Tuttle Concise Chinese Dictionary: Chinese-English English-Chinese

706 Pages·2008·10.253 MB·English

by  Li Dong

Tuttle
Concise
Chinese
Dictionary
Chinese–English
English–Chinese
LI Dong 李冬
TUTTLE Publishing
Tokyo Rutland, Vermont Singapore
The Tuttle Story: “Books to Span the East and West”
Most people are very surprised to learn that the world’s largest publisher of books
on Asia had its beginnings in the tiny American state of Vermont. The company’s
founder, Charles E. Tuttle, belonged to a New England family steeped in publishing.
And his fi rst love was naturally books—especially old and rare editions.
Immediately after WW II, serving in Tokyo under General Douglas MacArthur,
Tuttle was tasked with reviving the Japanese publishing industry, and founded the
Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Company, which still thrives today as one of the world’s
leading independent publishers.
Though a westerner, Charles was hugely instru-
mental in bringing knowledge of Japan and Asia to
a world hungry for information about the East. By
the time of his death in 1993, Tuttle had published
over 6,000 titles on Asian culture, history and art—a
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With a backlist of 1,500 books, Tuttle Publishing is as active today as at any time
in its past—inspired by Charles’ core mission to publish fi ne books to span the East
and West and provide a greater understanding of each.
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Contents
Introducing Chinese iv
1 Pronunciation iv
2 Writing Chinese: 汉字 Hànzi viii
3 Vocabulary: Word-formation xi
4 Grammar xii
List 1: Meaningful Character Components xv
List 2: Measure Words xvii
Using the Dictionary xx
List of Radicals xxiv
Radical Index xxv
Stroke Index xliii
Chinese-English Dictionary 1
English-Chinese Dictionary 237
Introducing Chinese

1 PRONUNCIATION

1.1 Vowels

SINGLE VOWELS
There are seven basic single vowels:
a similar to a in ah
e similar to a in ago
ê similar to e in ebb (this sound never occurs alone and is transcribed
as e, as in ei, ie, ue)
i similar to ee in cheese (spelled y when not preceded by a con-
sonant)
o similar to oe in toe
u similar to oo in boot (spelled w when not preceded by a consonant)
ü similar to German ü in über or French u in tu; or you can also get
ü by saying i and rounding your lips at the same time (spelled u
after j, q, x; spelled yu when not preceded by a consonant)

VOWEL COMBINATIONS
These single vowels combine with each other or with the consonants
of n or ng to form what are technically known as diphthongs. These
combinations are pronounced as a single sound, with a little more
emphasis on the fi rst part of the sound.
You can learn these combinations in four groups:

