(I jest. It’s amazing how much more productive we historians should–emphasize: should–be with all of the amazing tools now at our disposal.)
Guoyu Cidian 国语词典 is a great on-line dictionary with multiple definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and decent examples. Not quite as good as the CD-ROM version of the Hanyu Dacidian 汉语大词典, but a nice site for quick checks of those hard to place phrases.
The Dictionary of Chinese Idioms is a useful searchable database of chengyu and allows you to search for phrases containing a single character. The database is also searchable by English words if you’re writing that Valentine’s Card, Dear John letter, or nasty retort to your boss and you want to find just the right four-character phrase to drive the point home.
Converting dates between the Western and Chinese calendars used to give historians ulcers. Now, thanks to Academica Sinicia, it’s a website. Simply input your Chinese date (reign title/year/month/date — either numerically or according to the stem/branch system) and click and it will give you the corresponding date in the Western calendar. Below that is a converter that does the reverse, just in case you cared that on the 19th day of the 5th month of the 41st year of the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, the US declared independence from Great Britain. I know you wanted to know that. I just do.
Since I’m too busy to take regular Chinese classes but don’t want to sound like “That Guy” when we try to order lunch in a Beijing jiao zi guan, I’ve become hooked on Chinese Pod. It’s no substitute for a real class, but the lessons are done in bite size segments and the writers and teachers seem to have a good sense for a learner’s skill level–keeping it useful but simple for ‘newbies’ but stretching it out a bit for more advanced learners. The podcasts are just the rights size for the morning commute. Highly recommended.
Finally, for those who like to play around in the Japanese language too, Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC site is a must-see. Not necessarily the easiest interface in the world, but the site provides dictionaries, on-line translation tools, even a function to figure out the romanization of Japanese names (very useful if you’re looking at Chinese sources with Japanese names written only in Hanzi/Kanji).
Enjoy.
1 response so far ↓
1 trevelyan // Oct 20, 2006 at 8:35 am
I would humbly add the work we are trying to do with Adsotrans to this list as well.
We are definitely weak at classical texts, largely because most of the work building the dictionary has focused on contemporary terms. But there are few other resources online that can tell you what 密集波分复用. And we’re doing our best to change the closed-garden nature of these resources.
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