ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary

This dictionary is an expansion of the ground breaking ABC Chinese-English Dictionary, the first strictly alphabetically ordered and Pinyin computerized dictionary. It contains over 196,000 entries, compared to the 71,486 entries of the earlier work, making it the most comprehensive one-volume dictionary of Chinese. The single-sort alphabetic order of the entries provides by far the simplest and fastest way to look up a term whose pronunciation is known. Radical charts help locate characters when the pronunciation of a term is not known and facilitate access to traditional, simplified, and variant forms of characters.

• John DeFrancis, Editor

  John DeFrancis (1911- 2009) John DeFrancis (1911–2009), Emeritus Professor of Chinese at the University of Hawai'i, graduated from Yale in 1933 and immediately departed for China to pursue his interests. In three years of study and travel, he covered over 4,000 miles in Northwest China and Mongolia, across the Gobi Desert, and down the Yellow River, immersing himself in grassroots contact with the language and people. Upon his return to the United States, DeFrancis earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He taught at several institutions nationwide. Dr. DeFrancis is the author of dozens of articles and books on spoken and written Chinese, among them a widely used 12-volume set of educational materials and Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems (UH Press, 1989).

• A valuable reference tool for the learners of spoken Chinese and scholars of Chinese alike
  —American Reference Books Annual
• An important landmark in the history of Chinese lexicography. Among its many achievements, it is going to play an important role in the standardization of pinyinorthography.
  —Modern Language Journal
• Excellent ... An outstanding contribution to the field, in many ways better than other comparable dictionaries.
  —China Review International