Best Chinese Dicts

[Insectosaurus]

On 7/13/2022 at 6:19 PM, OneEye said:

It has, of course, but you're not going to find it on websites or in books meant for nonspecialists, especially when it comes to less commonly-used characters.

 

This is surprising to me, considering Chinese is such huge language with a long dictionary tradition. I can find the etymology for every single English word via several sources, but I guess the Oxford English Dictionary is the most authoritative. Same goes for my own native tongue, Swedish, where such a dictionary is freely available to the public.

 

Thank you for an interesting write-up! In general I don't have much trouble understanding monolingual dictionary entries, but had some trouble with the sound information. Are 葉部 and 鱼部 just (old?) sortings of readings, or is it something else? That is, "belongs to the 葉 pronunciation category".

[OneEye]

On 7/13/2022 at 1:23 PM, Insectosaurus said:

This is surprising to me, considering Chinese is such huge language with a long dictionary tradition. I can find the etymology for every single English word via several sources, but I guess the Oxford English Dictionary is the most authoritative.

Well, for one thing, the OED contains word etymology, whereas we're talking about character etymology. Those are two different (though related) things. For another, there are plenty of popular resources for character etymology (such as 谷衍奎's book) in Chinese, but they're not going to explain things in line with current scholarly thought. One popular book which does is 季旭昇《常用漢字》, but it only contains about 1100 common characters.

 

It's a similar situation in Japanese. There are several dictionaries containing kanji etymology, such as 『角川新字源』 which is very popular, but its character etymologies are several decades out of date.

 

Our understanding of character origins and evolution has changed so much in the last few decades due to the vast amount of new excavated texts, advances in Old Chinese phonology, etc., that there's a huge difference between character explanations from the 70s and today. It's difficult even for specialists to keep up, much less nonspecialists.

 

On 7/13/2022 at 1:23 PM, Insectosaurus said:

Are 葉部 and 鱼部 just (old?) sortings of readings, or is it something else? That is, "belongs to the 葉 pronunciation category".

They're Old Chinese rhyme categories. 葉部 became a 入聲 rhyme in Middle Chinese (that is, it ends in *-p in OC), while 魚部 is an open syllable. The usual reading of 去 in Old Chinese was 魚部, but 《字源》 is saying that 葉部 also exists when 去 is used as a sound component. And indeed, most characters containing 去 as a sound component (including 法) are also 入聲 and ended in *-p.

[shawky.nasr]

Nothing will be 100%, still researchers proofreading and correct. Like 尔雅 说文解字, no one can say that 100%，there many versions 注释.

You can check 漢語多功能字庫 Multi-function Chinese Character Database

係香港中文大學人文電算研究中心(Humanum) 於2014年開發的新網路平台

 

怎样评价谷衍奎《汉字源流字典》？

 

You can join Zhihu to know more about 汉字字源

[shawky.nasr]

On 7/14/2022 at 2:23 AM, Insectosaurus said:

Same goes for my own native tongue, Swedish, where such a dictionary is freely available to the public.

For Chinese 你想得美!

 

You can check these electronic dictionaries, only 中国汉字源流 for free, has 40 entries.

[Luxi]

On 7/13/2022 at 3:07 PM, Luxi said:

did you know there is a free ZDict app?

 

A short follow up: as if on cue, the ZDict app had a couple of updates last week and now has become much easier to read, still no good on the iPhone but brill on an iPad Air in landscape mode. The fonts are now sharp and easy to read. 

This allows me to confirm that it definitely has very obscure characters. I'm not sure about the English translations of these, often just one meaning is given and maybe not the expected one, but with the information on the app it's easier to move to other dictionaries or the web to check the meanings.

 

[shawky.nasr]

NEW APP from 商务印书馆

JUZI汉语-HSK中文学习词典-Chinese Dict

 

 

 

 

 

苹果APP Store

 

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"JUZI汉语" is a multi-functional comprehensive APP, specially designed for foreigners to learn Chinese. It brings together many reference books, such as "New Era Chinese Learning Dictionary", and provides three main functions of dictionary, learning, and tools. It has the following characteristics:
    •    1. Dictionary use: support settings for dictionary selection and search priority;Support photo, handwriting, voice and other intelligent input;Comprehensive search: support Chinese, English, and Pinyin keyword search;
    •    2. Audio pronunciation: demonstrate authoritative pronunciation of famous CCTV news announcers;
    •    3. Chinese character writing: provide dynamic display of basic Chinese characters, stroke shape, and stroke order;
    •    4. Entries: provide explanation of multiple dictionaries with personalized display of the content;
    •    5. Entry details: provide meaning, usage, examples, and expansion modules of variety;
    •    6. Word Flashcard: provide multi-dimensional learning scenarios, such as memorization, exercise tasks, and words associated;
    •    7. Character learning assistance: provide a learning scene in which the characters that share the same pinyin and radical components gather together;
    •    8. Writing assistance: support the personalized output of pen broadcast, touch screen follow-up, and custom copybooks;
    •    9. Learning management: support personalized management of favorites, flashcards, folders, task books, and writing copies, etc.;
    •    10. Daily communication: provide short videos of conversations, idioms, and popular expressions;
    •    11. Appendix expansion: provide practical language, associated vocabulary, and cultural knowledge such as widely used surnames and frequently used quantifiers;

