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Mandarin Chinese-English Bilingual Visual Dictionary (BILINGUAL VISUAL DICTIONARY)
Average Customer Rating:   
List Price:
$14.95
Asia Trips Trips Price:
$10.17
Your Savings: $ 4.78 ( 32% )
Subject To Change Without Notice
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: DK ADULT
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 495.1321
EAN: 9780756634421
ISBN: 0756634423
Label: DK ADULT
Manufacturer: DK ADULT
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 360
Publication Date: 2008-03-31
Publisher: DK ADULT
Studio: DK ADULT
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Editorial Reviews:
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The newest addition to the Visual Bilingual Dictionary series, this title will help the international visitor absorb essential vocabulary in Mandarin Chinese. Thematic presentation of all aspects of modern living and comprehensive indexes facilitate swift and accurate access to words.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: quite simply, a fraud
Comment: The book does not have a 'Western bias' as some reviewers argued. It IS a Western visual dictionary, with many nice pictures, if that's what you buy it for. If you buy it with the intention of learning something about China, and not just Chinese words for universal-cum-Western concepts, beware: It has NOTHING specific to do with China or Chinese culture. These aspects are not neglected -- to repeat my point -- they simply do not exist. The worst thing is that the publishers PRETEND that the book teaches you about China, and MARKET their product as such. Thus, the front and back covers are the ONLY places were you'll find Chinese specific pictures/words.
I can't see how this is anything but plain cheating. The price is reasonable, so that is not the problem, but rather the feeling of being lied to.
I would have given this book a zero marking, if that was an option.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Somewhat disappointed
Comment: I was disappointed with this visual dictionary. I suppose I should have paid closer attention to the other reviews before making the purchase. My biggest complaint is that the font of the Chinese characters is much too small. Any character that is more than a few strokes is virtually impossible to distinguish. You would need a magnifying glass to be able to read the characters. I know why the book has this problem. All of the visual dictioanries are essentially the same -- they simply change the text for each language. Since the Chinese version requires both Pinyin and the Chinese characters, there isn't enough space to use a larger font. The cookie-cutter approach also means that the book is not culturally "in tune" with many items that you would find in China. Finally, since the dictionary is all nouns, I think it should include the corresponding measure words/classifiers for the nouns. This is a huge oversight, making the dictionary less valuable. I need to use another reference book to find out the corresponding measure words. The pictures in the dictionary are nice, but that doesn't overcome the flaws I have mentioned. While the cost of the book was relatively low, I still don't think it was worth purchasing. Oh well.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Attractive, but limited in use
Comment: While this dictionary includes attractive images that encourage browsing, the characters are somewhat small and the organization of the book by theme (rather than in alphabetical or Pinyin order) makes quick look-up difficult. Also, I have a hard time believing that simply listing all the body parts (for example) is an effective way to learn the Chinese words. Discussion of characters/etymology and Chinese-specific culture is limited, but this might be a fun book to look at with a non-English-speaking Chinese friend in order to facilitate communication.
Nathan Dummitt
author of Chinese Through Tone & Color
Customer Rating:
Summary: High-quality illustrations with over 6,000 words
Comment: This compact, square-shaped visual dictionary is the best of its kind as far as I've seen. Being a visual dictionary, the majority of the words are nouns, but under many categories there are additional related adjectives and verbs, along with fixed phrases. Including nearly 6,000 nouns, the book covers the majority of objects that students would seek to know, while at the same time it doesn't overdo it with superfluous, obscure vocabulary. Ideal for English-speaking students of Mandarin or Chinese-speaking students of English as a reference.
Customer Rating:
Summary: 3.5 stars nice little reference book but could be improved upon
Comment: This is a nice little tome for browsing and referencing, though is not a replacement for a standard dictionary. I would agree with the others about the strong Western bias -- most people studying Chinese are interested in some aspects of culture as well, and thus would be interested in relevant words. However, for learners of Chinese language living outside of China, it's quite useful. It takes a while to figure out where some words are categorised, though there is an index in back. It also does not show traditional characters, or alternative pronounciations or uses of words as may occur in Hong Kong or Taiwan, and again a good standard Chinese-English dictionary would be a better option since most will show you the variants. Some uses and prounciations in this text are simply wrong to native Mandarin speakers from HK or Taiwan.
EDIT -- having had this book a while now, it's still a fun reference though one thing to note is that it is HEAVY. Nice quality paper stock makes for a compact book that feels like a brick.
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