Rating: 
Summary: Can someone please help me,
Review: I am lost..I do not know my own Birth Date, my ancestors are from China. I was born in "Laos" on May 15, 1968 in Chinese calendars. From what my parent told me, but in Universal Calendars(U.S.) We're behind one month. But that's ok..I got that one. The one really confues me, was the Date...where does 15th lended on U.S's Canlendars on 6/?/1968? Can someone please be kind enough to help me on this subject. I would be very greatful for your helps. My E-MAIL Address is Macinsou@aol.com
Rating: 
Summary: Useful, I dont like it very much, but let's live with it
Review: I dont like the following points: 1.- printing too small 2.- sentences used as example have no pronounciation Good points: 1.- Indicates traditional characters However there is no much other options, just live with it.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Beginning to Intermediate Dictionary
Review: I own the three major Chinese English dictionaries. The Matthews dictionary has long since been retired, in favor of the Far Eastern Chinese-English Dictionary (FE). The Concise dictionary also has been superceded, except for the English-Chinese section, and as a lookup for simplified characters and a second source for words in case they're not in FE. To my amazement, I discovered that Concise has a glaring error repeated throughout: the character for hair (fa3) is said to have the fourth tone. Also, I have found frequent instances where a character is listed in the index, but not in the body of the book. Otherwise, I've found it fairly reliable. Nevertheless, it is too limited to be of much use for literary documents. For an intermediate to advanced user, FE is very easy to use. While it at first seemed harder to use, mainly because the characters are listed in radical/stroke order in the main body of the dictionary, the pinyin index makes looking up characters faster, surprisingly, than with Concise, which lists them alphabetically by pinyin. Still, I miss the grouping of characters by pronunciation, which often enticed me to refresh my memory of other related characters.
Rating:
Summary: Is it good for English speakers?
Review: I spent a lot of time in the bookstore looking at this dictionary. It seems that there are few Chinese dictionaries on the shelves these days.
Good:
1. there are both traditional and simplified characters
2. print is nice and rather clear
3. you can look up words by radicals as well as Pin Yin pronunciation (and I've read by stroke count too). HOWEVER, it seems to be geared more to the Chinese person leaning English. For example, when you look up "Chinese", there is zhongwen, zhongguo, etc., but it doesn't tell you how to use the different words. You would then probably have to look up these words on the Chinese side for more information.
Rating:
Summary: Improvement over earlier Oxfords, but still not the best
Review: I started out with the much smaller predecessor of this dictionary--Oxford Concise (ISBN 0195840488). This Oxford (ISBN 0195911512) is a marked improvement due to its larger size. But today I use the ABC Chinese Dictionary (ISBN 082482766X), which allows you to look up by the alphabetized listing of the complete Chinese word in pinyin, not the two-step head character-second character system used on Oxford Concise, and only use Oxford when I can't find what I want in ABC or can't read a character. Still, this is a solid choice for the beginner.
Rating: 
Summary: Save your money
Review: I took this dictionary to China to study Chinese intensively at what could be best described at a "high-beginner" level, and quickly found it was inadequate to the task. So many common words are omitted entirely that I was soon required to purchase an additional dictionary in China. My Concise dictionary? I left it behind to serve as a doorstop in Beijing.
Rating: 
Summary: Chinese is difficult enough - Why make it harder?
Review: I was disappointed by this dictionary, because it doesn't really seem well geared to people wishing to learn Chinese, but more to Chinese native speakers wishing to learn English. The reason I point this out is that, as the reviewer before me points out, the examples are in Chinese characters with no pinyin in the Chinese section. The methodology of the dictionary in that it gives example sentences and not just one word for another is sound, however, unless you already read Chinese well, you will be at a loss when it comes to using those all-important example phrases. Incidentally, this seems to be a regular habit of Chinese publishing houses which produce manuals and courses for learns of the language, as I have pointed out in my review of "New Slang Of China" and as I have observed in a set of idiom books produced from another publishing house in the east, many teaching aids do not take into account the fact that beginner and even intermediate students of Chinese still need pinyin or some other form of transliteration as a crutch, otherwise the examples are well nigh worthless! I am surprised to see this trend also in teh Oxford dictionary, unless it is intended primarily for Chinese students and not students of Chinese, especially as the author is a westerner! You would think he would know what learners really need, no wouldn't you? There's no excuse! Fortunately, Oxford has had the good sense to release a new dictionary, "The Oxford Starter Chinese Dictionary" which, as the name suggests, in geared towards learners of Chinese. You would do well to have that book as well as this one, or, given the choice, instead of it. Us ethe other one and keep this one for someof the more complicated words you might need to look up.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good dictionary
Review: I've purchased a couple of chinese language books recently and I would say this is the one I use the most. I've found almost every word I've looked for, on either the english or chinese side. It is easy to find words, and the radical index is easy to use and is much more complete than other books I've used. Only two minor complaints about this book make it 4 instead of 5 stars. First, the print is fairly small and light, need to focus in a bright area to easily use it. Second, on the english side of the dictionary sometimes the pinyin is first, sometimes the chinese characters are first. I would make it easier to use if they had been consistant on this, especially the longer entries. But I do like this book and will continue to use it a lot.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent dictionary
Review: If I can have only one affordable English/Chinese dictionary, this would be it. (It is far more better than the popular Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary (ISBN 0966075005) although that particular dictionary is fairly good.)This dictionary is actually two way dictionaries: one half is English/Chinese and the other half is Chinese/English. Containing some 26,000 words and phrases, it is certainly not a dictionary for the scholar, but a student of Chinese will find it very useful. Although the book emphasizes simplified characters, traditional characters are provided and a student using the traditional characters would be fine with this dictionary. The real drawback to this dictionary, which is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is that, as other reviewers have mentioned, it does NOT provide the Pinyin for its example phrases/sentences; thus if the reader does not know a certain character s/he will have to find it by using the radically index or go the English/Chinese portion and find the word there (English traditions of the example phrases/sentences are provided). Also try the Xinhua Zidian (ISBN 7801031989), which is another excellent Chinese/English dictionary.
Rating:
Summary: Better dictionaries are out there...
Review: It is better to invest in another one. This one really isnt amazing.
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