Chubby: Best Paper Dictionary (first year)

It took Teddi and me about 90 seconds to admit that "Chubby" (as Teddi called him) is the best paper dictionary for an English-speaking laowai who is just starting to learn Chinese.

Chubby's strengths include:

• Numerous sentence examples
• A little grammar guide
• A little tones guide (including tone changes)
• A measure word reference
• Radical index (to help you look up which button on your TV remote is "on/off")
• Fits in my back pocket
• I've found him for sale in China (usually in university bookstores)

Chubby's weaknesses:

• Some important vocabulary is missing (because of his compact size)
• No sentence example for some words that really need one
• Written, apparently, for Chinese living in England (sentence examples often include British culture like "British pounds" as the currency)
• No Chinese pronunciation guide, only English pronunciation guide (see above)
• Chinese side is organized by hanzi characters instead of straight alphabetical order (making it a little difficult to look up a Chinese word quickly). It's still roughly alphabetical order, but not exactly.

But overall, there's no comparison between Chubby and other little dictionaries. If you're going to China and you can only take one book--or only one thing--I suggest it be Chubby.

For my review of an online dictionary click here