My current favorite online Chinese dictionary, Dict.cn has recently been upgraded with lots of new features. For instance, while Chinese Perapera-kun already takes care of this for me, non-Firefox users will appreciate the automatic look-up of highlighted words.
Personally, my favorite feature is the 每日课堂, which will allow you to learn a little bit of Chinese every day with a little story or even just a simple sentence. While this site and most of its features are obviously geared for Chinese speakers learning English, the fact that 每日课堂 has both English and Chinese makes it a valuable resource for us learning Chinese as well.
[2008-08-01] 每日学口语
I have been putting on weight.
我开始发胖了。
I have in fact, been putting on some weight lately so the sentence above is nice to know. 我要少吃多运动。
Finally, this might have been there already, but they also have a 繁体字 dictionary. Technologically, there should be no reason why it would need to be split up but I guess I shouldn’t complain since the site is already free and useful.
Thank you for the dictionary, very useful! I’m not yet studying Mandarin, but I’m gathering materials and such. Now, this dictionary seems to be in Simplified (I’m only guessing, I only know a handful of characters so far). Is there also a Traditional version, or do you know a good Traditional dictionary (I’m planning on learning both systems, but tackling Traditional first).
繁体字 dictionary I mention above is the traditional version. Its features are much more limited, though.
http://dict.cn/big5/
Like said, I’m a n00b when it comes to Chinese, just gathering stuff and possible sentence sources. Thanks!
You know I’m bored when I’m actually reading through your blog archives lol…
Just a minor correction here.
It’s 少 for less and not 小 for small.
I really enjoyed reading the blog entries here.
Cheers
Thanks, I always mix those two up.
Try the Highlights page (if you’re interested in Japanese, that is)
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/blog-highlights/
No worries, I’m just nitpicking while procrastinating at work. Hope you didn’t take it as I was saying that your blog entries are boring. In fact, they’re pretty interesting tidbits and I was complaining about boredom at work.
I’ve downloaded your Japanese study guide and am still trying to summon up the courage to start it lol…
Kudos for your blog and the guide. It’s great work.
Cheers
Ah I see, ha ha. No worries! Thanks.
Actually, I was pleasantly surprised there weren’t more mistakes with that simple and short sentence. I have no confidence in my Chinese, yet.
You’re doing pretty well actually 🙂
Chinese is hard to learn I guess… Most of my country’s kids can’t handle it and it’s supposed to be our mother tongue lol… I guess we just hate Chinese characters.
I think Chinese grammar is pretty straight-forward though once you’ve catch the gist. It’s just placing of words in the correct place after all lol… :p
Ha ha, I think all grammar in every language can be described as “just placing of words in the correct place”
However, you don’t have to worry about eat, ate, eaten, etc right? Just just a single 吃 will do. I’m cheating but you get the drift ;p