Questions tagged [dictionary]
Questions related to using sources that contain definitions, information or translations of words.
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Why do authoritative Chinese dictionaries tend to include less slangs than their English counterparts?
What are the possible reasons that authoritative Chinese dictionaries tend to include less new slangs or idioms (mainly talking about those that got popular from the 90s to 10s, or even the 20s) than ...
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Difference between 英文词典 and 英语词典
It suposed that when you refer to the language on a printed item it should be expresed ending with 文。 For example 中文地图, 西班牙文书, 英文书。
BUT I found this in several dictionaries covers:
汉语词典，西班牙语词典，英语词典，...
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周礼 passage on youth education
There is a following passage in 说文解字:
《周禮》：八歲入小學，保氏教國子，先以六書。一曰指事。指事者，視而可識，察而見意，「上、下」是也。二曰象形。象形者，畫成其物，隨體詰詘，「日、月」是也。三曰形聲。形聲者，以事為名，取譬相成，「江、河」是也。四曰會意。會意者，比類合誼，以見指撝，「武、信」是也。五曰轉注。轉注者，建類一首，同意相受，「考、老」是也。六曰假借。...
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What about the meaning "actually" for 所 mentioned in many dictionaries?
Many online dictionaries (dictionary.writtenchinese.com, yellowbridge.com, chine.in/mandarin/dictionnaire/, app.ninchanese.com/search, etc...) mention the meaning "actually" ("en ...
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PY, JP, and HZ in Pleco dictionary
I was wondering what PY, JP, and HZ stand for in the Pleco dictionary for Android.
I think, PY probably stands for pinyin.
HZ probably stands for hanzi, but I don't understand, why sometimes HZ ...
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Is there a dictionary or database of Chinese morphemes and Chinese words with morphological information?
Linguistics textbooks on Chinese morphology identify the morpheme (词素/语素) and word (词) as linguistic entities. In addition, they propose a classification system for morphemes (词素/语素) as:
自由 eg. 地 牛 走
...
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Do any modern dictionaries use the original 214 Kangxi radicals?
For simplified characters, do any modern paper dictionaries include an index of characters using the original 214 Kanxi radicals?
I'm familiar with the original 214 Kanxi radicals due to their usage ...
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Are there any datasets or spreadsheets that contain the most popular Chinese characters and their components?
I'm trying to build a program to help me study Chinese, and one way that helps me remember characters is dividing them into components.
I'm using a website called dictionary.writechinese.com to do ...
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What is an example of a word that is different in definition in the Kangxi and Zhengzitong Dictionaries?
What is an example of a word that is different in definition or more clarified in the Kangxi dictionary than in the Zhengzitong dictionary?
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How are Chinese-Chinese word dictionaries meant to be navigated?
Let's say I encounter the word 委婉 and I want to find out what it means. When I look it up in the Cross-Straits dictionary (perhaps the largest free and professionally edited dictionary out there), I ...
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Antimetabole and source for literary devices
What is the translation of the literary device of antimetabole in Chinese? I'm sure a bunch of idioms use it, but I haven't found a good translation for the term. For instance, how would someone ...
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Chinese etymology dictionary for words of more than one character
European dictionaries such as the Webster's English Dictionary or the Oxford Dictionary often have detailed etymologies of each word entry, together with dates of oldest attested usage and history of ...
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What does 'xing' in adsotrans dictionary mean?
I have downloaded the Adsotrans Chinese-English dictionary add-ons on Pleco,
and when I search for 松茸 this came up.
Other result may annotate translations as noun, adj, verb etc. but I have never seen ...
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How to look up for characters not having any radicals in "Radical Lookup Method"
In "Radical Lookup method", it's well known that we first identify the radical of the character and then look it up according to the number of strokes and so on. This method works well for ...
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Creation of Chinese characters throughout history?
The Shuowen Jiezi, compiled around 100 AD, contain entries for some 10,000 Chinese characters. The Kangxi Dictionary, compiled almost two millennia later, contain over 47,000 characters. Of the ...
