Fair introduction to characters, but not great, December 11, 2000
　

This book tries to teach written chinese and provide a small reference dictionary. To an extent, it succeeds at both of these goals. But in my experience, it's not the best work out there to reach these goals.

Using a real chinese dictionary is not obvious to a beginning student. Think about it -- you can't exactly alphabetize chinese characters. This dictionary is actually no easier to use than a real dictionary, but it does offer explicit instructions on the organization, written for somebody who doesn't know chinese well. (I've seen dictionaries that only offer instructions in Chinese.)

It has a useful list of radicals (character building blocks), which is almost enough to justify the book. The dictionary is ordered by the english name of the radical. This is limitting and non-standard, and requires you have to remember this book's names of the radicals (e.g. is that filed under D for door or G for gate?)

That's about all the nice things I can say about this book. The non-dictionary part is poorly organized to the point that it's not clear what each page is supposed to be saying. Really poor typesetting compounds the problem. The dictionary is very small and incomplete. I can't imagine the memorization drills it offers helping anybody.

For somebody just starting to learn written chinese, I highly recommend _I Can Read That!_ (Sussman) instead to introduce basic concepts of written chinese. After that, a small book on radicals, a general language book that includes written chinese, or even a real dictionary should be accessible.

A definite MUST HAVE for learning about written Chinese!, April 24, 2000
　

Too bad that this book cannot be rated to TEN stars. This book definitely proves that the concept of learning over 5,000 Chinese characters is in fact POSSIBLE. For anyone who thinks that learning all of those characters is impossible, BUY THIS BOOK. This book shows all of the necessary radicals, or "roots" of those characters-thoroughly, which is fundamental to learning Chinese characters. In addition to the radicals, each character is given it's pinjin pronounciation WITH it's definition. I am talking about over 5,000 characters here! Note that a Modern Chinese/English dictionary is also useful in learning to read Chinese text. Yet, if you want to learn how to read the fundamental 5,000+ Chinese characters, then this book is a good way to start.


　

Excellent resource and Learning Tool For Beginner, January 27, 2005
　

This book is an excellent, step by step approach to the world of deciphering unknown Chinese characters. The best thing about this reference tool is that ANYONE can read its very understandable explanations and begin to search the meanings of Chinese characters. While this is not a dictionary in the traditional sense of the word, this "dictionary" is designed for the non-Native speaker and therefore alphabetizes Chinese radicals by their English names/meanings. To anyone familiar with Chinese Radicals, they are a fundamental part of learning the language and being able to become an independent learner/reader. This is an AWESOME first step resource in learning the concept, use and functionality of RADICALS. Once comfortable with the use of this "dictionary", one can confidently graduate into the labyrinth that is a real Chinese dictionary, as there are different modes of organizing dictionaries and often one finds one needs several varieties of dictionaries. Well worry not as this tool has the potential of exposing one to 5,000 characters.

What I especially like about this resource is the following: (1) It starts very slowly and proceeds step by step; (2) It has some easy to follow, confidence building quizzes at the beginning; (3) Its characters are in semi-large print that makes duplication easy to do; (4) It has **BOTH** Traditional & Simplified characters; (5) It also has multiple reference charts that makes finding characters quick and easy.

This book is such a must to any beginning or intermediate level student. I should know as I teach Chinese in a middle school and I found this book so useful that I ordered 2 class sets for my students. I had six graders busily looking up unknown characters after a couple days practice. Now, instead of continuously asking me what a character means, they grab one of the "dictionaries" and look up the character themselves. You have no idea what a difference in their confidence levels this has made!!!!

Trust me folks--save yourself alot of time and hassels, if you are at the beginning to intermediate level, this book is the ultimate primer for radicals and accessing unknown characters!

Great Supplement to Your Regular Dictionary, October 27, 2004
　

This dictionary will not replace the need for some good regular dictionary, but in its own right - it is very useful. It may help you to find and learn characters that relate to specific character easily.

At the beginning of the book is a list of radicals.

The main characters are listed in alphabetical order under the name of that character in English, as in "arros", "ghost", "legs", etc.

Under the character for "arrow" are listed different chinese words that contain the character for "arrow".

Beside each Chinese character, there is pronounciation in pinyin as well as description of the meaning in English.

The words are listed from the smaller number of strokes toward the larger.

The presentation of the characters in this book provides yet another tool to memorize characters in respect to relevancy and association.

While this is considered to be a dictionary - I find it more useful just for learning different characters, rather than using the book as a dictionary. As far as dictionaries go, my all time favorite is Wenlin (electronic dictionary) since you can also hear the pronounciation.)

Great Supplement to Your Regular Dictionary, October 26, 2004
　

This dictionary will not replace the need for some good regular dictionary, but in its own right - it is very useful. It may help you to find and learn characters that relate to specific character easily.

At the beginning of the book is a list of radicals.

The main characters are listed in alphabetical order under the name of that character in English, as in "arros", "ghost", "legs", etc.

Under the character for "arrow" are listed different chinese words that contain the character for "arrow".

Beside each Chinese character, there is pronounciation in pinyin as well as description of the meaning in English.

The words are listed from the smaller number of strokes toward the larger.

The presentation of the characters in this book provides yet another tool to memorize characters in respect to relevancy and association.

While this is considered to be a dictionary - I find it more useful just for learning different characters, rather than using the book as a dictionary. As far as dictionaries go, my all time favorite is Wenlin (electronic dictionary) since you can also hear the pronounciation.)

Not worth buying, April 17, 2004
Reviewer: A reader
This book emphasizes traditional Chinese character, but that is not the reason I don't like it. The book is basically a listing of about 5,000 Chinese characters and their definitions. As any student of Chinese know, most Chinese words are not one character, thus this book is really not a "dictionary" in the traditional sense that it define Chinese words. It merely defines Chinese characters, and therefore, it is really not a valuable tool for those who want a real dictionary.

As a character dictionary, it is okay. Not bad, but certainly not good either. If you do want a character dictionary (but not a WORD dictionary), however, I would recommend that you get the Xinhua Dictionary with English Translation (7801031989), which contains about 10,000 characters that are defined in greater details than anything avaiblabe in this book.