HSK 汉语8000词词典 - 8800 hsk vocabulary

[lindseyohcheer]

This is the only dictionary I saw on the HSK official website and it's steep for a Chinese book 98RMB. Is this a good one? If not, are there any better ones?

I'm taking Roddy's advice and buying the 汉语听力系列教材 and maybe the 速成强化教程 orHSK 8 级精解。I'm taking the elementary/intermediate. I'm taking Beijingbooty's advice on memorizing most of the dictionary as my main prep 办法. I've been searching the forum and haven't found a recommended dictionary. As I will only have a month or so, will this be sufficient?

I made an impulse decision to sign up for the test today to accelerate my Chinese study. When I came to BeiDa in September, I didn't even know about the HSK.

I'm at BeiDa taking class 20 汉语and 23 口语so if any of you are my classmates say hi.

I'm going to post about the HSK 商务exam on the Universities and Schools forum as a way of thanking everyone for their help

[Bob Dylan Thomas]

the 8000词 dictionay is available at my university library and i reckon it's pretty good, it helps you in ways other dictionaries don't for expanding your vocabulary and looking at compound word formation, specifically with the HSK in mind. i would recommend you get it. and if you don't like it then give it to me as an early christmas present 行不行？

[lindseyohcheer]

Thanks for the reply Bob. Actually, I was thinking what I'd do with the books after I take the test. I will keep taking the test until I reach level 7. Hey, if you live in London (I'm crossing my fingers that my school will let me study for Spring 2006 there, we have a building on Trafalgar Square) maybe we can practice Chinese together.

If it works out maybe I might give it to you

[muscle]

Does anybody own this HSK 8,000 Words Dictionary?

If so, how do you like it? Can you give a description of it?

Is this the best dictionary for a beginner? Can I assume it has the most useful words in it?

[HashiriKata]

Is this the best dictionary for a beginner? Can I assume it has the most useful words in it?

It's not a dictionary for beginners but beginners can benefit from it. It's basically a good "usage dictionary", best not to be used as your only dictionary. What I like most about it is that it gives a lot of examples of usage, but you'd need to have already learned a certain amount of Chinese in order to quickly understand and to make the best of these examples. Yes, I assume the 8000 words in the title means the 8000 most common words, prescribed for some level in the HSK exams.

[muscle]

Oh, thank you Mr. 走り方.

How many dictionaries do I need?

I figure, if I can learn to decipher the 8,800 words in this dictionary, I will be well on my way to breaking through the language barrier.

[youpii]

I have it, it's a good dictionary, but not for beginners, it has almost no English inside.

It focus on 8.000 words which is not a lot but really tells you how to use them, synonyms antonyms, measure words etc. It's biggest flaw is that there is no electronic version.

The 8.000 words include all the official HSK lists up to the advanced level.

[muscle]

I got one! Hey I just got A Dictionary of Chinese Usage: 8000 Words!

And Youpii is not kidding about there being almost no English inside. The only English in the dictionary is the translations of the entry words. There is no forward, no explanation, nothing else in English. It looks like there is a forward in Chinese. And a table of contents in Chinese. And some other explanation.

Oh, look! There are 3429 nouns, 2393 verbs, 1005 adjectives, and some other types of words. There are some indexes and lists in the back too.

I wonder how long it would take to digest this whole thing. There are 1700 pages!

I took 3 pictures. If anyone wants to see the dictionary page entries I can send you a zip file (2.5 MB).

Oh-- I managed to reduce their size. I will attach them here.

I just noticed that second one. The beginning of the entry is at the bottom of the previous page.

Well, you can see the simplified characters have the traditional version in parentheses. And when the character comes up the first time in the dictionary (at least as the first character in a compound or by itself) the radical and stroke count are also given, as can be seen in the third picture.

I believe the small character after the word entry is the difficulty level of the word.

OK, that's all I can explain since I'm just a beginner.

[HashiriKata]

How many dictionaries do I need?

The more the better. I think most dictionaries tend to be good only in particular areas, and each is therefore better for a particular use. Take the dictionary you just bought as an example: you'll soon find out that it's not really sufficent for looking up words you come across, but is an excellent tool for learning those 8000 very important ones. In other words, these 8000 words will be sufficient for you to get by in Chinese for the rest of your life but they won't be enough for you to understand an ordinary article in a newspaper.