Chinese-English Dictionary

By Chik H. Man

Book Overview

Chinese-English Dictionaryis the first of its kind because it uses both Cantonese and Mandarin romanizations. It features over 6,000 of the most commonly used single-characters and over 12,000 terms to illustrate the use of the characters.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B00AAD81W6
• ISBN13: 9789622019225
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press
• Length: 624 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 4.3" x 7.2"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Really Convenient

This book is the most useful Cantonese book ever. Where I am now, victoria bc, I cant find any good books on Cantonese at any bookstore and all they have is mostly Mandarin. They dont have any dictionaries either. So, Im SO glad I bought this book. Now I don't have to keep asking older people what each character means. Its really handy if I don't have a computer too. Even though I bought a used one, it looked brand new. It was a sweet deal.

First class reference book

This book has been an incredible help to me in trying to learn to read and write Cantonese on my own. It is the first book I have found that has the English word, the Chinese character, and the Cantonese Romanised Yale. I just wish that someone would write a comparable dictionary in English/Cantonese. If you have to have one book out of all the choices there are, this is the one to make

Great value for the money !

I can find the characters I want with ease. You can find by # of strokes or Romanization or 'radical index (Bouh sau)'. Very nice work. So far, I never had any problems. BTW, this '# of stroke' look-up feature comes in handy when you have no clue of radical or pronounciation. While this also includes the pronounciation of Mandarin Chinese (which by the way can come in handy for Mandarin Chinese study), it is a Cantonese dictionary.

Execllent chinese-english dictionary!

This is an excellent resource for native cantonese speakers. I agree with another reviewer that in chinese you use a combination of words that create a whole word. If that is what the other reviewer is looking for then I'd recommend the "Glossary of Common Colloquial Cantonese Expressions," by Simon So; "Dictionary of Cantonese Slang," by Christopher Hutton and Kingsley Bolton. This dictionary is very helpful because it has 6000 listings of characters and within the definitions it gives examples of how words are used. I find it useful and I am very happy with this dictionary. If as other reviewers are looking for a dictionary with simplified characters, look elsewhere. This is a traditional character dictionary geared toward traditional chinese. Within each definition it includes the mandarin pingyin pronounciation for those who are reading the characters using the traditonal format in mandarin.

Great pocket sized E-C dictionary w/ Cantonese pronunciation

The only other English-Chinese dictionaries w/ Cantonese pronuncation I can find are: One from Rita Choy, which is just a 3200 character list without compounds, another one from Rita Choy which is a beginner's guide that includes (among other references) compounds for 801 characters, and one from Roy T. Cowles, first written in 1914, which contains ~5300 characters including a lot of "Cantonese" characters (ones not found in regular Chinese publications), but requires you to flip to other page(s) to look up compounds, and I sometimes can't find modern newspaper characters in it. Please let me know if you know of other C-E dictionaries w/ Cantonese romanizaton.This one is more complete, ~6000 char's, and so far, I haven't found a newspaper/magazine character I wanted to look up that's not in it. It lists the compounds (usually 2 per char) along with their Yale Cantonese pronouncation underneath the main char. The pinyin Mandarin pronounciation is also given for the main char. Char's can be searched by radical, stroke count, and Cantonese pronouncation. It even has a plastic coated cover to protect it from wear!Its main drawback is that it only lists traditional char's, without the simplified ones used in mainland China. Also, because of the limited number of compounds, it is best used along side a more comprehensive C-E dictionary.