What does a Chinese dictionary look like?
John Hatpin
using a written Western alphabet, it's pretty easy, because all those
words are sorted alphabetically in dictionaries, encyclopedias and so
on.
How about other languages, particularly those using pictographs? How
does someone who only speaks and reads, say, Mandarin, find out that a
wombat is a "burrowing herbivorous Australian marsupial" by reference
to a book of words in their language?
--
John Hatpin
ra...@westnet.poe.com
There's a couple of methods, one is to use a different alphabet, one that
is phonetic, and then look it up that way. So there may be a singe
pcitogram for wombat, but using the alternative alphabet, you sound out
w-o-m-b-a-t and findout what it is.
The second style of chinese dictionary was sorted by pen strokes in the
character, then sorted by major shapes. Doesn't narrow things down as
much, but gets you close enough.
John
--
Remove the dead poet to e-mail, tho CC'd posts are unwelcome.
Mean People Suck - It takes two deviations to get cool.
Ask me about joining the NRA.
John Dean
Bill Turlock
It's a book, about so big, with lots of chinese characters in it,
and you read it from back to front.
HTH
Charles Wm. Dimmick
I have three Chinese dictionaries here, plus a Chinese-German-English
Geology dictionary. The most useful one for me starts by giving a
two-page key to the roughly 200 radicals into which all characters
can be sorted, arranged by number of strokes. Then you are directed
to the page at the start of all the characters which have that
radical. For instance, the radical Shan, which consists of
three vertical strokes connected near the bottom by a horizontal
stroke is found as a part of all the characters which have something
to do with mountains, including Shan itself, which means "mountain".
See, for instance:
http://www.momao.com/sstalk.html
for examples of Shan and Shui [water]
Now suppose you come across the character shown near
the top of the following page:
http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/758/
You will immediately see the Shan radical at the top of
the character. So for translation you will go to the
page where Shan radical characters start, and a page
or so later you will find your character and see that it
is YAN, which means rock.
Charles
art...@yahoo.com
wrote:
> It's a book, about so big, with lots of chinese characters in it,
> and you read it from back to front.
>
> HTH
Well, that's the abridged version.
Bill Kinkaid
--
Bill in Vancouver
Guillermo el Gato
<cdim...@snet.net> wrote:
>
>I have three Chinese dictionaries here, plus a Chinese-German-English
>Geology dictionary. The most useful one for me starts by giving a
>two-page key to the roughly 200 radicals into which all characters
>can be sorted, arranged by number of strokes. Then you are directed
>to the page at the start of all the characters which have that
>radical. For instance, the radical Shan, which consists of
>three vertical strokes connected near the bottom by a horizontal
>stroke is found as a part of all the characters which have something
>to do with mountains, including Shan itself, which means "mountain".
>
>See, for instance:
>http://www.momao.com/sstalk.html
>
>for examples of Shan and Shui [water]
>
>Now suppose you come across the character shown near
>the top of the following page:
>
>http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/758/
>
>You will immediately see the Shan radical at the top of
>the character. So for translation you will go to the
>page where Shan radical characters start, and a page
>or so later you will find your character and see that it
>is YAN, which means rock.
>
YRDLSH.
Thanks.
Charles Wm. Dimmick
> YRDLSH.
OK. YOu whooshed me completely.
What does YRDLSH stand for?
Charels
Guillermo el Gato
You really do learn stuff here.
Jeff Lanam
wrote:
I picked the wrong day to quit smoking opium.
Bill Turlock
I was going to try to work that in smoehow, but it just didn't
scan for me
art...@yahoo.com
> On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 13:06:11 GMT, "Charles Wm. Dimmick"
>
> >Guillermo el Gato wrote:
>
> >> YRDLSH.
>
> >OK. YOu whooshed me completely.
> >What does YRDLSH stand for?
>
> >Charels
>
> You really do learn stuff here.
Yes, but what does YRDLSH mean? Your'e Delish?
Bill Turlock
Yes, but that's not important right now.
Bill Turlock
Good job, Charles. I was gonna chime in, but you were much better
at it than I.
Interestingly the 'water' radical looks nothing like the kanji
for 'water' but it does make a kind of sense to me. And it should
be noted that the center vertical of 'yama' is taller than the
adjacent two. Sorta' looks like a mountain.
I found this to be quite valuable when I was noodling around with
kanji: