I started making my own database using a spreadsheet when I first came to Taiwan. I wanted to have an easy way to look up words. It is tiring to constantly check a dictionary in book form, i wanted a database where I could enter info just once and then easily retrieve that info later. I also wanted an incontext way of learning and so I started translating chinese texts into english. I had my spreadsheet set up so that for each character I typed in, it’s english definition and other info would come up automatically, then I could fine tune my definitions as well as easily see the meanings of words without having to look them up again.
I also wanted a way to make my work easily available to others, at least anyone else interested in studying chinese. And so initialy i made pdf documents with translated chinese, mainly poems, and instructions on yoga and tai ji, my main current areas of interest. Then I decided to make the jump to making my dictionary available on the internet in the easiest way to use possible, hence all the ways to navigate.
Since I have the data, other developments coming up include dictionaries sorted in English (I still have some work to do there on my database) words sorted by pinyin, and perhaps GR, and also specialized dictionaries for yoga, tai ji, classical chinese and anatomy.
One of the benefits (or detriments) of this project is that it allows me to see errors easily so that i can go back and correct them. Also it allows me to double check entries, especially when a certain character definition doesn’t seem to make sense in the context of words that it is used in.
And finally, I wanted something to put on my resume. I made something that worked and that might be of use to someone other than myself. And so this represents the culmination, or the by product of two years of poking in dictionaries and trying to figure words out.
Chinese to English Translation Dictionaries
Characters sorted by Radical,
Characters sorted by Pin Yin,
Characters sorted by English,
Characters sorted by Cangjie
2. Chinese Culture and Tradition-Respecting the Older Generation ,
3. Chinese Codes of Behavior-Being a Guest and Receiving Them,
4. The role of Women in Traditional Chinese Marriages
Chinese to English Translations
1. Traditional Chinese Festivals ,2. Chinese Culture and Tradition-Respecting the Older Generation ,
3. Chinese Codes of Behavior-Being a Guest and Receiving Them,
4. The role of Women in Traditional Chinese Marriages
Limitations
This dictionary only has 5000 words and 2000 characters and I’ve gathered those entries from areas of interest, yoga, tai ji, poetry, classical chinese, so it may be limited for areas outside of these. Even so, hopefully it will be of some use and as I continue my studies the database will be updated from time to time. If you subscribe you’ll get notifications when the db has been updated. Also, you may find it easier to download the dictionary pages and use them on your computer wihout having to access the internet. If that is the case then if you subscribe you’ll know when the latest pages are available for download.
Posted by
Neil Keleher
Searching
You can also get around by using the “page” search function built into your computer. For Mac type “command f” and in windows type “cntrl f” and in either case you’ll get a search window. Type in the word you are looking for and if it is in the page you are searching the words will pop up. You might start of in dict0, search for a word, and if found, then use the hyperlinks to go to dict1 or dict 2.
Posted by
Neil Keleher
Getting Around
Clicking on the hyperlinked characters in dict0 takes you from dict0 to words containing that character in dict1. Clicking on a “multi-character word” in dict1 takes you to the same word in dict2. Likewise clicking on the multi-character word in dict2 takes you back to the same entry in dict1. This allows you to compare words in a couple of contexts.
You can also click on the single character heading at the top of each section in dict1 or dict2 to take you back to the relevant character in dict0.
If you click on a character in Dict0 and it takes you to dict1 but not to the relevant entry it is because the dictionary currently has no multi-character words containing that character.
There are other short cuts built in. If you look at dict0 you’ll see that each entry is proceeded by a code. This code corresponds to each of the 214 radicals that the chinese use to classify their characters. As an example, 一 is the first radical so it is number one. 口is the 30th radical so it is number 30. If you go to the navigation bar of your internet page and type a # sign followed by a number from 1 to 214, the radical relevant entry will pop up.
Note that dict1 and dict2 have 5 pages each. Each page corresponds to a successive sequence of radicals as follows:
A, 1 to 29
B, 30 to 60
C, 61 to 100
D, 100 to 140
E, 140 to 214
You can also type a # after the html followed by the cangjie letter code to get the specific entry you require (if the dictionary has it).
Also, you can type the name of the radical. For example, radical 61 it heart (心)
and so you can type either #61, #heart, or #p, to get to the entries for heart, noting that for the second and third dictionaries you have to be on pages dict1b or dict2b.
I spend a lot of time looking up characters manually and what I’ve found is that sometimes it is handy knowing the number of each radical and even the sequence of radicals, (which one follows or preceeds), that makes it easier to look characters up manually. And so using the numbers to navigate the dictionary are a way for me to learn, quickly and with immediate gratification, and whenever I’m wrong, it’s easy to correct and learn.
The radical names are a way of learning the significance of the radicals themselves, and also a way for getting around when I can’t be bothered to learn the numbers.
The cangjie typing codes are a way for me to keep my typing skills intact and also because the pages contain the codes, if I get the code wrong, I can quickly check and get the codes write. It’s a way of practicing that doesn’t waste resources (like those boards you can get where you paint on them with water instead of ink so that you painting fades after a few seconds, long enough for you to see how you can make it better.)
You can also click on the single character heading at the top of each section in dict1 or dict2 to take you back to the relevant character in dict0.
If you click on a character in Dict0 and it takes you to dict1 but not to the relevant entry it is because the dictionary currently has no multi-character words containing that character.
There are other short cuts built in. If you look at dict0 you’ll see that each entry is proceeded by a code. This code corresponds to each of the 214 radicals that the chinese use to classify their characters. As an example, 一 is the first radical so it is number one. 口is the 30th radical so it is number 30. If you go to the navigation bar of your internet page and type a # sign followed by a number from 1 to 214, the radical relevant entry will pop up.
