A New Dictionary Search Tool—the Browser Address Bar

Searching through the browser address bar follows the URL logic described below:

The old /dictionary address now has the shortened equivalent /zd (from the word “字典”). Character-entry addresses have changed from /dictionary/hieroglyph/[Unicode code] to /zd/zi/[character written in Chinese]. Thus, to find the meaning of “字”, simply append this character to http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/zi/ and press Enter. Here, “zi” indicates a search for a single-character dictionary entry. To find the meaning of a word from a Chinese text, append the word (at least two characters long) to http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/ci/ and press Enter. For example, here is a link to the same word, “dictionary”: http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/ci/字典. These rules also apply when creating links and hyperlinks to character and word entries in forums, blog posts, articles, and other online publications that process HTML, as well as in the message editors of instant-messaging services such as Skype, ICQ, and others.

Access to the dictionary’s supporting sections has also become easier. To open the radicals page, simply enter /zd/bs in the address bar, where “bs” consists of the initial letters of the pinyin readings of the characters in “部首”. If you know the radical’s number, a list of characters containing it can be found at http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/bs/N, where “N” is the radical number. For example, I happen to remember the number of the “person” radical (9), so I can avoid unnecessary page navigation and go straight to the page I need by entering in the address bar http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/bs/9.

The changes also extend to another important and popular section: the phoneme table, which has “moved” from http://www.chinese-russian.com/dictionary/phonemes to http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/py, Here, “py” consists of the initial letters of the readings of the characters in “拼音”, the name of the Latin-based phonetic alphabet used to represent the readings of Chinese characters and words. To go directly to a list of characters pronounced “zi,” enter http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/py/zi, in the browser address bar. For characters pronounced “zi4” (“zi” in the fourth tone), use http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/py/zi4. The mnemonic rule for finding characters corresponding to a Chinese phoneme is therefore: “the old /dictionary/mandarin address is replaced by /zd/py/, followed by the desired phoneme, with or without its tone number.” Naturally, the new-format addresses also support links published online or sent through instant-messaging services.

The address-bar search logic described above also applies to searching characters by stroke count. Previously, a stroke-count results page had an address such as http://www.chinese-russian.com/dictionary/search/strokes/?strokes=N, The new address is not only shorter but eliminates the gibberish understood only by robots and programmers, taking the neat, clear form http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/bh/N (in both cases, “N” is the desired stroke count). Here, “bh” abbreviates the Chinese word “笔画”. As an example, here is a link to a list of characters consisting of five strokes: http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/bh/5.

Finally, the last section both in this list and in user demand is the randomly selected character page. This gift for those who enjoy discovering something random in Chinese every day is now at http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/zi/sj, where “sj” comprises the initial letters of the Latin transcription of the syllables in “随机».

Here is a simplified list of example addresses, a kind of cheat sheet for searching through the address bar:
http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/
http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/zi/字
http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/ci/字典
http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/zi/sj
http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/bs/
http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/bs/9
http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/py/
http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/py/zi/
http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/py/zi4/
http://www.chinese-russian.com/zd/bh/5/

We hope you enjoy using the dictionary’s new features.