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 enlarge | Author: Dk Publishing
Publisher: DK ADULT
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $7.35
You Save: $7.60 (51%)
New (31) Used (13) from $7.35
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 40144
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: Expedited shipping available
Condition: New, Excellent Condition , Immediate Shipping, Email Notification, Professional Service, MILLIONS Served, SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-8 of 8 | | « PREV | | |
 Outstanding visual dictionary June 14, 2008
5 out of 5 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.
It should allow us to search into! May 16, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I just bought from Amazon this fantastic visual dictionary - despite of not looking into it - but I can say I was not disappointed: it is a DK ! Intelligent and pretty.( why DK did not release the "search inside"?)With incredible photos fine printed. An advice: It is in simplified characters.
For my studies, that are in traditional characters it is not a real problem, for the pronunciation ( pinyin ) is the same, so, for each issue I look, I write side-by-side the simplified form, the traditional character. It is a way of memorize both! What one should know is that, besides the numerous chapters, like, people, appearence, health, home, services, shopping, food, eating out, study, work, transport, sports, leisure, environment, reference and all, there are two complete indexes in chinese and in english , at the end of the book.Both in alphabetical order. Easy to search. 360 pages of brilliant paper. Nice layout.
More: the size is perfect to carry in a purse, schoolbag, hands: not small but not too big. Perfect. More: for each new theme, there are examples in using sentences, etc. Who wants more?..................
 Vocabulary relevant from a Western Point Of View April 12, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Dorling Kindersley (DK), as always, has a masterful control of fresh, eye-catching illustrations in all their books, and this Chinese-English Dictionary is no exception. Also it offers English, simplified Chinese characters AND pinyin, which is a fault in its rival, the Oxford Chinese-English Visual Dictionary, (however the DK one is not quite so comprehensive). It's in a smaller pocket size format, so it's a bit easier to carry around--and actually does have some very handy detail vocabulary, like kinds of woods used in furniture,soil types, medical vocabulary, all the different parts of a car and (glory hallelujah!) computer and internet vocab! Another good thing is that it includes action words (verbs) in addition to simply nouns BUT this dictionary is obviously simply a direct translation of DK's visual dictionaries for European languages/cultures. All of the references are to objects and actions in Western Europe/N. America (How often will you see Irish Soda bread or encounter "Thanksgiving Day" in China?)
China, while rapidly westernizing, visually is 85% different from what is depicted in this dictionary. When you say "house" in English, Westerners might think of something like a colonial clapboard structure with a picket fence. "Fangwu" (single-family western style house) is not what most Chinese would use to describe their dwelling: where is the festoon gate? the east and west courtyard wings? the kitchen block? the rainpool? The "house" maybe built of mud, be thatched, or even be a cave. To "picture" what CHINESE words mean, I would recommend pairing the DK visual dictionary with the Longman Chinese-English Visual Dictionary. The Longman dictionary is an endlessly facinating series of black and white drawings of Chinese everyday life that provide great contrast to the Western focused DK Mandarin Chinese-English Visual Dictionary.
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