Note that dict1 and dict2 have 5 pages each. Each page corresponds to a successive sequence of radicals as follows:
A, 1 to 29
B, 30 to 60
C, 61 to 100
D, 100 to 140
E, 140 to 214
You can also type a # after the html followed by the cangjie letter code to get the specific entry you require (if the dictionary has it).
Also, you can type the name of the radical. For example, radical 61 it heart (心)
and so you can type either #61, #heart, or #p, to get to the entries for heart, noting that for the second and third dictionaries you have to be on pages dict1b or dict2b.
I spend a lot of time looking up characters manually and what I’ve found is that sometimes it is handy knowing the number of each radical and even the sequence of radicals, (which one follows or preceeds), that makes it easier to look characters up manually. And so using the numbers to navigate the dictionary are a way for me to learn, quickly and with immediate gratification, and whenever I’m wrong, it’s easy to correct and learn.
The radical names are a way of learning the significance of the radicals themselves, and also a way for getting around when I can’t be bothered to learn the numbers.
The cangjie typing codes are a way for me to keep my typing skills intact and also because the pages contain the codes, if I get the code wrong, I can quickly check and get the codes write. It’s a way of practicing that doesn’t waste resources (like those boards you can get where you paint on them with water instead of ink so that you painting fades after a few seconds, long enough for you to see how you can make it better.)
Posted by
Neil Keleher
What is this Dictionary?
The dictionary is actually three main Chinese-English dictionaries. The first lists single characters while the second and third list words of two or more characters.
The first dictionary is a list of single characters with their English definitions, English spelling and typing codes. Because mainland China in the main uses simplified characters while in Taiwan and in Chinese communities outside of China traditional characters are use I’ve included both so that you can see how they differ. You’ll notice that not all characters are simplified, just some of them and in some cases they look radically different in other cases the changes are minor.
The English spelling is so that foreigners like myself, and perhaps yourself (if you are of non-chinese origin) can “say” the characters. There are a number of “romanization” systems. In the first dictionary I use two, Pinyin which is the most “officially” recognized, and G.R. whose spelling most closely approximates the sound of each word. I’ve included both so that you can use the G.R. spelling to help you properly pronounce the Pinyin spelling and so that you can see the G.R. system in action. Because it doesn’t use accent marks for tone it can take longer to learn but the advantages are that those who do learn it generally have better pronounciation because the G.R. system is designed with the foreign tongue in mind. Rather than having to think about the different tones, the spelling gives the tone “naturally.”
The cangjie codes are for touch typing in Chinese. If you have a mac then Cangjie is built into the operating system and you can learn it on from the Settings dialog. Windows also has this feature.
I’ve listed both the letter codes and the equivalent symbol codes. You can actually test your skill in typing whether or not you have cangjie by typing the # sign followed by a cangjie code after the html address to see the relevant entry come up. This is also a way of navigating around the dictionary.
Why learn cangjie as opposed to other methods? Cangjie is a touch typing method. There are no pull down menus. Also you don’t have to know the sound of the word, you can look at the character, or know the character to determine the code. It is also a good way of remembering characters so that you can actually write them because it forces you to recognize the components of the character... not quite perfectly but it does help.
The second dictionary is a list of character words. It is special because the character doesn’t have to be the first character in the word. It gives you a chance to see a character in words where it isn’t just the first character. (e.g.) It is limited to words two or three characters long.
The third dictionary is also a word dictionary but this one is organized only by the first character in each word. It has words of 2, 3 or more characters long so you can see characters used in longer words.
The first dictionary is a list of single characters with their English definitions, English spelling and typing codes. Because mainland China in the main uses simplified characters while in Taiwan and in Chinese communities outside of China traditional characters are use I’ve included both so that you can see how they differ. You’ll notice that not all characters are simplified, just some of them and in some cases they look radically different in other cases the changes are minor.
The English spelling is so that foreigners like myself, and perhaps yourself (if you are of non-chinese origin) can “say” the characters. There are a number of “romanization” systems. In the first dictionary I use two, Pinyin which is the most “officially” recognized, and G.R. whose spelling most closely approximates the sound of each word. I’ve included both so that you can use the G.R. spelling to help you properly pronounce the Pinyin spelling and so that you can see the G.R. system in action. Because it doesn’t use accent marks for tone it can take longer to learn but the advantages are that those who do learn it generally have better pronounciation because the G.R. system is designed with the foreign tongue in mind. Rather than having to think about the different tones, the spelling gives the tone “naturally.”
The cangjie codes are for touch typing in Chinese. If you have a mac then Cangjie is built into the operating system and you can learn it on from the Settings dialog. Windows also has this feature.
I’ve listed both the letter codes and the equivalent symbol codes. You can actually test your skill in typing whether or not you have cangjie by typing the # sign followed by a cangjie code after the html address to see the relevant entry come up. This is also a way of navigating around the dictionary.
Why learn cangjie as opposed to other methods? Cangjie is a touch typing method. There are no pull down menus. Also you don’t have to know the sound of the word, you can look at the character, or know the character to determine the code. It is also a good way of remembering characters so that you can actually write them because it forces you to recognize the components of the character... not quite perfectly but it does help.
The second dictionary is a list of character words. It is special because the character doesn’t have to be the first character in the word. It gives you a chance to see a character in words where it isn’t just the first character. (e.g.) It is limited to words two or three characters long.
The third dictionary is also a word dictionary but this one is organized only by the first character in each word. It has words of 2, 3 or more characters long so you can see characters used in longer words.
Posted by
Neil Keleher
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