 

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New Era Chinese Learning Dictionary
    •    Based on a Chinese corpus and by a team with rich experience in teaching CSL and CFL;
    •    More than 10,000 words, basically covering the latest HSK Guide, suitable for the teaching CSL and CFL;
    •    Easy to understand with simple syntax and the most frequently used 1,600 words and 3,000 words in explanation;
    •    Easy learning with nearly 45,000 groups of collocations and usages, and nearly 120,000 examples;
    •    Rich content with more than 2,200 differentiation of synonyms, more than 14,600 exercise tasks, more than 20,000 pictures, error warnings, and word expansions;
    •    Suitable for foreign students of different proficiency levels, including elementary, intermediate, and advanced.
Wanyouzhidian entry bank
    •    More than 150,000 words are included;
    •    Covering the daily-used vocabulary in Chinese;
    •    Provide encyclopedic explanation and socio-science terminology;
    •    The content is professional, authoritative, and standardized;
    •    Bilingual dictionary, supporting Chinese-English both-way search;
    •    Suitable for Chinese learners with intermediate and advanced Chinese proficiency.
The Commercial Press Chinese Learning Dictionary
    •    Compiled by experts who have long been engaged in teaching and researching Chinese as a foreign language;
    •    Collect more than 2,400 frequently used words and more than 10,000 frequently used words;
    •    Display nearly 60,000 collocations, usages, and example sentences;
    •    The definitions are concise and easy to understand, and the example sentences are rich and practical;
    •    Suitable for foreign students with intermediate Chinese proficiency.

 

[Luxi]

Another online 汉语字典  at 千篇国学 · 万卷经典 
https://www.qianp.com/
The dictionary is at:

 https://zidian.qianp.com/
It may look similar but is not the same as the zdic at https://www.zdic.net/   which includes poetry and calligraphy. This one is also free and includes all the hanzi in the Xinhua Dictionary. There's nothing much new there, but the meanings are given using short sentences and basic characters. It may help as a bridge to transition from Chinese-English to monolingual Chinese dictionaries. The examples given for use of the hanzi are also nice and clear.

 

But the most interesting part of this site is that it includes an incredibly useful and fun to use multiple classification and dictionary of 成语. No stories, though references are given. The 成语 are analysed and explained in Chinese and include English, French, German, Japanese and Russian translations.  It is well worth a visit:

https://chengyu.qianp.com/

 

Don't know how this chengyu dictionary compares with the 新华成语大词典 that Shawky.nasr mentioned above, but it is the best I have seen on web sites or apps.

[shawky.nasr]

On 9/7/2022 at 7:33 PM, Luxi said:

Don't know how this chengyu dictionary compares with the 新华成语大词典

Quite similar, here is source 中学生读书网 (Websites not working now). but there many websites use same data: https://cy.hwxnet.com/view/kiciggipdnjkpmie.html

 

On 9/7/2022 at 7:33 PM, Luxi said:

may help as a bridge to transition from Chinese-English to monolingual Chinese dictionaries. The examples given for use of the hanzi are also nice and clear.

Be just be careful, these translations not always accurate.

 

On 9/7/2022 at 7:33 PM, Luxi said:

No stories, though references are given.

For stories, there are others dictionaries better like 成语典故辞典、中国典故大辞典、成语大词典等

 

新华成语大词典 is better, because famous press edited.

[Luxi]

On 9/7/2022 at 1:20 PM, shawky.nasr said:

many websites use same data: https://cy.hwxnet.com/view/kiciggipdnjkpmie.html

 

I hadn't seen this, but I haven't been on that site for some time, it may have been added recently. Is this the same as the expensive xinhua 成语大辞典 or the smaller cheaper one? It looks very much like the same information as on the site I found, though I think the qianpi.com site wins in terms of web design, it is much easier to search and read 

 

Speaking of web design, I'm sorry about the huge super-bold @call in my message. I tried to make it smaller and lighter but the forum page didn't let me change it. It looks quite impolite, I must say. Now that you've seen and answered my question, I'll improve it.

[shawky.nasr]

On 9/7/2022 at 11:42 PM, Luxi said:

Is this the same as the expensive xinhua 成语大辞典 or the smaller cheaper one?

