A craftsman must sharpen his tools if he wants to do his work well.
-ConfuciusGōng yù shàn qí shì bì xiān lì qí qì
工欲善其事 必先利其器。
Top Chinese English dictionaries for parents who are new to the Chinese language or who need assistance with pronunciation, stroke order, and usage.
All five Chinese English dictionaries are handy tools to have. However, you don’t need to have all of them. If you can choose one for your devices and one for the laptop or desktop you are in good hands. Pick one on the list to start with right away. Try it first and see if you find it meets your needs.
I have included the feature in the listing so you can have a quick comparison.
Top Chinese English Dictionaries for Parents:
Arch Chinese (free)
English Online Dictionary with audio and more. In ArchChinese dictionary tab, you can see the writing of a Chinese character in stroke order with audio which is helpful for children.
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Online dictionary
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Traditional Chinese
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Simplified Chinese
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Character stroke animation
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Pinyin
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Audio
MDBG (free)
You can enter in English, Pinyin, or Chinese in MDBG to search for the words you need.
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Online dictionary
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Traditional Chinese
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Simplified Chinese
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Pinyin
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Jyutping for Cantonese
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Audio
Language Learning with Netflix and YouTube
This is not a dictionary but a Chrome extension. It serves as a dictionary as you watch videos. A powerful Chinese language learning tool for big kids and adult learners.
Amazon Alexa
This is an audio tool with your smart speaker such as Amazon echo. You can ask: Alexa, how do you say I’m hungry in Mandarin. You will hear the answer. After testing, it works well with single words and short sentences.
Pleco app (free. paid)
This is one of the best and most complete Chinese English dictionary apps with great features. For parents who are new to the Chinese language, you can download PLECO free version to start with. As you and your child advance in learning you can consider purchasing the basic bundle. It features handwriting, stroke order, OCR, flashcards, and document reader. If you only want one dictionary app then this is my TOP pick.
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Portable app
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Traditional Chinese
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Simplified Chinese
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Pinyin
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Zhuyin
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Audio
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Add-on with Outlier dictionary
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integration with Skritter
Skritter app (free. paid)
Here is a tool focusing on helping Chinese learners of various levels to advance in Chinese character writing and acquisition. It has a clean and easy to follow interface. The design of the app is research-based so users can follow the space learning with an active recall of the newly learned Chinese characters. This app is for big kids and adult learners.
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Traditional Chinese
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Simplified Chinese
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Pinyin
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Audio
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definition with multilingual option
MandarinSpot
Zhuyin and pinyin are both supported in the dictionary. The annotation function is helpful for parents and children who use Zhuyin for reading Chinese. This tool is available for Pinyin and Zhuyin. You will be able to read Chinese with pinyin or Zhuyin annotations above words. It also provides a pop-up English definition of words when you mouse over the text.
Google Translate (free)
This is a handy tool that is available on desktop, laptop, and devices. It is good for single words and short expressions. It is supported by audio and OCR (optical character recognition).
What the tool is really for is to help you on a daily basis so you and your child can keep learning more. Which dictionary do you want to download and try right away?
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