Lookup

The exact Chinese word or phrase you need--instantly

Type an English word(s) and MDBG Chinese Reader will search the entries in all your Chinese-English dictionaries* to find matching words and phrases. This powerful "reverse dictionary" lookup lets you find exactly what you need.

*Includes Premium, personal and other dictionaries.
MDBG Chinese Reader 8 - Lookup
Lookup

Find exactly

From the Lookup tab, type (or paste) any combination of English, Pinyin (with/without numbers), Simplified Chinese or Traditional Chinese.

  • English: shanghai airport
  • Pinyin and English: qian2 money
  • Chinese and Pinyin: you1

Find matching words, names and phrases from your Chinese Reader translation dictionaries. Save time looking up words much, much faster than traditional printed dictionaries. Unlike web-based dictionary sites, Chinese Reader dictionaries are installed on your computer. They're always available--even when the Internet connection is slow or unavailable.


Tips

For performance reasons, Chinese Reader displays the first 900+ entries for any request. When your lookup request returns too many entries, add more terms or wildcard operators to refine and reduce the number of entries.


1. Refine results by adding English

  • Chinese: 金融
    Find 27 entries for jin rong (banking)
  • Chinese and English: 金融 crisis
    Find only 3 entries for banking or financial crisis

2. Refine results with Pinyin tone numbers

Lookup
  • Pinyin: cong ming
    Find 22 entries
     
  • Pinyin with tone numbers: cong1 ming5
    Find only 10 entries related to smart or clever

3. Study idioms

Lookup
  • English: idiom happy
    Find 13 entries

4. Wildcards

  • English: shanghai airport
    Find only entries containing both "shanghai" AND "airport"
     
  • English: bun -hair
    Find entries containing "bun" but NOT "hair"
     
  • English: "hair*"
    Find entries starting with "hair" (hairpin, hairy, hairdressing)
     
  • English: "bun OR pork"
    Find entries containing "bun" OR "pork"

Toolbar

At the top of the window, the toolbar provides quick access to common tasks.

Lookup
  • Pronounce - hear the words read aloud
  • Copy to clipboard - copy words to the Windows clipboard
  • Take screenshot - save screenshot into your Pictures folder
  • Add to Favorites - tag for future reference
  • Change Settings - open Settings window
  • Minimize window - shrink window to the Windows desktop
  • Maximize window - expland window to fill the Windows desktop
  • Close window - window closes, but Chinese Reader will still be running in background

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