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Please recommend me a descriptive Chinese-English dictionary [duplicate]
Most dictionaries will use several English words or phrases to explain Chinese words, but I'd like to find a dictionary that explains terms by sentences or descriptive words. For example:
创造: To build ...
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书 (literary register) in dictionaries
Note: this topic is talking about the usage of register of Chinese-English dictionary
Previous topic: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/48364/what-is-the-different-between-文言-and-书面
In the ...
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Monolingual Mandarin illustrated dictionary in traditional characters
Is there any Mandarin picture dictionary that:
Is 100% in Mandarin (no English or other languages).
Uses traditional Chinese characters.
Is available as a physical book.
If possible, there should be ...
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What is the Mandarin PinYin pronunciation for the Bushou that cannot be typed?
I am attaching images of 部首 (Associated BuShou) from the widely used 新华字典 (XinHuaZiDian) that have no current Unicode encoding, therefore cannot be typed using your typical software on your typical ...
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Why has zuò//láo // in between?
I am going through the word 坐牢 using the Pleco dictionary. Generally they will not keep // in between two characters. But I can see // for this.
zuò//láo
What does // mean? Can zuò and láo be used ...
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Criteria of making an acceptable word/character in Chinese
In the English language, the dictionaries are updated yearly to include new words and modifications of current spellings that have been accepted due to common usage. For example, the internet age saw ...
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How are dictionaries of ideograms sorted?
Since Chinese. Japanese and Korean have no alphabetical writing system how do those people sort their dictionaries?
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Where can I get a Chinese language word list?
I am looking for as large as possible a Chinese language word list. Does anyone know where I could find one?
I want a list on my computer. I am looking into NLP (Natural language processing)
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Is 枝 used as qí?
I found that the word 枝 is used not only as zhi but also as qí, but I could not find the entry on macOS Chinese dictionary. Also, when I tried typing it qi on iOS, the keyboard didn't show 枝 on the ...
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How are Chinese words sorted?
How do you sort Chinese words since they are not alphabetical? What sorts of sorting systems exist, and what is typical in dictionaries for example?
I am thinking how to do some programming stuff ...
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Is there an Android app that pressing on words translates them?
I found this popup browser dictionary: Zhongwen: Chinese-English Dictionary. Hovering the mouse over a character, it displays the translation and the pinyin:
Is there an app that gives this easy ...
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What is the fundamental difference between 大同世界 and Utopias
I wanted to add '大同世界' as an entry to a Chinese dictionary a group of editors and I are working at. At first, I thought 'Utopias' could be one of its definitions. But I searched 大同世界 on the net and ...
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What does // mean in Pleco's description of pronunciation?
Consider the following picture:
What does // mean here? I couldn't see it for example in shou4dao4, so it's not always there.
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Dictionary for traditional characters
I want to start learning traditional characters， but I don't know any good dictionaries that shows the strokes and maybe the meaning of each particular character.
Can you recommend a good dictionary? (...
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What is the title of this Ming era picture dictionary?
I was browsing Wikipedia when I came across this picture:
(source)
The description says:
An excerpt from a 1436 primer on Chinese characters. (better version)
Original picture sourced from:
...
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Is there a good monolingual learner's dictionary for Chinese?
Something that can be useful for an intermediate language student of a language is a monolingual learner's dictionary, which uses a restricted set of vocabulary to define a much larger set of ...
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Resource request: Hainanese dictionaries
What are the available Hainanese (海南話) dictionaries? In particular, dictionaries of the Wenchang (文昌) dialect. If those are not available, dictionaries of the Haikou (海口) dialect are also fine.
If ...
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The Meaning of “~” in Definitions
The symbol “~” appears in many definitions. What does it mean?
Examples:
2 纯；专：专～。～心～意。
https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E4%B8%80
1 头的前部，脸：脸～。颜～。～目。～～相觑。
https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E9%9D%A2
2 ...
