ZDT: About the dictionary

[ruidianren2]

Hey

I was thinking about some things you could do to improve the program a little.

1. Allot of character definitions are pretty strange and sometimes inaccurate. For example, 云 for most people means "cloud", but in the zdt definition it only says "say". Sure, it can be used that way to, but the main meaning of the word today would be "cloud" and it's not even in the definition.

Other words, almost have to many defintiions. Allot of words have their every possible meaning in the definition, and it's just to much.

I would be cool if the program would save the new definitions, like when you write a definition thats not the same as the original one in the "add new word" window, it could ask you "would you like to update this characters definition" or whatever, and then if you clicked ok, the program would update it's dictionary with the new definition.

2. There most be some way to solve the problem with a character having more then one pronunciation. isn't their anyway to fix so that one character could have more than one pin yin ?

thanks

[Aweni]

hello.

in the context you mentioned "云" , mostly in modern chinese it means "cloud",but in ancient chinese it means "say", while today it is written "说" not "云"。and there are a lot of examples like this.

if you look up an ancient chinese dictionary,you will find out "云" in the definition of "say".

many high school students here usually own two chinese dictionaries for their chinese classes,one is for modern chinese and other one is for ancient chinese,

actually,a character having more than one pronunciation usually be shown in the dictionary.

then i think once you get this situation,you'd better take notes,the accumulation of vocabulary will improve you much.

or you may install some E-dictionary it also helps a lot i think.

[skylee]

I am not sure what "zdt" is. But does the dictionary you are talking about use traditional Chinese? If it is then it is not wrong as the word mainly means "to say" only in traditional chinese. Take a look ->

http://cdict.giga.net.tw/?q=%A4%AA

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/agrep-lindict?query=%a4%aa&category=wholerecord

[bogleg]

Hey ruidianren2,

ZDT uses the Cedict dictionary by default so it's limited to whatever its entries are. That said, if you search for 云 in the dictionary, you should get two entries:

云 yún (classical) to say

云 yún cloud; (abbr.) for Yunnan; surname

So you can add whatever appropriate entry you want to your list. If you still don't like a particular definition, you can edit it (Ctrl-E or right-click 'Edit Entry) to whatever you like.

If you don't like Cedict, you can always download the Adso dictionary plugin as an alternative.

And, sorry, there's no current way to add more then one set of pinyin for a particular entry.

Chris