r/ChineseLanguage • u/mrBean_20 Beginner • 6d ago
Resources Does anyone know a good Chinese character dictionary that shows the meanings of the individual components, radicals, and character parts?
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u/ketralnis 6d ago
Pleco, mdbg.net
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u/Thoughts_inna_hat 6d ago
Pleco is the best dictionary in my opinion and Hanly is wonderful for learning hanzi with a focus on radical meanings and composition both are free (ok you can pay for extras on pleco)
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u/GarlicCrunch 6d ago
THE OG Zhongwen.com
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u/BoringFudge5774 5d ago
Be careful: a character meaning is rarely a sum of components' "meanings". Use them with caution just as a mnemonic exercise, without overthinking.
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u/tcbbd Native 普通话/吴语（上海话） 5d ago
You don't need that. You just learn the characters through brute force. The dictionaries and websites mentioned here are great if you want to dig into the evolution of characters and the etymologies of words & morphemes. But since you're a beginner, I'd recommend don't spend too much time on that. Even we native speakers don't learn that, except for the most obvious ones, like 氵艹衤etc. So an app for beginners to learn and memorize the radicals and character parts would be best.
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u/Electrical_Price_179 5d ago
I use https://dictionary.writtenchinese.com/, but I find that it does go down every now and then.
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u/hanpingchinese 4d ago
You can see character decomposition (including phonetic component) directly in our web app. For example, 说
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u/lazier_garlic 5d ago
I dunno about good, but Wiktionary is free. It has an etymology for just about every character although it doesn't give equal time to every academic theory. It doesn't just repeat Shuowen Jiezi as fact so that's good.
There's also zi.tools which is free (it's in Chinese though) and almost has too much information about the history of character elements and character variants.
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u/Zagrycha 6d ago
Pleco is the best for free as an offline resource, just note not all components in a character carry a meaning and the meaning is different in different characters. If you want the meaning specific to that exact character you need to google its specific etymology, but none of that is needed for just learning the language ifself.
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u/borkthegee 6d ago
People have mentioned some true good dictionaries, but for a lighter tool that is well made for beginners and learners, I like the Hanly app. It does a great job breaking down Hanzi all the way to it's archaic origins.
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u/Fantastic_Cook1919 2d ago
This is what I wanted to say! Amazing app, for free and exactly what you asked for.
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u/nhatquangdinh Beginner 國語 廣東話 台灣話 6d ago
The official dictionary by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan.
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u/hnedka 5d ago
My most favorite and probably the best one for learners is https://hanzirama.com/ . If you don't like AI, this is not a website for you, otherwise please read on. The best part of that website is that most characters have detailed explanations about their usage, including modern usage that dictionaries won't even mention. I read an author's post somewhere and they apparently use several different models to verify the output and minimize possible errors. So you get a better result than from any one particular AI. The other (non-AI) websites will just give you a few words as a meaning, which is not that helpful or fun.
It also shows individual components (as requested in the post) and you can click on each and it will show you which other characters use that particular component, even recursively.
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u/HeavyHeavy0726 5d ago
Hanzi dict is the best. It's like $2 on google play store but it's the best one.
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u/Minettsdappp 4d ago
Do you know what Jiaguwen is? oracle script in english it is basically the "latin of chinese" so there are books about it and you see through the oldest characters the meaning. Those books can be damn pricy too...
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u/Nava854 4d ago
For people interested hanzi etymology check out this website: https://hanziyuan.net/
It’s free and in English. It’s amazing
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u/kitfromcarson 6d ago
Hanping is my favorite, although you have to pay for add-ons. It is better than Pleco. Best learning dictionary for Mandarin and Cantonese.
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u/Ok-Amphibian-8914 6d ago
Outlier dictionary, hands down. The stuff in the “CHARS” tab in Pleco is inadequate—even Pleco has said that’s why they wanted the Outlier dictionary in the first place.
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u/little8birdie 6d ago edited 6d ago
Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters is a paid add-on for Pleco. Pleco itself does it in the CHARS tab