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Mandarin Chinese-English Bilingual Visual Dictionary (BILINGUAL VISUAL DICTIONARY) | 
 enlarge | Author: Dk Publishing
Publisher: DK ADULT
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy New: $7.83
You Save: $5.12 (40%)
New (20) Used (6) from $7.83
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 63149
Media: Paperback
Edition: Bilingual
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 360
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 6.2 x 5.5 x 1.2
ISBN: 0756634423
Dewey Decimal Number: 495.1321
EAN: 9780756634421
ASIN: 0756634423
Publication Date: March 31, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Book Description
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Somewhat disappointed August 7, 2008
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.
Attractive, but limited in use July 18, 2008
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
 High-quality illustrations with over 6,000 words July 16, 2008
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.
3.5 stars nice little reference book but could be improved upon July 4, 2008
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. 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.
Outstanding visual dictionary June 14, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I agree with F. J. Powell's critique that this book has a serious Western bias and lacks many important Chinese words. But this 320-page book is so full of useful information and presents it in such an attractive visual format (which should motivate study and facilitate knowledge retention) at such a reasonable price that it warrants five stars.
Chinese textbooks tend to stress Chinese customs, holidays, minority groups, historical figures and events, etc. So it's not so bad that this book goes in the opposite direction. Only a thick, unabridged dictionary will have every word in it, and reading such a tome cover-to-cover is hardly the most effective method for learning a language.
Another negative about this visual dictionary is that, although it does present verbs, it's mostly about nouns and some adjectives. And there are virtually no sentences. So it won't teach you Chinese. But it will definitely help enrich your vocabulary if you find yourself (as I often do) starting a sentence only to stumble on a noun, point at an object and say "neige dongxi." I've tried to explain baseball and (American) football to my father-in-law, and it's basically impossible. But this book actually has several pages on these subjects that I haven't found in any other books. It has 40+ visual pages just on food.
I wish the Chinese character font were larger, but the book is small enough to carry around, which is another plus.
If you want to learn nouns (esp. if you live in the West with Mandarin-speaking in-laws, as I do), get this beautiful, well-organized, informative book.
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