Youdao - An excellent free online Chinese dictionary

As a learner of Mandarin Chinese, its sometimes frustrating that there seem to be no good dictionaries around. When compared with other major languages (especially English), dictionaries in Chinese are often very hard to read and often lack information we expect to be there, such as indications of how a word is used and example sentences. One excellent exception: Youdao.com. æÅ"‰é â€œ (Youdao.com) To use this dictionary, go to the main page and click the drop-down menu in the leftmost part of the search field where it says ç ½â€˜Ã© ¡ µ (wÇŽngyà ¨) websites and select è ¯ Ã¥â€¦ ¸ (cà ­diÇŽn) dictionary instead. You can also go directly to the dictionary via dict.youdao.com. Once there, just search for words in English or Chinese. If you input only Pinyin, it will still try to guess the word in Chinese.. Once you have found the word youre looking for, you have three options (tabs) to choose from: ç ½â€˜Ã§ »Å"释ä ¹â€° (wÇŽnglà ¹ shà ¬yà ¬) internet explanation - Here you can choose between many suggested translations and see how they are defined elsewhere on the internet. The explanations are mostly in Chinese, so if you feel that this is too hard, just look for English words.ä ¸â€œÃ¤ ¸Å¡Ã©â€¡Å Ã¤ ¹â€° (zhuÄ nyà ¨ shà ¬yà ¬) professional explanation - This doesnt mean that the definitions are professional, but that they refer to specialized language for a certain area of study or expertise. For instance, you can show answers related to engineering, medicine, psychology, linguistics and so on. Great for translation work!æ ±â€°Ã¨ ¯ ­Ã¨ ¯ Ã¥â€¦ ¸ (hà  nyÇ” cà ­diÇŽn) Chinese dictionary - Sometimes, English explanations just arent enough and you need to go to a Chinese-Chinese dictionary. As explained earlier, this can be very daunting for students and you might be better of asking someone for help. The fact that this option is here makes the dictionary much more useful for advanced students, though. Below the explanations, you will find definitions of the word, often from 21ä ¸â€"ç º ªÃ¥ ¤ §Ã¨â€¹ ±Ã¦ ±â€°Ã¨ ¯ Ã¥â€¦ ¸ (21shà ¬jà ¬ dà   yÄ «nghà  n cà ­diÇŽn) The 21st Century Unabridged English-Chinese Dictionary. There are also translations of phrases in which the keyword appears, another feature that many dictionaries lack. Next, you can either display è ¯ Ã§ »â€žÃ§Å¸ ­Ã¨ ¯ ­ (cà ­zÇ” duà  nyÇ”) compounds and phrases or Ã¥ Å'è ¿â€˜Ã¤ ¹â€°Ã¨ ¯  (tà ³ngjà ¬nyà ¬cà ­) synonyms and near-synonyms. Bilingual Example Sentences Last but certainly not least, there is a section called Ã¥ Å'è ¯ ­Ã¤ ¾â€¹Ã¥  ¥ (shuÄ ngyÇ” là ¬jà ¹) bilingual example sentences. As the name implies, you can find numerous sentences in both Chinese and English, which is by far the best way to quickly figure out how a word is used in Chinese (going on basic definitions often wont work). Note that it only displays the first three sentences by default, click æ› ´Ã¥ ¤Å¡Ã¥ Å'è ¯ ­Ã¤ ¾â€¹Ã¥  ¥ (gà ¨ngduÃ…  shuÄ ngyÇ” là ¬jà ¹) more bilingual example sentences to see the rest.