I would very much like to see a dialect dictionary.. or a dictionary app capable of importing/downloading dialects. PlecoDict has the ability to download other dictionaries for example.. but of most interest to me would be a Wu dialect dictionary (Shanghainese)... would also love to see a MinNanHua (Fujianese/Taiwanese) dialect dictionary as well...

Hi, 

please check out the new version of LRDict 中英德辞典 (Chinese-English, Chinese-German dictionary). It now features OCR for Chinese, English and German text. You can copy to the clipboard and reuse the scanned text anywhere, so it can be handy even if you don't want to lookup entries in the dictionary. 

For chinese text this seems to be one of the few apps that actually work. 

In the current version it is still a bit slow, and also there are memory limits for large text, together with need for proper focus and lighting conditions of the images. Works great, however, for textbook phrases and more. 

Give it a try! Lite (free) version on its way, too. 

If you have an iPhone4, the next release of Pleco Dictionary will feature a live "camera recognizer" where you point your iPhone4 at chinese characters and it will show the pinyin and definition. ie. point the iPhone at a restaurant menu and immediately find out what you are about to order :)

Demo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7VTo0656Rc

Try out LRDict 中英德辞典 (Chinese-English, Chinese-German dictionary). It does copy&paste, very useful. For example, when you receive a short message, copy it, paste it to lrdict in phrase mode, and quickly understand the meaning of each part of the message!

http://lrdict.com/

Just discovered this thread - FWIW, after several months of being dictionary-only, the flashcard-equipped version of Pleco Chinese Dictionary for iPhone was just released, and works fine with vocabulary lists exported from the ChinesePod Tools section.

There's a bug which we'll be fixing in the next minor update which prevents you from downloading them directly from ChinesePod's website, but if you upload them from a computer they should work great even in the current version.

The basic version of Pleco on iPhone is free, the very powerful flashcard module is an extra $15 upgrade (as are lots of other things, fullscreen handwriting recognition, document reader, audio, stroke order, ABC dictionaries, etc) but even the free version has lots of example sentences, full access to CC-CEDICT and several other dictionaries, and no ads.

Michael Love

Pleco Software

www.pleco.com

iCED Pro costs 30 bucks, not 20. Quite expensive. They increased the price Aug. 19.

http://appshopper.com/reference/iced-pro-chinese-english-dictionary

@jtesnani: I work on HippoDict, and we recently released v2.0.  HippoDict now has flashcards and a bunch of other goodness.  We'll continue to update this app, so if you have any feedback, just let us know.  Thanks.

has anyone tried iCED? it features the ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary (the same used in Wenlin) with over 200.000 entries. the pro version costs 20$ though. anyway,if there's nothing better on Appstore, i think it's worth the price.

Wow, $50 dollars for that program? That's the second most expensive app I've seen so far.

I purchased KTDict (also runs off of CC-CEDICT). Simple little program that works well to look up things when I need to.

HNHSoft chinese dictionary now has an iphone/ipod version. http://www.hnhsoft.com/Talking-English-Chinese-Dictionary-for-iPhone-and-iPod-Touch

It's a bit expensive, but it's considered one of the best. Audio and pinyin available for every chinese word. they also have the program for other mobile platforms.

@snoodle: i was wondering if you'll be updating this app at all. i've been looking for a chinese <-> english dictionary for awhile that has both simplified and traditional chinese, and while yours seem to be the most promising, you also have not had an update in months when reviewers seem to have made a few requests. So i was wondering if you're still actively working on this app or it's dead. Thanks.

I just want to put in a shameless plug for our  Chinese dictionary for the iPhone and iPod Touch, called HippoDict.  You can see a video of it in action on our webpage:

http://www.hippodict.com

We put a lot of effort into making it *fast* and easy-to-use.  It uses the CC-CEDICT database, and (to respond henning's original post) it also has excellent safari integration with web-based dictionaries (e.g. MDBG.net and YellowBridge).

Feedback is appreciated, of course.   We're planning to incorporate flashcards and audio sometime soon.

Needless to say, there are a lot of options on the iPhone these days only a few of which I've tried.  I'm the author of DianHua which combined with my day-job keeps me too busy to try each new entry into the market.  I would agree with qslack and chiefmadapple that Qingwen is a nice product, both aesthetically and functionally.

I'll be releasing an update with search history and bookmarks (among other things) in the next few weeks and will make an external audio module available.  The audio module will consist of approximately 8,000 recordings (words and some phrases) which will cover a significant percentage of the dictionary.

