The Oxford Chinese Minidictionary

This language reference is an instant-access, completely portable dictionary for anyone with a general curiosity about the Chinese language. Whether you're studying, working, or just interested in Chinese as it is used today, this is the only book you need for a complete introduction to the language.
It includes thousands of words, phrases, and translations; thousands of examples drawn from real-life situations; and headwords in simplified Chinese script, as well as in Pinyin romanization to aid better pronunciation. In addition to a detailed introduction, there is a section on how to use the dictionary, ideal for any beginner. This volume also includes tones in Mandarin Chinese, an index of Chinese characters, a Chinese-to-English dictionary, and an English-to-Chinese dictionary.
Designed specifically for English speakers learning Chinese, this Minidictionary is the essential resource for all those wishing to better understand the beauty of the language, and the perfect companion for a trip to a Chinese-speaking country.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0198603649
• ISBN13: 9780198603641
• Release Date: June 2001
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 640 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 3.2" x 1.5" x 4.4"

Customer Reviews

handy little book

Yes, there are a lot of words that I try to look up that aren't here. But it's a mini dictionary and I bet that is true of all small dictionaries (and even some big ones). It's small enough to carry around all the time and helps you "get by." Like other reviewers have said, it's great that the words are often put into the context of a phrase (that is in pinyin!) because it really helps you to use the word correctly. It's also great that the nouns are given with their measure word (and there is a whole measure word section). EDIT -- I've had this a little while now and use it somewhat regularly. It's about 50/50 that the word I'm looking for is in it. And some of the definitions seem questionable. Like "dirt" -- "zang dong xi" -- literally, "dirty thing." There isn't an individual entry for "soil," but under "earth" there is "(soil) tu3." So maybe my 50% failure rate wouldn't be so high if I spent more time searching through related words. Also, "shang4" (up) is often written without a tone mark, which is strange to me but maybe I'm just not familiar with its use in "neutral" tone; so it makes me question some other entries without tone marks. A few times there have been more than one Chinese word/phrase listed for an English word without any distinction given. Still, I haven't used another pocket dictionary and it does have quite useful information such as the measurewords and sample phrases putting some of the words in context.

An invaluable resource

This dictionary has its niche ... and it fits me perfectly. I've worked in China for the past two and a half years and this dictionary has been my constant companion. I use it for daily activities (store, post office, bike repair) and it has never let me down. It is also far more compact than any of the other dictionaries belonging to my friends. The reason I gave this dictionary 5 stars is because it possesses something which no other dictionary has (even others in the Oxford series) : whole phrases that are written in english, pinyin, and characters. When you look up an English word in most other pocket dictionaries they may provide you with a one word chinese equivalent in characters and pinyin. Some of the better ones will even give you an example phrases which shows how the word is used correctly. But here's the problem ... that example phrase is almost always given in Chinese characters. This dictionary gives you an example phrase in pinyin and characters! Of course this is not the dictionary for you if you want to translate an official paper or engage in advanced chinese studies, but if you are going to live in-country and begin picking up the language on your own then this dictionary is an invaluable resource because it provides you with beautiful examples of word-usage without requiring you to read 100's of characters. It's like a mini-textbook. Nothing else touches it. As a testament to how helpful this mini-dictionary really is: after seeing how amazing my dictionary was, three separate co-workers of mine gave up using their previous dictionaries and ordered their own copies of the Oxford Chinese mini-dictionary.

wonderful survival tool

I purchased this dictionary prior to a two-week stay in Taiwan. I used it 10 to 30 times a day in a wide variety of situations - mostly to look up vocabulary words in the English-Chinese section, but also on several occasions to decipher what people were saying to me in the Chinese-English section. The pinyin is clear and the examples were great.As one of the reviewers above noted, some of the words I looked up were absent, but this only happened a few times and in most cases I was able to find a suitable synonym. I spent over an hour comparing dictionaries in the bookstore, and found this to be true of ALL of the pocket dictionaries I looked at.On several occastions people I was speaking with were so impressed with my ability to 'unstick' conversations (and look up words alphabetically by pinyin) with this dictionarry that they would invariably ask to take a look at it and spend some time browsing and discussing it themselves.It is also the only one of the pocket dictionaries which I was able to actually get into my pocket, or hold unobtrusively in one hand while I walked around the city.The dictionary also includes a simple character/radical lookup chart, which I was actually able to use to look up some written characters I encountered (though this can take several minutes per character).The dictionary is intentionally non-symmetrical; the Chinese-English side contains words and concepts you are likely to encounter, and the English-Chinese side contains words and concepts you are likely to want to express. For example, whereas the Chinese side has more words to express things like politeness and family relationships, the English side has more words for more Western things like skydiving and mowing the lawn.This might not be the right dictionary for someone translating a Chinese newspaper, but for a 1st-year Mandarin student trying to survive in Taiwan this dictionary was invaluable.