This set of chinese character dictionaries focuses on the top 500 characters used in Taiwan. My reference for ranking the characters is the "3000 character dictionary" by Far East.
I've made four versions of this dictionary, each sorted differently.
Each dictionary contains Traditional and simplifed versions of each character (where the simplified version is different), radical, pinyin pronounciation, English definition and Cangjie Typing Codes.
These dictionaries have been designed to make it as easy as possible to study and learn the top 500 Chinese characters.
With the Frequency sorted dictionary you can focus on learning the most frequently used characters first. You can then use them as a base or foundation for learning less frequent or more esoteric characters.
The characters are listed in order of frequency from most common to least. You don't have to look at an index to look up an entry. Instead you can focus on learning the characters, taking a break whenever you need to.
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Knowing the radical of a character can often give you a clue as to its meaning.
As an example, characters containing the radical for heart 心 (忄 ) often have to do with emotions, feelings, and state of mind.
Characters containing the radical for hand 手 (扌) might have meanings associated with using tools, making things, holding or even hitting.
Characters containing the radical for sun 日 can have meanings associated with time such as
With the top 500 characters sorted by radical dictionary you can see characters with the same radicals grouped together and you can also learn the meaning of each radical.
Each radical grouping shows the pronounciation of the radical along with its meaning. And each entry shows the meaning of the character, its pronounciation, and cangjie typing code.
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Pinyin is perhaps the most common romanization system for chinese characters. In the pinyin sorted dictionary characters are sorted by their pinyin romanization. Where a character has more than one pronounciation this dictionary has entries for both.
Using the Pinyin sorted dictionary you may choose to focus on learning or practicing the pronounciations of the top 500 chinese characters. You can note which characters have the same (or similar) pronounciations so that it may be easier for you to quickly determine which meaning is meant when listening to spoken chinese.
You can buy this dictionary together with the "Sorted by English" dictionary. If you order this package you'll get all four dictionaries bundled together. Plus you'll automatically get updated versions for free.
Order Page ($20.00 includes the "Sorted by English" Dictionary.)
One of the usual ways of listing the different meanings of a character is to list them alphabetically.
In all of the above dictionaries I've endeavored to arrange the english meanings of each chinese character in such a way that it is as easy as possible to see a relationship between the meanings.
In this dictionary the characters are listed by each of their english definitions so that you can see characters with similiar or related meanings grouped together.
You can order this dictionary together with the "Sorted by Pinyin" dictionary. For convenience the two free dictionaries are bundled with them.
Order Page ($20.00 includes the "Sorted by Pinyin" Dictionary)