遠東漢英大辭典
Far East Chinese-English Dictionary
February 25th, 2006 by Mark
The Far East Chinese-English Dictionary (遠東漢英大辭典) is widely sold both in the west and in traditional character using Chinese regions, such as Taiwan and Hong Kong. While its primary market is Chinese people who are studying English, this dictionary is also very useful for English speakers who are studying Chinese. In fact, many prestigious US colleges use this dictionary along with the Oxford Concise E-C/C-E dictionary for their intermediate level courses.
The dictionary is organized by radical and stroke count, and all characters are indexed by both zhùyīn and pīnyīn at the back of the dictionary. More common terms are highlighted in pink. With over 120,000 entries on 7,331 Chinese characters, the dictionary is very thorough. Obviously, it isn’t impossible to include everything, but in my experience the dictionary has more than fulfilled its stated goal of emphasizing wide application and current usage. From literary terms to scientific terms to idioms and even vulgar slang, I have never encountered a commonly used word that I haven’t been able to find in this dictionary.
Pros:
- Accurate translations and clear explanations
- Nearly any commonly used speech can be found
- Radical, stroke number, zhùyīn and pīnyīn can all be used to find words
- Fairly durable
Cons:
- Though characters are indexed by pīnyīn in the back only zhùyīn is listed next to the entries under any given character
- No simplified characters are included at all
- The characters are too small for students to be able to tell how to write them
- Except for literary terms, the usage for words in this dictionary is very Taiwan-centric, yet the pronunciation suggest for characters is often unused in Taiwan, except by mainland immigrants
Rating: 4.5/5
Level: Beginner to High Intermediate
February 25th, 2006 at 9:12 am
Don’t they make electronic Chinese/English English/Chinese dictionaries? I’ve got a Japanese/English English/Japanese from a long long time ago, but the new ones I see now have Korean/Japanese/Chinese/English all on one dictionary. I can’t imaging what it would be like using a paper dictionary, especially for looking up kanji you can’t read…
February 25th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
They make them, but the translations are often weird and they’re pretty much all targeted at Chinese learners of English. That makes them less useful than paper dictionaries for me (at least while I’m still learning Chinese).
February 25th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
Hmm.. Perhaps I need to send you a Chinese dictionary targeted for Japanese people learning it. It will of course have English as well, but will have the chinese dictionary organized in a way that is explanatory. Plus you’ll have a Japanese dictionary right there too!
February 25th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
I remember back in the day, when I was studying Japanese, I had a similar problem. Nearly all the electronic English-Japanese dictionaries, even the expensive ones, displayed only Kanji in the entries. Only the Cannon dictionaries included furigana on every single English-Japanese lookup. While this feature may not be important to most Japanese people, it’s vital for western students who don’t know how to pronounce the words. I’ll get into this issue when I review the Far East English-Chinese Dictionary.
August 6th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
i need some help with a translation for my partner he wants ” kayleigh louise” & “always in my heart” translating i don’t know how to ask or where to find english to chinese. His daughter died when she was 28days old so it would mean so much to him if i can get if translated.
a big thank-you to any one who can help.