Review of Chinese-English Dictionaries and Character Etymologies

Selecting the right Chinese-English dictionary is a lot harder than, say, buying a Spanish-English dictionary, which you can do with your eyes closed.  After a broad survey of all the major dictionaries available in the market, we have to conclude that the "must have", hands-down winner has not been published yet.  This is because, in our humble opinion, the ideal dictionary for modern student of Chinese would have the following attributes:

1. Lists both traditional and simplified characters. Many college-level Chinese language courses expect students to learn both sets for very practical reasons: unless you expect to live only in the PRC, you will need to be able to read traditional characters, which are still widely in use in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and all overseas Chinese communities. Even in the PRC, traditional characters are making a comeback in some places, such as restaurant signs. Conversely, in Taiwan and Hong Kong, writers often use some simplified characters when writing them by hand.
2. Uses pinyin as the primary system for representing word pronunciation.  This is generally the case today except for most dictionaries published in Taiwan, which typically use the zhuyin (bopomofo) method.
3. It's possible to find a Chinese word by its pronunciation. If you hear a word during a conversation and want to look it up, it will be important to be able to look it up by its pronunciation, which generally means that you need a dictionary where words are ordered according to their pinyin spellings.
4. It's possible to find a Chinese character without knowing how it's pronounced. On the other hand, if you find a character you don't recognize while reading a book, you obviously won't know how it should be pronounced and you'll need to find the character in the traditional way, by determining the character's main radical and number of strokes, an admittedly painful process.
5. Both characters and pinyin are shown in English-to-Chinese translation. Beginning learners are not likely to know how the Chinese word or phrase should be pronounced and should be spared the need to know do a reverse lookup of the Chinese characters.

The survey does not include any one-way English-Chinese dictionaries because those that exist are geared towards Chinese speakers who are learning English and thus would not be very useful to beginner and intermediate learners of Chinese.  This means that you will probably need to get a bi-directional dictionary as well as an one-way Chinese-English dictionary for additional coverage.

These dictionaries do not provide such information as stroke order or character etymology, which is very useful for beginner students. MacNaughton's "Reading and Writing Chinese" provides them for the most common characters while Harbaugh's "Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary" covers the etymology for 4,000 characters.

Amazon.com	Title	Mini Review
	Concise Chinese-English, English-Chinese Dictionary Edited by Martin Manser Oxford University Press, 1999 610 pages	Bi-directional dictionary contains 26,000 entries on each side. The dictionary is mainly organized according to simplified characters although traditional characters are listed for main entries. Chinese-English entries are ordered by their pinyin pronunciation. A radical index allows a character to be searched if you don't know the pronunciation.
	Langenscheidt's Pocket Dictionary Chinese/English English/Chinese Edited by Langenscheidt Staff Langenscheidt Publishing Group, 2001 672 pages	Bi-directional dictionary contains 40,000 entries, combined. Only simplified characters are given. Chinese-English entries is organized according to pronunciation. A radical index allows a character to be searched if you don't know the pronunciation.
	The Starter Oxford Chinese Dictionary Edited by Bopin Yuan and Sally Church Oxford University Press, 2000 500 pages	Bi-directional dictionary for beginner student. Only provides simplified characters. Chinese-English entries are ordered according to the pinyin pronunciation.
	Far East Chinese-English Dictionary Edited by Liang Shih-Chiu Far East Book Co., 1992 1828 pages	Highly regarded Chinese-English dictionary contains over 120,000 entries, including 7,300 characters. Pronunciation for main entries are given in pinyin, zhuyin (bopomofo), and guoyu romatzu. Phrases, however, are only in zhuyin. Both traditional and simplified characters are given. Words are sorted according to radical and stroke count as is common in Chinese-Chinese dictionaries. Pinyin and zhuyin index allows characters to be found by their pronunciation.
	Far East Pinyin Chinese-English Dictionary Edited by Ten-Ming Yeh Far East  Book Co., 2000 850 pages	Pinyin-English dictionary contains 40,000 entries, including 4,000 characters. Both traditional and simplified characters are given. Includes usage and pronunciation from both Taiwan and the PRC.
	ABC Chinese-English Dictionary Edited by John DeFrancis, et al University of Hawaii Press, 1999 920 pages	First Chinese-English dictionary published that sorted entries based on pinyin.  Dictionary contains 71,400 entries. Traditional and simplified characters are given for individual characters but compound words are given in simplified characters only. Radical index provides access to characters who pronunciation is not known.
	Reading and Writing Chinese Written by William McNaughton and Li Ying Charles E. Tuttle, 1999 348 pages	Covers all 2,000 characters of the official student list published by the PRC, including the "Yale 1020", the most useful characters as determined by America educators. In all cases, the traditional and simplified characters, the pinyin pronunciation, and English meaning are given.  For the 1020 most useful characters, the number of strokes, stroke order, and character etymology are given as well.  You should not expect to use this book as your main dictionary.
	Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary Edited by Rick Harbaugh Zhongwen.com, 1998 545 pages	Contains etymology for 4,000 characters, which can be useful in helping remember the characters and makes for very interesting reading. Although definitions are included, you should not expect to use it as your main dictionary. The author also makes the same information available at zhongwen.com.

See also

• YellowBridge Chinese English Dictionary