The characters are in traditional form. The compiler/author, Janey Chen, also does a good job compiling a list of religious terms in the back.

However, I do want you to watch out for WRONG TONE MARKINGS! Sometimes the romanization gives the correct tone while the bo po mo fo phonetics gives the wrong tone - and thus ANOTHER MEANING. The author seems to know what she means, but it's probably the blurry typesetting or careless typist that creates serious mistakes. If you want to learn a phrase from the book that is very important to you, be sure to VERIFY the tone markings in a reliable dictionary (like the Far East Chinese-English Dictionary). The romanization is also not standard, and it's something about this book that I don't like.

Basically, the translations are great, and you can learn new characters quickly, but it would be very helpful if a native Chinese speaker can help you verify that the tone markings are correct. Also, rarely the bo po mo fo pronunciation even goes wrong.

NOTE: Old-styled binding and typesetting. Published in 1970 and not revised, a little too old.