WHAT happened to nciku --- crazy

[Lu]

Just saw Nciku. Oh no :-( That's been my first-choice dictionary ever since I first discovered it. I agree with other posters, the English definitions were good, but what really made the site useful were the example sentences, especially the fact that the example sentences were for a large part originally Chinese. Iciba is nice, but most of their examples are translated from English. I'll try youdao.com and see how that works for me, thanks for the tip.

[Tomas Tomas]

i'm going to keep going with Pleco's  现代汉语词典

 

it has the same layout Nciku's had, very clearly separated by meaning etc

[Flickserve]

@mikelove

For the flashcards, is there a way to get the audio on the card more directly?

At present, I have to go into the card, press on 'change dictionary / entry' and then am able to get the sounds out. It's laborious for me who is still not experienced at pin yin or trying to remember new words but get the tone wrong.

[Ditchweed]

I'm really torn up about this. I've been using Nciku daily for years and similar to others, I LOVED the 现代汉语词典 definitions. A couple things about this switchover don't settle well with me: a) The new site contains NO contact information so that one could even get in touch with whomever is in charge of the Line Chinese dictionary, b) The switchover took place on a Friday, so that even if one somehow did find a way to get in touch, it's doubtful anybody would be around on the weekend to listen. Line doesn't even have offices in China, so who knows which of their international divisions is even in charge of this disaster. Also, here's a little something I noticed that further drives home what a screw up this is: The "Help" and "Notice" pages that are linked at the bottom are not even accessible from my Beijing ISP without turning on my VPN, which is inexcusable when the service you're providing is a Chinese dictionary.

[Ditchweed]

Oh, and I'm definitely switching over to Youdao. It's a bit messy but it seems to do almost everything I need (still no traditional characters but that's not a deal breaker.) I'm thinking about signing up for a Yellowbridge membership but it seems a little steep at 30 bucks for only 6 months.

[realmayo]

Just to continue banging the drum for youdao: it too has 现代汉语词典 definitions: select the third of the three tabs:

 

网络释义   专业释义   汉语词典

 

(Well, this is 现代汉语大词典 which I'm presuming is the same/similar?)

[AdamD]

Adding nothing to this thread except this quote:

 

Chinese language learners stick with dictionaries like smokers stick with cigarette brands

 

Perfect.

[mikelove]

@Flickserve - this is in Organize Cards, right? Hold down your finger on the card (in Organize) and you should see an option pop up to play audio.

 

 

@realmayo - actually somewhat different; it's more academic-oriented than the 现代汉语词典 and the 现代汉语规范词典 (the latter is actually the title that both Pleco and nciku are / were using - 商务印书馆 is a very tough nut to crack licensing-wise), basically just a modern-Chinese-only version of 汉语大词典, from the same publisher and I believe using some of the same data pool. So it provides a list of definitions along with quotations that use them, but the definitions are very brief and do not include explanatory notes or simpler example sentences.

 

We actually hold a license to that one too - included in our 汉语大词典 license - but haven't yet decided what to do with it.

 

In the way of comparison, here are both dictionaries' definitions for 如果:

 

现代汉语规范词典:

 

[连] 连接分句,表示假设关系,常同“就”“那么”等词配合使用

如果情况发生变化,我马上就给你去电话。

 

现代汉语大词典:

 

连词。表示假设。

吴运铎《把一切献给党》：“一个人，如果是真心革命，就不会让个人主义的灰尘迷住眼睛。”
 

@AdamD - for my part I can only hope :-)

[AdamD]

You're my Marlboro Man, Mike.

[realmayo]

@mikelove interesting, thanks. 

 

What is the C-E dictionary marked as 'PLC' in Pleco? I just had a look on your website but couldn't find out.

I've had several of the dictionary options for years but recently seem to prefer this one to pop up first when using the extremely wonderful Pleco Reader. 

[Lu]

Adding nothing to this thread except this quote:

Chinese language learners stick with dictionaries like smokers stick with cigarette brands

Perfect.

Great quote, but is that true? Nciku has been my third go-to dictionary - I switched from the Little Red Book to the 现代汉语词典 to Nciku - and I've always used a bunch of other dictionaries and resources on the side. Look up enough words and you get a good feel for what you should first take to Nciku, what to Iciba and what to Pleco. Not to mention Google and 百度知道.

[Demonic_Duck]

Agree with Lu. Personally, I'm fairly promiscuous when it comes to dictionaries, though the various offerings from Pleco have been my main go-to ever since folks on this forum persuaded me to switch from Hanping.

 

To be fair, when I used to smoke I didn't stick with a single brand, either... unlike smoking, though, I never intend to give up learning Chinese

[anonymoose]

I'm like a fat balding retiree in Bangkok with my Chinese dictionaries.

[Flickserve]

@Flickserve - this is in Organize Cards, right? Hold down your finger on the card (in Organize) and you should see an option

thanks!

[Ditchweed]

If you'd like to voice your displeasure with Line's gutting of the Nciku dictionary it looks like linedict@naver.com is where to get in touch. That comes from their Facebook, since they apparently couldn't be bothered to leave a contact link on the actual site. I sent them a very civil message letting them know I'm not happy with the new site and will not be sticking around to use it unless they bring back everything they took away, being that there are now plenty of other web dictionaries doing a much better job. I have yet to hear back, though activity on the Facebook page would suggest that someone is in.

[mikelove]

@realmayo - it's our own modified version of 《汉英词典》from 外研社. Currently based the 1998 second edition (hence the occasional socialist example sentence) but we've licensed and will soon be incorporating revisions from the 2010 third edition (including, most importantly, parts of speech). The Cantonese readings, example sentence Pinyin, traditional character conversions and a few thousand new entries are all our own doing, and we're actually planning a lot of other enhancements for the future (it's a perpetual license so we've got all the freedom we want to modify it).

 

Actually nciku used a less-modified version of that dictionary for a while too, then seem to have dropped it for the Collins Chinese-English instead. Which LINE also appears to be using.

[AdamD]

Great quote, but is that true? Nciku has been my third go-to dictionary - I switched from the Little Red Book to the 现代汉语词典 to Nciku - and I've always used a bunch of other dictionaries and resources on the side.

 

I'm pretty much the same, but 95% of the time I only use the dictionaries in Pleco, and I've just started using Pleco's 规范 C-C dictionary as my primary reference. (I've thrown more money at Pleco dictionaries than I can probably justify.)

 

Regarding the quote, nearly every Chinese learner I know sticks with just one free electronic dictionary, and they're not interested in changing. Perhaps those of us who are obsessed enough to post here are an edge case.

[K.Ridler]

The thing I miss most about nciku was the option to draw out the characters and select the correct one regardless of the stroke order! I can't find that ANYWHERE else!

[Demonic_Duck]

Pleco's handwriting recognition gets it right ~90% of the time when the stroke order's wrong (close to 100% if you scroll through all the options), as long as you manage to follow the basic stroke order rules decently well (which take very little study time to learn anyway).

[roddy]

Have any of the Nciku features reappeared on Line? What are people using as an alternative?