A while back we had a poll question that asked people which dictionary they used most frequently. The problem was that it was Chinese-centric (this was before we had many Japanese learners on the site) and the largest response category was "Other," which wasn't terribly illuminating.

So, we know that people on Skritter like using MDBG and Nciku (and to a much lesser extent Zhongwen.com), but we were wondering what other dictionaries you guys typically use, and why?

Personally I've been a fan of MDBG for a while, but because I'm learning Chinese I have no sense of the relative merits of Japanese dictionaries or non-MDBG/Nciku Chinese dictionaries!

Is MDBG reliable? I used to use it exclusively and then heard that it was full of errors, so I switched to yellowbridge and nciku.

I've been using the default Pleco one for when I'm not satisfied with CC-CEDICT/MDBG.. It does highlight its short comings. For common nouns however I use baidu image search...

(And then upload and add it to Skritter with the img: tag!).

I used to use online dictionaries a lot (nciku, MDBG). Recently I started using Lingoes and haven't looked back. As I said here:

http://www.skritter.com/forum/topic?id=37545237&comments=13

...I'm using monolingual 汉-汉 dictionaries as much as I can. These ones:

高级汉语大词典
现代汉语词典第
国际标准汉字大字典
汉语大辞典

I use CEDICT and Wenlin's ABC Dictionary when I can't make sense of the Chinese definition. Using Lingoes + Wenlin is better than online dictionaries for me because 1) it's faster, 2) it puts all the information in one place, and 3) it runs offline (great for airplanes!).

I don't do too much with Japanese anymore, but I found that this website was easy to search and very readable:

http://tangorin.com/

It also allows you to click on kanji inside of words to see the individual meanings which I have found helpful. You can also register with them, but I've only used it for references here and there so I haven't explored those features.

MDBG, nciku, Wenlin

It's the first time I hear about Lingoes but it seems to only offer simplified so not an option for me.

But the goal is to use the monolingual dictionary I bought in Taiwan, 學典, ISBN 957-14-3653-4.
It's in traditional, but they provide a simplified version of the character defined, it also has bo po mo fo pronunciation.

Regarding MDBG, I've usually found it pretty reliable. It's just that people like to suggest a lot of words, so you can end getting a lot of definitions for just one word. One thing I like is that it sometimes specifies when a word is only used in a specific area (Taiwan).

Another tool I've found useful lately is Wikipedia! I sometimes run into some vocab that has to do with Chinese history or some obscure facts or names.If I land on the chinese Wikipedia page, good chances are that an English equivalent exists.

One thing for sure is that no place has it all!

Google Dictionary: http://www.google.com/dictionary?langpair=zh-CN|en

The dictionary includes results from the DrEye database (http://www.dreye.com.cn/index_gb.html) and it also finds results from a number of other websites.

sometimes n词库

When on my laptop, I use google translate and Rikaichan / Rikaikun. I use Kabuto (I think it uses the Jim Breen dictionary) on my PDA.

Sometimes I also use this site to look up Kanji by drawling then.
http://chasen.org/~taku/software/ajax/hwr/

After I have found the Kanji in
http://chasen.org/~taku/software/ajax/hwr/
I can copy and past it into whatever program I want to look it up.

balsa, Lingoes does indeed have a traditional Chinese version. Install the program, go to settings, and select 中文（台灣）under language.

Lingoes has a number of 汉-汉（繁）and 汉-英（繁）dictionaries. I know because I have a few of them installed myself, like the massive Taiwanese 汉语大辞典。

See www.lingoes.cn (not www.lingoes.net ) for more information.

I use yellowbridge most because it's where I first found good etymological material. next nciku and then MDBG. Sometimes more than one to get broader range of information, or to compare the information.

@ murryjames Thanks for the Lingose link its just what i needed.

I installed the Pingguo pinyin dictionary. It uses CC-CEDICT and the Mac OSX dictionary program. Then I added the Mac dictionary widget for faster access. It's really convenient for copying and pasting, even while offline:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/29615/pingguo-dictionary-pinyin

There's also a bopomofo version:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/29616/pingguo-dictionary-zhuyin

That's a good tip there, sadly it just crashes on my mac though.. Found another http://xiaocidian.com/xiaocidian-desktop . Hope this one works.

Other dictionaries!? Blasphemy! Nciku FTW!!

(Although, I've been using the Google Chrome Zhongwen Chinese popup dictionary extension quite a bit lately, it's great for quickly refreshing myself on tones while reading things)

I'm afraid I need proper dictionaries, not the free stuff. I use:

1. NWP
2. ABC
3. A-CE (rebranded as PLC in Pleco)
4. Tuttle
5. 21st Century E-C

Mostly.

mdbg / cedict are perfectly adequate for normal general every day study, however I do find when I am in Taiwan looking up words on signs, menus, and so on, the cedict is no where near enough.

@the Lingoes users - I tried it out very briefly, but I couldn't ever figure out how to make it do anything. Any chance of a Lingoes for Dummies in 100 words or less?

I use too many and almost entirely on my itouch. Qingwen has a really nice interface using CC-CEDICT. Pleco is good for providing more database options. KT Dict CE has a built in flashcard trainer when I want to make a cards without a laptop around. And as long as I'm going down this road, for most flashcards, I use Flashcards Deluxe. I find the itouch to be essential for trying to keep some measure of Chinese with me all day.

When I'm on my laptop I only use http://jisho.org/
The best japanese online dic I found so far!
Else I use either the Kotoba! or Japanese app on my iphone :)

Well not to be a nay-sayer but I don't find CE-DICT to be even remotely acceptable as a general every day dictionary.

A bunch of one word english possible definitions separated by a slash. Very many of them are regional definitions not in common use. Doesn't tell you what kind of term the word is and no example sentences at all. Look up any sort of superlative on CE-DICT and you can't tell if it's suitable for a person or a thing. That's just one example. It's good as well as a decent dictionary because it has some nice new net/technical terms, but that's about it...

gmmayer: Not check out flashcards in Pleco? Kind of a little tinsy bit better than Flashcards Deluxe and the ilk.

mandarintools.com is the best I've seen so far as far as online dictionaries goes.

as for a normal books, I use this book. http://www.mandarinbooks.cn/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_book_info&products_id=1699

Living in Xi'An, I haven't seen any other dictionaries that have pinyin, but I'm sure all you in Beijing, Shanghai, and even America have plenty of those.

The dictionaries Lingoes comes with are not that good so you will need to download the ones you want to get the best out of it. Try this one - http://www.lingoes.cn/zh/dictionary/dict_down.php?id=CDA2CFFDE6131F4B81B6B98BB2A9CA53 - once you have downloaded it open the file and it should automatically load. Put it in your index group as these are the dictionaries that will be looked up when you enter a word. Find the dictionaries you what here - http://www.lingoes.cn/zh/dictionary/index.html - and repeat.

I would like to vote for YellowBridge because it lists otherwords that use the same word, has the ability to enter pinyin/chinese/english in the one field. The character entymology is quite good too.

http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/chinese-dictionary.php