Online pinyin dictionary with audio pinyin prnunciation

[Occipital]

Hi all, I am a complete beginner to languages and have found an interest with chinese, particulary mandarin. Ive always found a lot of free online audio dictionaries for english words, which I would use if I heard a word I did not know. However I'm finding it impossible to find pinyin or another romanizing dictionary for Mandarin. I know theirs lots of pronunciation keys etc, but I find it hard when you do learn a word wrong, then try and replace this with the right pronunciation. Id like to learn it right the first time and found audio the best way. If anyone has a link for one of these or similar for Japanese it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time

[zhuang]

Hi,

I don´t know any online dictionary in pinyin, but I can recommend a textbook which uses pinyin only. It is a beginners´textbook entitled: Chinese in 3 months, by Hugh Baker. If you are looking to learn the basics, then you might find it quite useful.

Zhuang

[magores]

This isn't a dictionary, but it does have some very handy sound files for the consonants and vowels...

http://www.china-on-site.com/language/phonetic/phonetic.htm

I found that link via the very informative site www.sinosplice.com

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I'm a newcomer to the language as well, so I can totally relate to your thoughts on learning it right the first time, and having the audio to help.

Magores

[Ken]

I have found two online dictionaries that have capabilities from English, Pinyin or Characters translated to the other respective forms.

http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Chinese/welcome.html

http://chinese.primezero.com/soleri/

You will find that they have different capabilities and additional learning tools including sound.

Hao yun.

[Guest IVYtony]

actually, we are trying to make an online dictionary which is primarily used for new beginners.

we're adding lots of input/contents into our databases, you may take a look first.

[Ken]

How? Where? do we check out the database you are speaking of....

[Occipital]

Hi all, thanks for the info and links. Had a look and they seem really good! Much appreciated

[browny]

Occipital, you can use my website for this!

http://qq.bur.st

If go to the Menu->This Website->Translations->Chinese to English, and input some chinese text, it will give you a pinyin and english translation. Also, if you move your mouse over the pinyin, it will pronounce it for you!

have fun!

[Zingaro]

One terrific resource that I have found is very complete and constantly evolving with more and more features. You can translate English to Mandarin (simplified or traditional) and Mandarin to English. You can enter Chinese characters through several input methods, mainly Pinyin. You can look up individual characters. One recent addition is Pinyin pronunciation of individual characters.

The address is: http://www.xuezhongwen.net/chindict/chindict_welcome.php?url=%2Fchindict%2Fchindict.php and there is both a US and a European mirror avaiilable.

Translations are based on the same engine used at Babelfish, though translations are sometimes better than Babelfish's. It is a free site, although you can make a donation if you feel so inclined.

Richard

[howtofindyou]

A online chinese-english dictionary,pronounce only for single chinese character:

http://cb.kingsoft.com/search

There is a chinese-english dictionary for XP:

http://www.cnnb.com.cn/itspace/download/XDict2002.exe

For windows 2003:

http://www.fixdown.com/soft/3637.asp?soft=gd165down

[skylee]

This may also be helpful -> http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Lindict/

[nongmin]

I think this might be exactly what you're looking for. This is a free talking English - Chinese dictionary where you can look up words by English, Pinyin or simplified Chinese. You can listen to the pronunciation spoken by native Mandarin Chinese speakers by scrolling over or clicking on the pinyin.

Chinese dictionary

http://www.freechinesedictionary.com

[trevelyan]

I haven't visited all of the links above so this isn't intended as a comment on any particular site, but be careful with online talking dictionaries as most simply generate the sounds by stringing together the pinyin character by character. This can be useful for a quick reference, but if it is your primary learning tool it can be misleading because:

(1) recordings that are spliced together do not actually sound like spoken mandarin

(2) duoyinci are pronounced wrong.

(3) tone sandhi is ignored

(4) the light (fifth tone) is ignored

An easy test is looking up a word like 孩子 and seeing if the character 子 is presented as the fifth or third tone, and seeing what happens to the recordings of words like 数 when they mean different things contextually.