Are there *ANY* good Cantonese dictionaries out there?
- comphrehensive, with phrases
- C-E and E-C
- includes characters, of course
- a popular romanisation scheme (eg. Yale, jyutpin?)
- currently available (in print)
- legible font sizes
Is this asking too much? I've done some searching but can't really find anything.
Regards,
rathpy
Cantonese Dictionary
-
James Campbell
Re: Cantonese Dictionary
Yes, but I didn't buy it...next time I'm at the bookstore I'll check the name and what not... It was tempting because I think it had quite a few sample sentences...
-
rathpy
Re: Cantonese Dictionary
I would be grateful. The best I could find was a one-way book "Chinese-English Dictionary: Cantonese in Yale Romanization, Mandarin in Pinyin" by Chik Han Man, Ng Lam Sim Yuk, ISBN:9622019226, but it is out of print.
I almost can't believe that there aren't lots of good dictionaries out there, but I have done quite a bit of searching. I turn to my comprehensive 1000+ page English dictionary and think how much easier life would be if there was one Cantonese/English.
Regards,
rathpy
I almost can't believe that there aren't lots of good dictionaries out there, but I have done quite a bit of searching. I turn to my comprehensive 1000+ page English dictionary and think how much easier life would be if there was one Cantonese/English.
Regards,
rathpy
Re: Cantonese Dictionary
>>
I almost can't believe that there aren't lots of good dictionaries out there, but I have done quite a bit of searching. I turn to my comprehensive 1000+ page English dictionary and think how much easier life would be if there was one Cantonese/English.
<<
Compared to the abundance of material for European languages with native speaker populations of similar size (e.g. Italian or Polish), the amount of material for Cantonese is very small. This is to a good part caused by the Cantonese people treating Cantonese language as a dialect of Chinese and not as a language. If it were not for Hongkong, there would be even much less around. Then, of the material available, most is for beginners. Good dictionaries are for advanced students, so it is no surprise in the end that there is no real good dictionary around that fulfills all the requirements that you described. You want to learn Cantonese. You will have to be grateful for whatever is there at all.
>>
The best I could find was a one-way book "Chinese-English Dictionary: Cantonese in Yale Romanization, Mandarin in Pinyin" by Chik Han Man, Ng Lam Sim Yuk, ISBN:9622019226, but it is out of print.
<<
I got that one. It is very helpful, especially as you can search it using Cantonese pronounciation. However, Cantonese words more often than not come in two syllables (characters). The book is a character dictionary and is not so helpful, if you need to find words with more than one syllable. (I am searching bookstores for years now for anything useful, but I have yet to see any Cantonese-English dictionary for words instead of characters.)
Other way around (English-Cantonese):
"English-Cantonese Dictionary, Cantonese in Yale Romanization" by Kwan Choi Wah and others. Pretty good, but no characters and often it gives you several possibilities without telling you the difference between them.
I almost can't believe that there aren't lots of good dictionaries out there, but I have done quite a bit of searching. I turn to my comprehensive 1000+ page English dictionary and think how much easier life would be if there was one Cantonese/English.
<<
Compared to the abundance of material for European languages with native speaker populations of similar size (e.g. Italian or Polish), the amount of material for Cantonese is very small. This is to a good part caused by the Cantonese people treating Cantonese language as a dialect of Chinese and not as a language. If it were not for Hongkong, there would be even much less around. Then, of the material available, most is for beginners. Good dictionaries are for advanced students, so it is no surprise in the end that there is no real good dictionary around that fulfills all the requirements that you described. You want to learn Cantonese. You will have to be grateful for whatever is there at all.
>>
The best I could find was a one-way book "Chinese-English Dictionary: Cantonese in Yale Romanization, Mandarin in Pinyin" by Chik Han Man, Ng Lam Sim Yuk, ISBN:9622019226, but it is out of print.
<<
I got that one. It is very helpful, especially as you can search it using Cantonese pronounciation. However, Cantonese words more often than not come in two syllables (characters). The book is a character dictionary and is not so helpful, if you need to find words with more than one syllable. (I am searching bookstores for years now for anything useful, but I have yet to see any Cantonese-English dictionary for words instead of characters.)
Other way around (English-Cantonese):
"English-Cantonese Dictionary, Cantonese in Yale Romanization" by Kwan Choi Wah and others. Pretty good, but no characters and often it gives you several possibilities without telling you the difference between them.
-
rathpy
Re: Cantonese Dictionary
Hello Helmut. Thanks for the books info.
I'm not sure that I agree with you that "Good dictionaries are for advanced students". Everybody can benefit form good dictionaries!
Regards,
rathpy
I'm not sure that I agree with you that "Good dictionaries are for advanced students". Everybody can benefit form good dictionaries!
Regards,
rathpy
Re: Cantonese Dictionary
Helmut: Didn't look a that one yet, however if character compounds are listed under that character that is a fairly similar concept.