Dottie:  I would love to hear more about any trouble you had with DianHua.  It was several versions ago when you posted, but in all of our downloads, I've only heard of a handful of problems with startup and syncing.

I use Qingwen and I love it because of the Word Bank. I've since gotten rid of my other apps because I just have to many learn Chinese apps.

I made an iPhone Chinese dictionary (with CC-CEDICT) called ChineseDict that solved a lot of the problems I've had with existing iPhone Chinese dictionaries. It searches instantly by characters (using the iPhone's built-in handwriting recognition), Pinyin, and English, and it's smart about the searches ("jump" would find "to jump" and "jumpy," for example). There's no audio searching or playback in my dictionary, though. Just really fast and intuitive lookups.

Here it is: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=282738621&mt=8

It's $4.99, but I'm happy to give promo codes (until I run out) to ChinesePod forum members so you all can get free copies. Just send me a private message.

Qingwen (a free iPhone dictionary) is also great, as mentioned above. It's actually made by a friend and classmate of mine, and he's working on an update now. I know I speak for both him and me when I say we would love to hear from iPhone users about what sort of features/improvements they want! I love getting feedback and suggestions from users and have incorporated them into new versions.

is there really still no speaking (in chinese) dictionary for the iphone (aside from the Cambridge one, which uselessly translates one direction E->C)?

All of the current dictionaries I've tried (SlovoEd, Dianhua, KTDict, Qingwen) (Qingwen is probably the most useful with two functions: 'words starting with' and 'words containing') are essentially the same, each have chinese and english search with pinyin and written hanzi input handled through the iphone internationalization. 

Some features I'm interested in: Character OCR lookup, voice translation lookup, and native speaking (for either characters or phrases). 

Just found another good dictionary for the iphone: Dictionary CE 

Probably the nearest we'll get a Plecodict style dictionary. It doesn't currently include any pinyin though but it says they're working on it. 

It doesn't have 'Lucy Liu' in it.

Wouldnt mind it at all if your name meant "Chinesepod person". :)

More like a cpod ambassador

English lookup seems to be case sensitive, so you're looking up a name like Bruce Lee, you have use capital B and L unless you use the search anywhere option.

I was a bit freaked out actually, I was expecting a literal meaning hehe.

Ha ha Thats Hilarious Bazza.

The description for the app claims the dictionary has a lot of slang words too. Not too many dictionaries have them.

Just found another dictionary called DragonDian and says it's most up-to-date dictionary available for the iphone. I don't think they're exaggerating either, I'm even in it and so is Jenny.

It must be linked to the ChinesePod dictionary as well.

Anyone tried the SlovoEd Chinese dictionary?

No, I didn't think it was really worth it.

@bazza

Did you also download the mandarin audio output from the appstore? 

Does it have audio support for all the words in the library of the app?

Flash my Brain is another cool application for creating flashcards

Not if they are going to charge 10$ for every five lesson set...and another 10$ for the audio output pack.

iChinese is pretty cool.

I have DianHua on my iPhone, but I find that when I sync it often generates and error and wont sync back to my iPhone. It seems to only resynch every third or fourth time.

I recently added MyWord - Chinese. It's a pretty cool (but very limited) flashcard system that also offers pronunciation. It allows you to record your pronunciation too, so you can complare it with the native speaker. 

Does anybody use DianHua? Is it a useful dictionary?

Very nice. Thanks for the link goulniky.

in truth, I have limited personal interest in the iPhone, both because of the hype and predatory marketing, and because I am still much more comfortable with keyboards (even thumboards, will go for the Xperia). However, I do see the impact it will/does have, much as the iPod for mp3...

as far as adjusting's comment, nciku has recently released a mobile version which I have used on my smartphone

I posted this on another thread, but you can surf to http://www.xuezhongwen.net/chindict/chindict.php

-- it's really a pretty good dictionary site.

I've used PlecoDict (http://www.pleco.com/index.html) on the Palm Treo for a couple years now and I love it, well worth investing in. The dictionary can take pinyin or character input and the flash card system is very helpful.

They're working on an iPhone version, but it's not done yet. If you're interested, let them know so they get moving on the iPhone version!

I don't like either of the dictionaries available in the app store (WeDict and DianHua). Hopefully someone will release a better one soon.

I don't think that any of the web dictionaries have iPhone versions of their sites yet. Google translate is nice, but it only offers translations, not definitions.

Henning,

Have you tried WeDict (available in the App Store). For me it isn't very usefull as it doesn't have PinYin, but it's the best I've found.

Google translate has been given an iPhone makeover, but I haven't got round to trying this yet.