Group 1: diphthongs starting with a/e/ê
ai similar to y in my
ao similar to ow in how
an
ang
en
Introducing Chinese v
eng
ei similar to ay in may
Group 2: diphthongs starting with i
ia
ie similar to ye in yes
iao
iou similar to you (spelled iu when preceded by a consonant)
ian
ien similar to in (spelled in when preceded by a consonant)
ieng similar to En in English (spelled ing when preceded by a
consonant)
iang similar to young
iong
Group 3: diphthongs starting with u/o
ua
t uo
uai similar to why in British English
uei similar to way (spelled ui when preceded by a consonant)
uan
uen (spelled un when preceded by a consonant)
ueng
uang
ong
Group 4: diphthongs starting with ü
üe used only after j, q, x; spelled ue
üen used only after j, q, x; spelled un
üan used only after j, q, x; spelled uan
1.2 Consonants
Consonants may be grouped in the following ways.
vi Introducing Chinese
Group 1: These consonants are almost the same in Chinese and
English.
Chinese English
m m
n n
f f
l l
s s
r r
b pronounced as hard p (as in speak)
p p (as in peak)
g pronounced as hard k (as in ski)
k k (as in key)
d pronounced as hard t (as in star)
t t (as in tar)
Group 2: Some modifi cation is needed to get these Chinese sounds
from English.
Chinese English
j as j in jeep (but unvoiced, not round-lipped)
q as ch in cheese (but not round-lipped)
x as sh in sheep (but not round-lipped)
c as ts as in cats (make it long)
z as ds as in beds (but unvoiced, and make it long)
Group 3: No English counterparts
Chinese zh, ch, and sh have no English counterparts. You can learn to
say zh, ch and sh starting from z, c and s. For example, say s (which
is almost the same as the English s in sesame) and then roll up your t
tongue to touch the roof of your mouth. You get sh.
TONES
Chinese is a tonal language, i.e. a sound pronounced in different
tones is understood as different words. So the tone is an indispensable T
component of the pronunciation of a word.
Introducing Chinese vii
1.3 Basic tones
There are four basic tones. The following fi ve-level pitch graph
shows the values of the four tones:
Pitch Levels
high First Tone mā
Fourth Tone má ǎ
mid Second Tone m
Third Tone mà
low
• The First Tone is a high, level tone and is represented as ¯, e.g. 妈
mā (meaning mother, mom).
• The Second Tone is a high, rising tone and is represented by the
tone mark ́, e.g. 麻 má (hemp or sesame).
• The Third Tone is a falling, then rising tone. As you can see from
the pitch graph it falls from below the middle of the voice range
to nearly the bottom and then rises to a point near the top. It is
represented by the tone mark ˇ, e.g. 马 mǎ (horse).
• The Fourth Tone is a falling tone. It falls from high to low and is
represented by the tone mark ̀ , e.g. 骂 mà (curse).
In Chinese speech, as in English speech, some sounds are unstressed,
i.e. pronounced short and soft. They do not have any of the four
r tones. Such sounds are said to have Neutral Tone. Sounds with the
neutral tone are not marked. For example in 爸爸 bàba (daddy) the
fi rst syllable is pronounced in the fourth tone and the second syllable
in the neutral tone, i.e. unstressed.
t
TONE CHANGES
Tones may undergo changes in actual speech (“tone sandhi”). The
viii Introducing Chinese
third tone, when followed by a fi rst, second, fourth or neutral tone
sound, loses its fi nal rise and stops at the low pitch. Followed by an-
other third tone sound, it becomes the second tone. This is a general E
rule and the notation of third tone sounds remains unchanged.
For example, in 所以 suǒyǐ (therefore, so), notation remains the third
tone for both syllables, but the word is actually pronounced like
suóyǐ.
Two important words 不 bù (no) and 一 yī (one) also undergo tone
changes. You will fi nd the details of their tone changes under these t
entries. t
1.4 Syllables: distinct units
Normally a consonant and a vowel, said in a particular tone, merge to
form a syllable in Chinese. Every syllable is a distinct unit in speech.
Learners should say each syllable clearly and give full value to most
syllables in speech. The general impression of Chinese speech,
described in musical terms, is staccato rather than legato (which
could be used to describe English). E
1.5 Pinyin: the romanization scheme to show pronunciation h
R
As Chinese writing normally does not indicate pronunciation,
a romanization scheme, known as pinyin, is used to represent the
sounds and tones of Chinese, as in this dictionary. Pinyin is useful for
learning the phonetics of Mandarin.
2 WRITING CHINESE: 汉字 Hànzi
Chinese is not phonetic like most European languages (in varying
degrees). Chinese is written in logograms, known as 汉字 (Hànzi)
and generally referred to as “Chinese characters”, or “Sinograms.”
Introducing Chinese ix
2.1 Chinese characters as syllables
Each Chinese character is pronounced as a syllable. It is of course
important to be able to read a character with the correct pronunciation.
2.2 The composition of Chinese characters: meaningful
components
Chinese characters can be analyzed into components. It is ack-
nowledged that there are three kinds of components. Of the three,
the most interesting to learners of Chinese is a group of components
that convey certain meanings. The presence of such a component
in a character gives you some clue to its meaning of the character.
Hence, learning the meaning of these component parts will deepen
your understanding of characters you know, and help you guess the
meaning of unfamiliar characters. See List 1 on page xv.

t 2.3 The writing of Chinese characters

STROKES
Each Chinese character is composed of strokes. The table below
shows the basic strokes. Recognizing the strokes in a character is
helpful for fi nding a character or radical in the Stroke Index, List of
Radicals and Radical Index. Each of the strokes shown in the table is
counted as one stroke.

r
Stroke Writing the stroke Examples
left to right
Héng
top to bottom
Shù