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Need better Korean/English Dictionary | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5534 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 1 of 9 16 November 2009 at 3:23am | IP Logged |
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I currently own two translation references for Korean. The first is the Lonely Planet Korean phrasebook (2008; 4th Edition) with which I've been very happy. The second is the Berlitz Korean Concise Dictionary (2007) which seems determined to annoy me to no end.
Below are some of the complaints I have about this dictionary. Based on these complaints, I would like feedback on better options for a Korean/English dictionary. (So, I guess this is part rant and part reference material request.) 1) K-to-E Lookup Issues: At first I was annoyed that Berlitz used a non-standard romanization method (which is actually the same one that the Lonely Planet phrasebook uses). I let that slide, though, because that system does seem to work better as a rough pronunciation guide than the official romanizations do (for example, their chosen romanization for a letter changes based on the letter's position in the word to reflect those sound changes), so it works well for the E-to-K side of the dictionary. However, the problem is that the dictionary sorts the K-to-E side by this same romanization making words far more difficult to look up than they should be (since they are effectively sorted by sound, not by spelling). Example: I needed to look up 도둑 one day. Knowing that they romanize ㄷ as "t" instead of "d" when it appears at the beginning of the word, I immediately headed to find "toduk" in the dictionary. I found several similar words like "todukchil" 도둑질 (theft), but couldn't find that word. Finally, on a hunch, I looked up "thief" in the E-to-K side (since that word would make sense in context) and found that was the word I was seeking. So, why couldn't I find it in the K-to-E side? Well for some reason, Berlitz thinks that specific word should be romanized as "totuk" instead, so it was 4 pages LATER in the dictionary than the words that are spelled the same but appeared as "toduk~" instead! This may just be a particularly bad example, but it's a symptom of the issue of sorting with a "fluid" romanization system, in my opinion. I would prefer that the dictionary either sort by Hangul on the K-to-E side (like the small dictionary in the back of the Lonely Planet phrasebook does) or use a standard 1-to-1 character romanization method. 2) Missing reverse translations: I've run across a few examples of words that appear in one side of the dictionary, but not in the reverse side! Example: Looking up "one" in the E-to-K side results in both 하나 (native Korean) and 일 (Sino-Korean), as expected. However, looking up 일 in the K-to-E side will result in quite a list of words (also as expected), but "one" is nowhere to be seen in this list. 3) Missing common words: This dictionary claims "40,000 entries on 720 pages" so it is surprising to me that some very common words are completely absent. First example: Korean has two basic words for yes, 예 and 네. The Berlitz Concise Dictionary lists only 예 and makes no acknowledgement of 네 meaning yes in either side of the dictionary. (Oddly enough, the Lonely Planet phrasebook has the opposite issue and only lists 네.) Second example: The Sino-Korean word for "day" is 일 and is used for telling the date, in the names of the days of the week, as one method of counting days, etc. This word is not listed in the Berlitz dictionary in either direction (일 is present in the K-to-E side, but "day" is nowhere to be found in the definition list)! Since I intentionally bought this dictionary instead of their smaller "compact" dictionary (as I already have a phrasebook, so I preferred content over size), this issue is particularly annoying to me. Not having every word is to be expected without requiring an enormous dictionary, but not having those common words is inexcusable in a dictionary of any size. Does anyone have suggestions for a good Korean-English / English-Korean dictionary that doesn't have those annoyances? Thanks in advance. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6293 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 2 of 9 16 November 2009 at 3:24pm | IP Logged |
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Yahoo Korea has an online dictionary. Free.
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| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5534 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 3 of 9 16 November 2009 at 3:31pm | IP Logged |
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I saw a link for that page on this forum yesterday, so I have it bookmarked, and I'm playing with it some right now to see how I like it (though the interface is in Korean, so I'm having to feel my way through the site).
I also use Google Translate regularly (usually if my phrasebook and dictionary come up empty on a word or phrase), but I'd still like to find a good printed K-to-E/E-to-K dictionary as well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6767 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 4 of 9 16 November 2009 at 5:01pm | IP Logged |
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Find out what Korean-English translators use. That'll probably be the best one (albeit expensive).
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| Dixon Groupie Canada Joined 6050 days ago 54 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 9 16 November 2009 at 9:12pm | IP Logged |
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I use my Korean cell phone. My phone is a few years old yet it still has a great "E-dic"
with plenty of example sentences for each entry. There are no romanizations since those are useless. I don't know why you would bother using romanizations. Nearly all Korean cell phones come with an "E-dic" or translator, and since there are way more phones than people in Korea, you might be able to obtain one for free or for a small shipping cost. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6293 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 6 of 9 17 November 2009 at 3:11am | IP Logged |
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I have an old Korean English dictionary published by Minjung that is pretty good. Heavy though.
I also have a much smaller one published by Dong-A that is quite good. The Korean-English dictionary in my electronic dictionary (Casio) is published by YBM Si-sa. Pretty good. I haven't bothered to track down a Korean English dictionary for my iPod yet but I'm impressed with what I've found for other languages. The days of lugging around a ton of heavy paper dictionaries are over! Long live heavy paper dictionaries! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5534 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 7 of 9 17 November 2009 at 5:57am | IP Logged |
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Jimbo: Hmmm...after doing some research, I think the Minjung dictionaries may be exactly what I'm looking for. They don't have romanizations and are apparently *very* exhaustive. In fact, the larger ones only cover one direction (there are separate E-to-K and K-to-E editions) and are still over 3000 pages/book. Unfortunately, they are also around $100/ea. However, the pocket dictionary ( http://www.amazon.com/Minjungs-Pocket-English-Korean-Diction ary/dp/0930878027/) is only $50 and goes both directions yet is apparently still very complete (based on the reviews anyway), so I may go for that option. Thanks. :)
Also thanks for the Yahoo! Korea suggestion as I'm finding that dictionary search quite useful as well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6293 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 8 of 9 17 November 2009 at 6:48am | IP Logged |
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I haven't been to Korea for a couple of years but I remember books being a LOT cheaper.
Daum also has a Korean English dictionary on-line. http://engdic.daum.net/dicen/view_top.do Don't get me wrong, I love the Minjung dictionary. I just think a hundred bucks is a lot of money and I don't want to lug the thing around. The one I have feels like the yellow pages. If the city you are in has a Korea town, have a look around some of the shops. Sometimes some places you wouldn't think of (e.g. video shops, grocery stores) sell some books or know where to get them. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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