Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters

[mikelove]

Money-wise, if they don't hit the goal your contributions are all null and void (really the whole point of having Kickstarter goals), and as far as the future of the project, I don't want to say anything they haven't made public but I can quote John from a Chinese-Forums post:

No worries! We do have some backup plans, but of course a successful Kickstarter is our best option.

 

[Dagann]

I backed outlier, really deserves to reach the 75k $.
I hope they will make it.

 

[Dagann]

I was thinking about something because i don't want the Outlier kickstarter campaign to fail cause of the missing of a few thousands of dollars.
Since Outlier is going to be a Pleco product, may be Pleco forum and facebook could show a nice banner, advertisment or whatever for the Outlier kickstarter campaign. Don't know if it's possible.
I have discovered the outlier kickstarter by luck cause i was digging in the facebook of Pleco after my Pleco purchase.
A quick glance on facebook or the Pleco forum will make you miss the outlier kickstarter , i'm afraid.

 

[mikelove]

I actually put it on our front page a few days ago but the article seems to have failed to upload and since I didn't tell anybody I was doing it nobody noticed - it's up there now though. We're also plugging it in our app update notes in the App Store.

 

[朱真明]

Will the outlier dictionary have a Chinese and an English interface. I have been also wondered if Pleca could have this function as well? 謝謝你

 

[mikelove]

Initially I believe it'll be English-only but I think they're planning an eventual Chinese version too.

As far as Pleco goes, localized UI is something we're planning to do after we finish our flashcard redesign - a tremendous % of our user interface text right now is in there and effort translating it now would quickly be wasted.

 

[朱真明]

That would be great, I am going to 臺灣 next year to study at uni and I could imagine that my classmates would definetly want access to something like the Han yu da ci dian and Xian dai han yu gui fan ci dian and many more at their finger tips. The Chinese interface would definitly help in persuasion.

 

[Dagann]

Well mikelove, it seems that what you did for advertising Outlier on FB and the website helps the funding progress.
Really hope they will reach the 75k $.

 

[Wan]

It might also be the report on Tech Crunch, though ;-)

 

[Dagann]

Indeed, i did not noticed this one
Hope there will be more articles before the dead line.

 

[Wan]

Me too. I pledged 50$ to see it happen. And to get a copy, of course
One thing though, I’d love to know where they got their information. For Example, if a detail is not commonly available, they could write on which bronze vessel they found which version of a character instead of just writing “In Western Zhou period, 路 was written largely as it is now, as in (1a)[…]”
Because though I want to believe in their scholarship, and though the stories and explanations they provide (at least in the available examples) are fascinating, I would hesitate to quote them in an academic context.
They particularly state that the dictionary might be of use, if “you study Sinology, Chinese History, Classical Chinese or Paleography” or if “you are an expert”.
This is not to discourage anyone! I want this, and I support them!

 

[alex_hk90]

Me too. I pledged 50$ to see it happen. And to get a copy, of course
One thing though, I’d love to know where they got their information. For Example, if a detail is not commonly available, they could write on which bronze vessel they found which version of a character instead of just writing “In Western Zhou period, 路 was written largely as it is now, as in (1a)[…]”
Because though I want to believe in their scholarship, and though the stories and explanations they provide (at least in the available examples) are fascinating, I would hesitate to quote them in an academic context.
They particularly state that the dictionary might be of use, if “you study Sinology, Chinese History, Classical Chinese or Paleography” or if “you are an expert”.
This is not to discourage anyone! I want this, and I support them!

Might be worth asking via a comment on their Kickstarter page.

 

[Wan]

Might be worth asking via a comment on their Kickstarter page.

I shall immediately do so.

edit: I did (https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ers/comments?cursor=10083290#comment-10083289)
And I realize it’s really hard not to sound as if I were trying to criticize them.


edit again:

The project has been successfully funded!

 

[alex_hk90]

I shall immediately do so.

edit: I did (https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ers/comments?cursor=10083290#comment-10083289)
And I realize it’s really hard not to sound as if I were trying to criticize them.

Cool - will be interesting to see their response.

edit again:

The project has been successfully funded!

And with 3 days to spare!

 

[JD]

And with 3 days to spare!

And today they made their stretch goal too!

 

[NomekSan]

Hey,

I don’t recognize anything these days.
Now I Do with this awesome project and it's done funding.

Still exited about it, May but an end to my struggling with learning 汉字 。

 

[Arqui3D]

In its final incarnation, will it show how the characters were simplified in both the Mainland and Japan, and how the meaning evolved with time, sometimes acquiring a different meaning in Japan vs China? That would greatly help clarify some "memory interference" I'm getting now that I'm making the transition from Japanese to Simplified Chinese, and will save me even more interference when I start tackling Traditional Chinese in a year or two.

 

[John Renfroe]

Looks like I missed some of the posts in this thread! Thanks for the support, everyone!

In its final incarnation, will it show how the characters were simplified in both the Mainland and Japan, and how the meaning evolved with time, sometimes acquiring a different meaning in Japan vs China? That would greatly help clarify some "memory interference" I'm getting now that I'm making the transition from Japanese to Simplified Chinese, and will save me even more interference when I start tackling Traditional Chinese in a year or two.

This dictionary won't cover Japanese kanji, but we will be covering how the PRC simplifications were made. The principles are pretty much the same (lots of 草書楷化, etc.), so they'll transfer. We may eventually be able to include the Japanese forms in a future version of our Chinese dictionary so you could search by kanji or simplified/traditional hanzi. But not the full meaning analysis—that's too far outside the scope of the product.

Of course, we do plan to develop a version of the dictionary for people learning Japanese in the future as well. It won't be released through Pleco for obvious reasons, but we'll certainly cover the shinjitai (新字体) simplifications in as much detail as we do for the PRC simplifications, as well as the development in meaning over time.

I'm glad to answer any other questions anyone may have!

 

[mikeo]

It's been months since the last post. Eager to see this in Pleco. Any idea when?

 

[mikelove]

They said with the original Kickstarter project that it would be ready next spring - AFAIK that's still the intended timeline.