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Chinese-Chinese dictionary definitions re-using characters from the word
I see Chinese-Chinese definitions which re-use the characters of the word. For example, 领导 defined as 动：带领并引导大家开展工作. If I already knew 带领 and 引导 then I probably could guess 领导, so it's not very ...
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Chinese Dictionary Question
What do the characters in angle brackets signify?
Examples:
http://www.zdic.net/z/15/xs/4E48.htm
"〈后缀〉" "〈助〉"
http://www.zdic.net/z/16/xs/54C1.htm
"〈形〉" "〈名〉" "〈动〉"
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What does the notation 【方】 mean in a Chinese dictionary?
In a dictionary entry reading…
saggy adj.【方】下垂的；垂曲的；中陷的。
…, what does the notation 【方】 mean?
(Other examples of this notation that I understand include “【美俗】” (American slang), “【解剖】” (anatomy), and ...
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Are the wiktionary definitions for 切 qiè correct?
Definitions 2 through 11 for pronunciation qiè are missing in the 11 dicitionaries I compare from qtranslate. Would they be recognizable in mainland chinese?
to be close to
to bite tightly;
to clench
...
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How many of the definitions in dictionaries generally are really used?
Every dictionary like wiktionary has about 20 different definitions for each pictograph and about ten different meanings(combining reworded synonyms). Are they all recognizably used when or just a few?...
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Is there a dictionary that includes word collocations (词语搭配)?
Is there a decent dictionary that includes word collocations (词语搭配), or words that the searched word cannot be used with?
I use Pleco, but one of my largest complaints with it is that there's really ...
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Why does Chinese combine words with the same meaning to produce again the same meaning like 睡觉? [duplicate]
I keep coming across words like 睡觉 which both mean to sleep and together mean to sleep. Are the dictionaries that I'm using adding the definition of the combined words to the single words possibly or ...
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A Word A Day for Chinese
Does anyone know of any Chinese service that sends or publishes a regular A Word A Day for native Chinese speakers to expand their own vocabulary? I'm having trouble finding one, even though these are ...
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bkrs Chinese dictionary?
I’ve seen that some users like to refer to a dictionary called bkrs (or: 大 БКРС) in their comments.
I’ve been on the website (https://bkrs.info), but since I don’t know Russian, I don’t understand it.
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How do I resolve dictionary ambiguities when looking up words/phrases?
More often than not, looking up a simple word in a dictionary brings up several translations. It's pretty obvious that a lot of people have problems with this since a lot of questions here are "what ...
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Is there an official stroke order for each character?
I’m a learner of Japanese for now some years, and I really like kanji, or chinese characters, and I’ve recently taken some interest in the Chinese language though I don’t intend to learn it.
My ...
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Is there an Old Chinese dictionary which shows clearly the usage of a word?
类似于OALD等英语学习者词典，我希望这本词典能在含义之外详细说明词的用法，以使得读者看完后能够用所查的词写出正确的古汉语句子。
以“语”字为例，我希望这本词典至少能够说明这个字（作“告诉”讲时）如何接续表示“告诉”的对象，如何接续表示“告诉”的内容，并给出相应例句。
词典本身是用任何语言编纂的都可以。
user19559
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Does this dictionary confuse "start at" with "startled at"? [closed]
我觉得是词典搞错了， 应该是 startle 才有”吃惊“的意思吧？
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Can I use 现代汉语词典 outside of the paper dictionary?
现代汉语词典 seems to be the de facto standard for Chinese dictionaries. Some users here use it as well. But it seems only possible for the paper version.
But I might miss something. Is it possible to use ...
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How can I know a similar or related word in Chinese?
One of the problems I face these days is that while my reading is getting better, my writing skill is still quite limited. When I draft out a sentence, I could not come up with any word that should ...
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Ordering and grouping of Chinese characters
I'm learning Cantonese (native Danish speaker, I use traditional Chinese characters) and I'm compiling a list of characters that I've learned. I have two questions about creating this list.
Since (...
user18848
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What do "BS" and "BH" mean in the 现代汉语词典?
What are the meanings of BS and BH as seen in the screenshot below?
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