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Title: What Character Is That?: An Easy-Access Dictionary of 5,000 Chinese Characters by Go Ping-Gam ISBN: 0-9623113-5-9 Publisher: Simplex Publications Pub. Date: November, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4.45 (11 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: What Character Is That? By Ping-Gam Go
Comment: What Character Is That?

This dictionary is a ¡°must¡± for all Americans who want to easily learn to read ,write and speak Chinese. To tour and work in mainland China, I needed a dictionary which would allow me, a non-native speaker, to read Chinese characters on maps, street signs, menus etc. I found all other ¡°Chinese to English¡± dictionaries at bookstores in the USA totally useless to me. Why? They were organized phonetically by Chinese words in alphabetical order. This meant I had to already know Chinese to find out what the character meant!
I was a Yale language major many years ago, joined the Foreign Service and taught English in Brazil. Several years ago, at age 64, I returned to my earlier profession and taught English in southern China. With the help of this extraordinary book, I was able to read and write letters in Chinese characters. It also helped me learn to speak Chinese at the basic level in both Mandarin and Cantonese dialects. I am now 66 years old and continue to learn. Recently I happily married a Chinese woman from Beijing who is only 50 years old. Without Mr.Go's books, I doubt that my new, great happiness in life would be possible.

Rating: 5
Summary: A definite MUST HAVE for learning about written Chinese!
Comment: Too bad that this book cannot be rated to TEN stars. This book definitely proves that the concept of learning over 5,000 Chinese characters is in fact POSSIBLE. For anyone who thinks that learning all of those characters is impossible, BUY THIS BOOK. This book shows all of the necessary radicals, or "roots" of those characters-thoroughly, which is fundamental to learning Chinese characters. In addition to the radicals, each character is given it's pinjin pronounciation WITH it's definition. I am talking about over 5,000 characters here! Note that a Modern Chinese/English dictionary is also useful in learning to read Chinese text. Yet, if you want to learn how to read the fundamental 5,000+ Chinese characters, then this book is a good way to start.

Rating: 4
Summary: A Quick, Easy Guide Worth the Money
Comment: I was looking for a dictionary with maximum characters, and I found this one to be a great resource if you can pick out the character radical right away. It's much quicker than my other dictionary, and used in tandem with something like Oxford's Chinese Dictionary, it can cover all the bases of most characters you will encounter. My main need was a book that gave me less common characters used to transliterate foreign names and for characters that I couldn't find in my main dictionary. This book breaks down the radicals so simply that I think it makes them easier to learn as well. If you don't know the radical or can't easily identify it, I found I still needed the Oxford. As for the other reviewers who complained about the printing and the fact that it was self-published, I would recommend this book anyway because it doesn't look bad at all and the information is well worth the purchase.

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