You could be excused for thinking that Chinese have the market cornered on electronic dictionaries. You see them on tables in most every cafe you enter, perched above the papers being poured over by some hapless student or business person.
Of course, most of the local people hovering intently over paperwork in cafes are using their dictionaries to look up Chinese definitions of English words. And since English dictionaries are vastly easier and quicker to use, locals who own English-to-Chinese electronic dictionaries might be accused of simply being lazy. But what about the pitiable foreigner visitors and residents of Taiwan whose Chinese language skills aren't up to snuff? Woe are we who are forced to thumb page by page through impenetrable Chinese-to-English dictionaries. Our reasons for buying the fancy digital versions are far less spurious, but anyone who has shopped for a digital dictionary at a local consumer electronics store will have quickly noticed that all the interfaces are in Chinese -- this being Taiwan and all.
The software running inside these handy little machines is the same whether it's working from Chinese to English or vice-versa. Most of the higher-end models, in fact, operate equally well going either way. An English-language interface, however, is imperative for travelers or anyone in the early stages of their Chinese studies.
LANGUAGE TEACHER GD700
US$200
The Language Teacher line of electronic dictionaries, by Ectaco, are among the best-selling in the world. The company makes digital dictionaries for dozens of languages but has excelled at crafting software that flows seamlessly between Chinese and Roman-alphabet languages. The GD700 is the least-expensive of the company's models to incorporate both English and Chinese electronic voices. (All the devices reviewed here have voice synthesizers to help aid pronunciation, albeit somewhat synthetically.) In the case of the GD700, it will speak in English, Mandarin and Cantonese (I looked to no avail for an English/Mandarin/Taiwanese model) and contains a 500,000-word/character vocabulary. Chinese characters are shown in both their traditional and simplified forms.
The disadvantage to less-expensive models, however, comes when looking up Chinese characters for which you don't know the meaning or pronunciation. As with most models, the GD700 offers a number of different ways to look up characters, but all are done through keystrokes. It should be said, though, that unless you're already familiar with stroke order and can readily copy a character, you'll probably don't want to use keystrokes to find the character you're looking up. But a better way does exist.
FRANKLIN MD7250
US$240
The better way comes in the form of a stylus pen and touch-screen capability that is available in many models. While this feature adds to the price of the device, it also greatly expands its usability. Don't know how to pronounce a character or what it means? Pick up the pen and write it on the small touchpad adjacent to the keyboard on Franklin's MD7250. The screen above will offer you a list of possible characters as it recognizes your handwriting. The drawback to this type of data-entry is that, unlike some handwriting-recognition software, it does not "learn" your handwriting the more you use it.
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