成语大词典是商务国际 international branch (their dictionaries so so) ，link 18000 idioms , there are phone app i mentioned before.

 

That is small version of 新华成语大词典，call 新华成语词典(第2版缩印本) 10481 idioms from 商务印书馆辞书研究中心

[Insectosaurus]

I'm planning to buy the Hanyu Da Cidian, finally. However, there are two options available. I can either buy the official version, or the one in Pleco. One big pro for Pleco is that I can compare the entry to all Dther dictionaries quickly. Basically, integrate it into my larger collection of dictionaries. It also makes it available offline, which is not true for the Chinese dictionary apps I've used so far.

 

Does anyone have the official version or knows what pros there might be with that one? I know, for example, that the Pleco version only offers pinyin from the dictionary for single character words, while the others are generated by Pleco. How are multiple syllable words treated in the official app?

 

One pro for having the official apps for Xiandai Hanyu Cidian and New Century C-E dictionary is that I can quickly get a list of all dictionary entries where the word is used with that same pronunciation. Perhaps there might be similar, or other important, features with the official app. For one, I assume it's updated more frequently.

 

Also, how much better, for historical research, would you consider it to be compared to the one by Taiwan Ministry of Education? We're mostly talking Ming dynasty. I already own the English dictionary by Kroll (A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese).

[shawky.nasr]

On 11/3/2022 at 6:08 PM, Insectosaurus said:

I'm planning to buy the Hanyu Da Cidian

I recommend don't buy it, next year or later will release 2nd version of Hanyu Da Cidian.

 

till now 2nd released 4册, very soon, they will release more 8 volumes of 25.

https://item.jd.com/13001759.html

 

[shawky.nasr]

On 11/3/2022 at 6:08 PM, Insectosaurus said:

Does anyone have the official version or knows what pros there might be with that one?

I used official version but still there are some mistakes and issues.

HYCD really had many versions, 2.0 and 3.0 etc.

2.0 version is better option.

 

汉语大词典（套装全23册）（共2箱）

《汉语大词典》光盘版与纸质版的区别

 

On 11/3/2022 at 6:08 PM, Insectosaurus said:

One pro for having the official apps for Xiandai Hanyu Cidian and New Century C-E dictionary is that I can quickly get a list of all dictionary entries where the word is used with that same pronunciation.

How did you know that? 现代汉语词典 consider as 中型语文词典 medium dictionary, only has 7.0万条 entries. You can't compare it with 《重編國語辭典修訂本》150K entries, you can consider it as 大型语文词典

“本典為一部歷史語言辭典，記錄中古至現代各類詞語，並大量引用古典文獻書證，字 音部分則兼收現代及傳統音讀。”

 

There are better dictionary 现代汉语大词典

 

Very soon,  商务印书馆 will release 现代汉语大词典 五卷 consider as 大型语文词典 (156K entries)

 

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本词典共分五卷，收录单字字头 13000 多个（按照规范标准确定字形、字音，梳理简繁、正异、异读关系），各类词语 15.6 万余条（其中百科词语约 2.5 万条），配例 40 多万个，全书规模达 1200 多万字。本词典内容丰富，为各类词标注词类，设立“提示”栏、“辨析”栏（辨析实词、虚词 1400 余组），为方言词、地区词标注所属方言类别或地区。第五卷的“附录”为读者提供了文史、科技方面有查考价值的资料。在“附录”后还特别配备了《条目倒序索引》，为词语检索和相关研究提供了更多的方便。

 

[shawky.nasr]

国际中文学习词典APP

 

Released 正式上线

 

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目前，词典APP内容涵盖初级900个汉字和2245个词语，提供中文、英文、阿文三种语言界面。随着版本的不断升级，将陆续增加中级、高级字词，并开发其他语种版本。用户可在各大应用市场(苹果、华为、小米、OPPO、vivo等)搜索下载

reference

[shawky.nasr]

Biggest Chinese idioms dictionary (The best Chinese idioms)

 

汉语成语源流大辞典(全两册)(修订版) 2023

 

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内容简介：

本书是一部大型汉语成语辞书，以考源求实为重点，“源”“流” 并重，对汉语成语的词义、词形、用法在历代文献中的演变进行了严谨而细致的梳理。各词条先引语源书证并释义，后对历代文献中的不同词形分做次主条及副条列出并引书证，对古义、今义，本义、比喻义等做分别义项处理。本次修订订正了上版中的部分错漏，增补了部分注音，并补入了作者新增补的部分释义、书证及百余条词目。

作者简介：

刘洁修，著名语言学者，中国社会科学院语言研究所研究员，2006年被中国辞书学会授予“辞书事业终身成就奖”，所编辞书《成语源流大词典》《汉语成语源流大辞典》曾分别荣获2004年第十四届中国图书奖、2012年中华优秀出版物图书提名奖。