-
James Campbell
Re: Cantonese Dictionary
Rathpy,
I have to agree with Helmut saying that good dictionaries are for advanced students. Some of the dictionaries I use, I couldn't have used when I was just learning Chinese. Some of the dictionaries are all in Chinese and are some of my best and favorites (without English definitions). For example all of my Minnan dictionaries and glossaries are this way (all the English translated ones are over 100 yrs old, out of date, and not easy to use--and I don't even both with them). In China, it's rare to find two-way dictionaries. Dictionaries are usually set up (including dialect dictionaries) to be foreign language -> Standard Chinese. And when you do find Chinese -> foreign language dictionaries, they are usually only character entries only.
James Campbell
I have to agree with Helmut saying that good dictionaries are for advanced students. Some of the dictionaries I use, I couldn't have used when I was just learning Chinese. Some of the dictionaries are all in Chinese and are some of my best and favorites (without English definitions). For example all of my Minnan dictionaries and glossaries are this way (all the English translated ones are over 100 yrs old, out of date, and not easy to use--and I don't even both with them). In China, it's rare to find two-way dictionaries. Dictionaries are usually set up (including dialect dictionaries) to be foreign language -> Standard Chinese. And when you do find Chinese -> foreign language dictionaries, they are usually only character entries only.
James Campbell
-
James Campbell
Re: Cantonese Dictionary
Ok, the dictionary I saw was an English>Cantonese dictionary in Yale romanization by the Chinese University Press called English Cantonese Dictionary. There are not any characters provided, by I noticed that if you have a working knowledge of Chinese, those characters more often than not are pretty obvious by the pronunciations provided. The ISBN number is 9622019706, website: www.cuhk.edu.hk/cupress, email: cup@cuhk.edu.hk, tel: 85226036692, fax: 85226037355. I don't know if that helps, but I hope it does.
Sounds like Helmut must already have quiet a few dictionaries with all of his studies, so I wouldn't be suprised if he had this one already.
James
Sounds like Helmut must already have quiet a few dictionaries with all of his studies, so I wouldn't be suprised if he had this one already.
James
Re: Cantonese Dictionary
James,
My funds are limited . . ..
Do I have the one you mention? Yes and no. No, because last time I was in HK, it was not yet on sale. Yes, because the one I mentioned in the previous post should be an older edition of the same book. Author (Kwan Choi Wah = Caihua Guan) and publisher are the same, the description fits in detail, and the errors quoted by reviews of that book at amazon.com are the same. Since even the number of pages did not change, I think there should not be a lot of improvements, if any. What changed is the ISBN and the cover.
Exactly, the same thing holds for the other book (Chinese-English) that Rathpy mentioned and my older version of the same thing, except that here the author did not change his name to Mandarin.
Mark,
yes, if it lists all the compounds under the character, we would get what we want. But this book lists just 2-3 examples per character and they are rarely the most important compounds. So it remains a character dictionary.
Rathpy,
sorry, I should be more careful in my wording. Of course, everybody benefits from a good book. However, to my experience, most people buy a dictionary only after having passed the beginner's stage. Even more true for Chinese character dictionaries that are much more complicated than others.
My favorite for beginners:
"Phrases in Cantonese" by Betty Hung. Not a phrase book, but a 4000 word English-Cantonese vocabulary. For a beginner, it is the best E-C dictionary. It gives romanisation and the characters. It tells you only one and usually the best translation per meaning of the English word. Gives also classifiers. Later, for the intermediate student, it becomes a good vocabulary trainer. And it is of small size and cheap.
My funds are limited . . ..
Do I have the one you mention? Yes and no. No, because last time I was in HK, it was not yet on sale. Yes, because the one I mentioned in the previous post should be an older edition of the same book. Author (Kwan Choi Wah = Caihua Guan) and publisher are the same, the description fits in detail, and the errors quoted by reviews of that book at amazon.com are the same. Since even the number of pages did not change, I think there should not be a lot of improvements, if any. What changed is the ISBN and the cover.
Exactly, the same thing holds for the other book (Chinese-English) that Rathpy mentioned and my older version of the same thing, except that here the author did not change his name to Mandarin.
Mark,
yes, if it lists all the compounds under the character, we would get what we want. But this book lists just 2-3 examples per character and they are rarely the most important compounds. So it remains a character dictionary.
Rathpy,
sorry, I should be more careful in my wording. Of course, everybody benefits from a good book. However, to my experience, most people buy a dictionary only after having passed the beginner's stage. Even more true for Chinese character dictionaries that are much more complicated than others.
My favorite for beginners:
"Phrases in Cantonese" by Betty Hung. Not a phrase book, but a 4000 word English-Cantonese vocabulary. For a beginner, it is the best E-C dictionary. It gives romanisation and the characters. It tells you only one and usually the best translation per meaning of the English word. Gives also classifiers. Later, for the intermediate student, it becomes a good vocabulary trainer. And it is of small size and cheap.