Background
"Modern Chinese Dictionary" was compiled in accordance with the instructions of the State Council. It is the first standardized language dictionary in New China. The main reference book for Mandarin pronunciation, Chinese character and vocabulary. Since its publication, it has undergone 6 revisions, reprinted more than 600 times, and issued more than 70 million copies. It has played an extremely important role in promoting Putonghua, promoting the standardization of Chinese, serving national education and enhancing Chinese international exchanges. It has successively won the national book Award, National Dictionary Award, China Publishing Government Award and other national awards are known as a monument in the history of Chinese dictionaries.
Development History
In August 2019, the "Modern Chinese Dictionary" APP developed by the Commercial Press was released at the 26th Beijing International Book Fair after two years of research and development.
Software features
The APP presents the contents of "Modern Chinese Dictionary" (7th Edition) in a full view, and is based on "Xinhua Synonyms Dictionary", "Xinhua Chinese Character Dictionary", and "General Specifications". "Chinese Character Dictionary" and other dictionaries have developed value-added services such as synonyms and antonyms (more than 10,000 groups), synonym discrimination (more than 3,000 groups), dynamic standard stroke order of Chinese characters (3500 characters), character level, etc., and a full dictionary of 69,000 was produced by CCTV news anchor Li Ruiying Standard Mandarin audio for each word.
The APP not only presents paper book retrieval methods such as pinyin and radicals, but also adds digital retrieval methods such as handwriting input query, voice input query, and camera group word query. In addition to the searched words, the search results also show homophones, characters with the same radical, as well as homophones, sequential words, centered words, reversed words, and related words. At the same time, APP realizes "click and check" any words in the full text.
The APP has created a unique and personalized "daily learning word" function. Users can select the learning range from classified vocabulary and set custom learning tasks, making vocabulary learning more targeted. The meticulously organized feature classification vocabulary function, forming a variety of classification small dictionaries, users can carry out special vocabulary learning. The "meaning-related words" function helps users expand from one word to a group of words through meaning association, and expand comprehensive word understanding and use from simple word search, so as to achieve the effect of language learning by analogy and analogy.
Main functions
The APP has developed a unique intelligent dictionary assistant function, which provides quick query functions, including word discrimination, synonyms and antonyms, format words, words/idioms solitaire, There are 7 sections of group words, radicals, and stroke order. The format word section covers up to 10 special word types; the solitaire section can automatically distinguish whether the user inputs an idiom or a general word, and corresponding idiom solitaire and word solitaire; the game section sets up challenging and error-prone words in Chinese life Learning game. The APP realizes one-click switching between the digital version and the paper version at the same time. This design not only eliminates users' doubts about mobile phone hardware, but also fits users' traditional feelings of reading paper books.
Controversial issues
Whether the "Modern Chinese Dictionary" APP should charge or not has become a hot topic. As the operator of the "Modern Chinese Dictionary" APP, the answer given by the Commercial Press is that the registration fee is 98 yuan.
For the charges, some expressed their understanding and support, but most of them opposed it. In the mobile application store, some netizens left a message saying that the charges were "untimely", while others thought that "the electronic version is too expensive, and the price can be adjusted." In a survey related to this, 48.82% believed that “cultural knowledge should be passed on and should not be used for profit”.
Starting from the general principles of market economy and intellectual property protection, it is all right to product knowledge and take the path of fees. However, the "Modern Chinese Dictionary" is a public knowledge product. The development of an APP is certainly costly, but the ultimate goal should be to spread the "Dictionary" more widely and better, so as to facilitate this public knowledge product to serve the public.