Whether you are learning to speak or write Chinese or just want to be able to look up a word or expression occasionally, a dictionary is an essential tool. Selecting one is not as difficult as it might seem, nor as simple as it should be.
A useful way to proceed is to choose, first, which of the systems of romanization you want, then make the choice of simplified vs. traditional characters. Some basic guidance and examples follow.
Since Chinese (like Russian, Sanskrit, Hebrew, and others) is not written in the Roman alphabet used by the English language, it is really the sound of a Chinese word that is written (transliteration) when Chinese is written using the Roman alphabet (romanization). Over the past century and a half, several systems of romanization have been developed, differing mainly in how they represent certain sounds (for example, c and ts; d and t; b and p; g and k; j and zh; j and ch; z and ts) and in how they convey the so-called tones (inflections) that are crucial to spoken Chinese. For example (ignoring tones for now), 'zhong' and 'jung' sound the same, as do 'xie' and 'sye', the first in each pair being in pinyin, the second in the Yale romanization. Less-used systems include Romantzyh, Wade and Wade-Giles. Although Yale has been the method used in most U.S. university instruction, pinyin has the advantage of being the PRC's officially approved romanization system.
The dictionaries discussed here use pinyin.
In a move to increase literacy and make the publication of newspapers and books more economical, Mao established a panel in the 1960s to devise simplified forms for about a thousand Chinese characters. Having reference access to the traditional and simplified version of the simplified* characters is valuable, but not all dictionaries include both. In the examples here, the entry for "country" or "state" is chosen to show a character having both a simplified and traditional form.
If you choose pinyin, the Concise English-Chinese, Chinese-English Dictionary, published jointly
by Oxford University Press and the Commercial Press (Beijing)
(ISBN 0-19-584048-8) is a good choice as well as a "best
buy." (Nov., 1999 note: the Second
Edition, expanded and in larger type
is now available, pub. 1999.) It gives both the traditional and
simplified character where simplified characters occur. It is
available in a soft-plastic-covered traveling size (about 6"
x 3" by 1.5" thick, on onion paper) for about $12.
Each half of this dictionary contains about 20,000 entries. A
credit-card-sized plastic magnifier is very useful with it. The
Second Edition is 7.75 in. X 5.1 in.; ISBN 0-19-591151-2, paperback,
about $14.
A handy English-Chinese reference is the Times Advanced English-Chinese Pinyin Dictionary, compiled by Wu Zhaoyi and others and published by Federal Publications, Singapore and HK (ISBN 981-01-3909-8 paper). Despite its title, it is rather simple, trading off depth in each entry for larger type and a fair number (about 10,000) of entries. It does not include the traditional character where there is a simplified one.
Perhaps the best general-use Chinese-English pinyin dictionary is Learner's Chinese-English Dictionary, (ISBN 9971-940-22-1 paper) jointly published by Nanyang Siang Pau and Umum Publisher, distributed by Shanghai Book Co. It shows both the traditional and simplified characters. It has 5,000 primary entries and15,000 phrases and idioms. Useful introductory text and several appendices are provided.
The Pinyin Chinese-English Dictionary, edited by Wu Jingrong, published by The Commercial Press (paperback and hard cover), was compiled by the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute. It is very useful and extensive, it's main drawback being that it does not include the traditional character when there is a simplified one. (An appendix does list the simplified characters with their "complex" forms.) The book's 976 pages contain about 6,000 single-character entries, over 50,000 compound-character entries and several useful appendices. The hardback is about $35; the paperback is about $10 less and printed about 12% smaller, but worthwhile. Remember, you will need another dictionary to get from English to Chinese. My paperback copy lists two ISBN numbers: 962-07-0006 and 962-07-0040.
These dictionaries are available from most booksellers as well as those specializing in Chinese material. Some sources are included in the Services & Products listing on this site.- BC
* The traditional and simplified
forms of the character guó, meaning country,
state, nation or kingdom. This is the term
used in the
following examples. (The second tone is indicated by the
diacritical mark above the 'o'.)
Following are scanned entries of guó or country from each of the dictionaries discussed above.
----(Please note that your computer's screen resolution
affects the on-screen size of objects.
----The
following graphic samples are all in the same scale. For reference,
the Learner's entry is 2 inches wide in the dictionary.)
Concise English-Chinese, Chinese-English Dictionary (and shown enlarged 2X at right)
Note: Second Edition, expanded and in larger type, similar
to type size of Learner's, is now available, pub. 1999.
The 'country' entry from the English-
Chinese section of the Concise E-C, C-E Dictionary.
Concise English-Chinese, Chinese-English
Dictionary, shown at 2X size.
The Pinyin Chinese-English Dictionary
Learner's Chinese-
English Dictionary
(Entry, as shown here, is 2"
wide, 5.1 cm.,
in the dictionary.)
Times Advanced
English-ChinesePinyin Dictionary