Some Good Online Chinese Dictionaries

Modifed 4/30/08--
Frustration with looking up character by trying to figure out the radical (bu4shou3 部首) led a couple of my classmates to an excellent dictionary for PDA's from Pleco that allows them to search by drawing the character on the screen.

Online dictionaries, some with many additional tools are another invaluable resource. If one is trying to read something online, it is possible to copy and paste into the dictionary. Online dictionaries can also give you both the simplified and the traditional forms of a character. Most paper dictionaries, with the exception of Oxford, do not do that!

Here are some good Online Dictionaries:

• Yellow Bridge -- An absolutely top-notch dictionary loaded with features. I like accessing it through its Chinese Language Center page, that gives clearer visual access not only to the word and character dictionary, but also among other things, flashcards and memory games to help you remember Chinese characters key to a large variety of textbooks, HSK Level, frequency, etc. The dictionary for both compounds and single characters lists a few other compounds beginning or ending with the same character. Single characters have additional tabs for etymology, stroke order (not all), and "detail," which includes Japanese, Korean, & Cantonese pronunciations, character statistics, computer character encoding, texting input methods, and characters with similar structure and phonetics
• MDGB Dictionary from Xue Zhongwen.net -- Has a variety of features and possible entry screens. Also has hanzi flashcards and hanzi quiz, both accessible under "practice." You can also copy whole sentences and get either character by character breakdown, or two more word and sentence structure-based breakdowns, one of which is called annotated.
• Mandarin Tools.com -- has a huge variety of additional tools available, including hanzi flashcards, for online or download.
• Zhongwen.com -- Online version of the popular Zhongwen Zipu (中文字谱) paper dictionary that groups characters "genealogically" into families that share components called radicals other than their semantic radicals (that characters are usually grouped by in traditional character dictionaries). In many characters, these parts are sometimes indicative of a vague, historical similarity in pronunciation, sometimes referred to as rhyme/rime, that can both help and confuse. This dictionary allows one to see characters side by side that one could very easily confuse in terms of meaning, tones, or variant pronunciations, making it a very good learning tool, particularly for the intermediate and advanced learner. Character simplification has sometimes obscured these relationships, because some of the shared components used to group characters here have been changed or replaced with another, historically distinct radical and some not. This dictionary is therefore more traditional character based.
• ChineseLanguage.org -- Provides an English-Chinese Dictionary, a Chinese Character Dictionary (with access to Chinese characters via Pinyin, Cantonese, Hakka, & Japanese, Korean pronunciations), and a Hakka Dictionary.

These are some other sites that offer help (in the form of pop-up "training wheels") for those trying to read Chinese Characters:

• Popjisyo -- gives a pop-up window showing pronunciation and meaning for at least some sites not only in Chinese but also in Japanese or Korean.
• News in Chinese from Adso Trans gives pop-up windows showing pronunciation and meaning for a variety of articles and levels. Goes out of service every so often for a while--presumably for updating. --Back in service as of 4/30/08.
• Clavis Sinica -- is the maker of Software that will produce pop-ups for any texts. There are some online services available too though.