Pingguo Dictionary

Made for use with OS X’s Dictionary program, Pingguo leverages the public domain Chinese-English dictionary files of CC-CEDICT.

Pingguo Dictionary 1.0.0.1 (Pinyin Edition) Pingguo Dictionary 1.0.0.1 (Zhuyin Edition)

Requirements

  • Mac OS X 10.5+

Version History

1.0.0.1 – June 3, 2009

  • No functional changes.
  • Based on the 2009-06-03 05:51:07 GMT release of CC-CEDICT.

1.0 – November 10, 2008

  • Split into two dictionary files — one for Pinyin and the other for Zhuyin.
  • Gives pronunciation in contextual menu dictionary panel.
  • Using different fonts for traditional and simplified characters.
  • Based on the 2008-11-08 21:00:48 GMT release of CC-CEDICT.

0.6 – July 7, 2008

  • Added support for Zhuyin fuhao (bopomofo).  The display of the phonetic system can be configured in the dictionary application’s Preferences.
  • Based on the 2008-05-25 11:49:13 GMT release of CC-CEDICT.

0.5 – June 18, 2008

  • First public release.
  • Includes searches based on Chinese characters (traditional and simplified), pinyin (with or within tone marks) and English.
  • Based on the 2008-05-25 11:49:13 GMT release of CC-CEDICT.

Copyright © 2008-2009 Alexander Chow. Dictionary contents are distributed as CC-CEDICT by MDBG under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.


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  2. Georg on 31 August 2008 at 5:12 am

    There are a number of Dictionary plugins for Chinese out there, and up to now this one is by far the best! Thanks a lot! That said, I have a few suggestions, though:

    You should use different fonts for traditional and simplified characters in your CSS. The Taiwanese Song counterparts are usually called Ming (e.g., MingLiU). Additionally, you could tag the variants in your xml markup with “zh-TW” and “zh-CN” respectively. (You can see the differences in 草, 請, 道, 骨 and many more. If no font is specified, OS X will pick one depending to the system prefs.)

    The big advantage with this plugin is that you can look up words given in phonetic transcription. However, I can only search single syllables without accents, like “pin yin”, not “pinyin” or “pīn yīn”.

    It would also be quite useful to have the pinyin and/or zhuyin spelling displayed in the gray top bar of the dictionary popup, like in Apple’s original plugin for the Oxford Dict.

  3. Jimen on 29 October 2008 at 9:22 pm

    Does this tool need to be rebuilt when a new version of CC-CEDICT is released? The 0.5 version uses the 052508 of CC-CEDICT, which version does the 0.6 release use? Thanks.

    –jc

  4. alex on 31 October 2008 at 6:03 am

    @ Georg

    I’ve been a little behind on updating this, but will try to get another release out next two weeks to integrate a lot of these tips. Also, as far as the pinyin searching is concerned, you can type “pin1 yin1″. Thanks.

    @ Jimen

    It currently uses the same version. I will update it with the next release. Cheers!

  5. Georg on 19 November 2008 at 12:27 pm

    Thanks a lot for the update, Alex! This makes a great tool even better, especially for those who want to learn both simplified and traditional Hanzi.

  6. Jimen on 21 November 2008 at 7:45 pm

    Yes, much thanks for the update.

    Just wondering, is it possible to create a jyutping version to go along with pinyin/zhuyin?

  7. david chiu on 23 November 2008 at 1:12 pm

    very nice alex! I’m just sad that it’s a pingguo and not a pc. =)

    I’ve started my first few months of real chinese classes now, and have also been on the hunt for some good learning tools. Somehow, it’d be nice to have the data absorption capacity of a 5 year old and just pick up language w/o really trying.

  8. Peter Backé on 4 December 2008 at 5:20 pm

    I love this program. However, I do have a small problem with the Pinyin 1.0 release (running on a German MacBook with an up-to-date OS X 10.5.5): The hanzi display fine, but roman characters with tone marks are only shown in the search field of the Dictionary GUI, not in the results field. Roman characters without tone marks are displayed in the results field, but accented roman characters just show as blank spaces. Is there any way to fix this?

  9. Georg on 7 January 2009 at 6:51 am

    Hey Peter! After installation, try playing around with the CSS file included in the bundle. I use SIL’s Andika Basic for the “a” and “.syntax” selectors. Not a beauty, but it has all the diacritical marks you need and it’s legible at small font sizes.

  10. Matic on 13 May 2009 at 3:52 pm

    Hi Alex,
    first off, I applaud your idea about Pingguo Dictionary, it’s a great little addition to my Macbook Pro, esp. considering that Sinology is my major.

    However, I would like to point out that the dictionary still lacks certain individual characters’ definitions as well as countless 2-character words and 4-character idioms (成語).

    Are the definitions getting an update in the near future?

    Thanks and keep up the good work!

  11. alex on 19 May 2009 at 9:51 pm

    Hello Matic,

    Thanks for your comments. FYI, the dictionary contents are not mine — I use the CC-CEDICT by MDBG. They welcome additional words and phrases to their database which you can easily submit online.

    MDBG updates their database every few weeks. I need to update the software to use the latest dictionary files but have planned to do that every six months or so — so I am due to update soon too! However, my PhD and other matters have distracted me a bit. In any case, I will try to get another update out within the next couple of weeks.

    Cheers!

  12. Matic on 28 May 2009 at 2:36 pm

    Hi Alex!

    Sounds good. Please do let me know once the update is out!

    Have a good day,
    Matic

  13. alex on 3 June 2009 at 2:32 pm

    As promised, I just released another update.. 1.0.0.1 including the latest CC-CEDICT from earlier today.

  14. Matic on 29 June 2009 at 8:50 pm

    I’m a bit late on replying, but thanks again Alex! Much appreciated.

  15. steven on 29 August 2009 at 7:21 pm

    Thanks, Alex. We don’t really expect you to be updating this wonderful addition to Apple’s Dictionary so often. Is there any way we can manually update the CEDICT database ourselves?

  16. alex on 31 August 2009 at 6:05 pm

    @steven I plan to release an edition at least twice a year (to keep up-to-date with CEDICT). but in the future, when i have time to refine it, I plan on releasing my generation code into the open source.

  18. Matic on 7 January 2010 at 11:16 pm

    Hi alex,
    when do you plan on updating the CEDICT database again?

    Thanks!