ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary (ABC Chinese Dictionary Series, 9) (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition)

A superbly complete and accurate work, worth every penny! Like the earlier and more portable 71,000-entry ABC Chinese-English Dictionary (another great book, reviewed separately), this is ordered strictly by pinyin, so you needn't know the characters in a word you hear in order to look it up. But it improves greatly on the original ABC in many important ways besides its comprehensive content (over 196,000 entries). Most vital is the addition of the traditional characters next to the simplified for compounds as well (the original had them only for main entries). A second huge improvement is that the characters making up compounds are now listed singly *even if* they only occur in compounds, e.g., hu2 and die2 (butterfly) are now listed among the other hu2 and die2 main entries, but it clearly marks that they are bound forms occurring only in the compound hu2die2 (so you know not to use them alone). Actually, the dictionary goes into even more detail, distinguishing characters which are bound in one meaning like sheng1 as in xue2sheng1 student, but not in another like 'to give birth'. Third is the invaluable addition of measure words, in several ways. By an entry such as umbrella (whether you look it up as the character san3 or the compound yu3san3), you'll find "M: 1ba3" (superscripted 1, then 3rd tone ba with diacritical). The measure word is thus ba3, and the 1 means it's the first character listed under the ba3 entries, so you can easily find it if you don't know it. There's also an appendix of measure words (4 pages worth, unlike many of the measly lists in some other books), not only nominal (to count nouns) but also verbal (for actions, like tang4 in pao3le yi2tang4, made one trip). Incredibly helpful! Fourth, the top quality binding (library-style, cloth) will last a lifetime, and is worth every penny. Fifth, yes, its comprehensive content, over 196,000 entries, meaning it will definitely still be useful to you when your Chinese reaches an advanced, even fluent level, and they've been able to add much more slang and colloquial words, as well as more Taiwan vs. PRC usage. Finally, (and this is important) the compilers have been phenomenally careful and professional, truly meticulous and accurate, unlike sloppy, error-laden works like UMUM's Learner's CED or Harbaugh's Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary. They have also been very responsive to reader input, as is evidenced by the many improvements to this edition. Absolutely one of the best Chinese-English dictionaries in existence, and a definite must-buy!

I have this dictionary both in the book format and as a software (Wenlin electronic dictionary is based on this one). I have found this dictionary particularly useful because the words are arranged in alphabetically order using pinyin - when I was going initially through Rosetta Stone's program for learning Chinese. Dictionary contains over 196,000 entries - well, if you're serious about learning Chinese, you may as well get a comprehensive dictionary to begin with. It will be useful for a long time. Beside the pinyin listing, you'll find both simplified Chinese characters, and complex characters - complex / traditional characters are in brackets. Parts of speech and abbreviations related to the area where the word may be encountered (e.g. medicine, photography, etc) are also marked beside characters. I'm so much in love with the Wenlin program, that I have to add a few words about the electronic version of this dictionary. One advantage of Wenlin is that you can hear the words, phrases and entire sentences pronounced. You can also enter text in pinyin, in Chinese characters, or in English. It is very useful when you desire to translate the information you found on the Internet because you can just copy and paste the Chinese text, and while this program is not considered to be a translator - it will help you a great deal in that respect, too. Other than that it will give you an assortment of lists related to the character or word - according to the frequency, stroke count, radicals and much more. It's totally awesome!

Learners desperately need some things that, as far as I know, are only all collected in this dictionary: Frequency-ordered definitions, not chronologically ordered. A table of radicals with all the typical graphical variants listed by their own stroke count and writing, not their 'official' form's. A succinct chart of the more tractable Simplified/Traditional correspondences. (As opposed to the widespread practice of pretending a learner can postpone coming to grips with one or the other system.) A summary of variation between fonts, between national standards, etc. Morphology: Whether a character is bound or free, or both but with different meanings, etc. Because after all, Mandarin is not Wenyan, and a learner can't afford to pretend it's all made of one-syllable words.

I bought this dictionary based on the rave reviews here. I was not disappointed. My biggest problem with other dictionaries has been that I invariably come across a word that isn't in the dictionary. I haven't looked something up in this one yet that I haven't found. The drawbacks mentioned in other reviews apply (can't roam the entries by character, and you have to know what you're looking for) but they aren't show stoppers. I find that for organized study this is an excellent dictionary to keep on the shelf. As for classroom use, I've used Oxford and Langenscheidt because they're smaller and easier to carry to class. But they routinely dissapoint because they just don't have enough entries. A better solution is PlecoDict [...] a Palm-based dictionary that includes the entire contents of the ABC dictionary as well as one other C-E dictionary and two E-C dictionaries! All this for $120 and it fits in your pocket! Bottom line is that this is an outstanding dictionary (a must-have) but the print format has drawbacks, thus the 4-star rating.

Please ABC Publishers, publish a hard-cover English to Chinese dictionary with the same number of entries as this Chinese to English version. Your compact English to Chinese dictionary is inadequate. Love you guys nonetheless.

The DeFrancis Chinese-English dictionary holds its value over these past decades as one of the most usable instruments for pinyin, simplified, and standard Chinese character dictionaries. Access to Chinese characters and their meanings are enabled by stroke count, Pinyin alphabetic order, and standard radical table search. This dictionary is one of the first to be computer-based and, also, to be accessed through the Pinyin orthography.`

It was bigger than I had expected but overall a great Chinese-English dictionary. It's too bad the smaller ones are out of print. For studying at home though this dictionary is exactly what I needed. If you're looking for a great dictionary to look up pinyin by letter and not character, I definitely recommend this one!

The reason that I gave this the minimum rating is that the printed fonts are extremely small, so much so as to render this dictionary totally useless to me. My Vision is O.K., but even with a magnifying glass, it was very difficult, almost impossible, to read the Chinese characters. Buyer beware. I returned it for a refund.

とにかく分厚いです。 調べたい単語には必ず辿り着けます。 説明も分かり易いですよ。 英語圏発行の辞書なので、当然英語が分からないといけません。 英語がある程度分かり、尚且つ中国語を勉強しようとしている方には最適なのではないかと思います。