Chinese VocabMaster

Chinese VocabMaster

Chinese VocabMaster is a both a Microsoft Excel-based Chinese-English dictionary and an electronic flashcard system that allows the user to look up new characters and words (based on a combination of factors such as pronunciation, radical, strokes and structural components--especially important since Chinese is non-alphabetic) and to make and organize lists of Chinese words for study.

Targeted Review

Chinese VocabMaster allows the user to use multi-dimensional filtering for targeted review by filtering the generated flashcards by difficulty, study list, and other factors, and can generate vocabulary lists for specific readings.

Dictionary and Audio Links

Chinese VocabMaster provides shortcuts to automatically lookup up new vocabulary words on-line to assist in creation of new flashcards. In addition, a single click will take the user to the Google Translate website for the vocabulary word, where the user can click to hear the audio of the vocabulary word or phrase.

Flashcard Images

VocabMaster programs permit the user to save visual images to flashcards to help the learner associate new vocabulary with concepts rather than English words.

Spaced-Repetition Review

Chinese VocabMaster uses spaced repetition to set the frequency of vocabulary review. Spaced repetition is based on the fact that reviewing words at increasing intervals, just before you are about to forget the word, is effective in putting the word into long-term memory. It also saves time spent reviewing vocabulary cards by making it unnecessary to review all the cards all the time so that you can focus on new vocabulary while retaining the old.

Looking Up New Characters, Words and Phrases

There are many websites for looking up Chinese characters and words. However, the user usually has to know the pronunciation or radical (a component of a character) to look up the word.

However, in addition to looking up characters by pronunciation and standard radical, Chinese VocabMaster allows the user to search by number of strokes, stroke order, and multiple non-radical components (sometimes it is very difficult to figure out which component of a character is considered the radical for look-up purposes). The user can also simply copy and paste characters into Chinese VocabMaster.  All of these lookup factors can be used in any combination to rapidly narrow down the list of possible characters. Once a character is chosen, the app shows a list of words or phrases that include the character. This list of words can be sorted by several factors (e.g., beginning character, last character, pronunciation of first character, etc.)

Vocabulary Flashcards and Study Lists

Rather than typing the characters, typing the pinyin, and typing the meaning, clicking a button on a dictionary entry creates a flashcard.

Multiple study lists are supported and can be printed. Chinese VocabMaster also has built-in links to several on-line dictionaries to look up the meaning of words not already in the app and permits addition of new words to the Chinese VocabMaster dictionary. 

Traditional and Simplified Characters

Chinese VocabMaster supports both the traditional characters used in Taiwan and by most overseas Chinese and the simplified characters used on the Mainland and in Singapore.

120,000+ Entries—All With Pinyin and English

Chinese VocabMaster includes more than 120,000 entries with characters, Pinyin pronunciation, and English meanings and is based on the CCEDict database maintained by MDBG.

Sample Sentences

Chinese VocabMaster also links dictionary entries to 20,000 built-in and additional online sample sentences for better understanding of context and usage.

User Manual

Video of Features

Click on the link below to view a video showing the features of Chinese VocabMaster.