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East Asian Studies

Searching for Chinese language resources

 

The video above provides an excellent foundational understanding of how to search for Chinese language resources effectively. 

Searching with Chinese characters is a good starting point if you are unfamiliar with Library of Congress (LC) romanization rules (i.e., Pinyin) or you are searching for a known title. However, generally, searching the UAL Catalogue with pinyin remains the most effective way to find Chinese-language material.

For a complete list of pinyin romanization rules, please see the resources linked below. Please keep in mind the following general rules:

  • Generally, individual syllables are romanized separately, except for personal names, geographic location, and certain proper nouns which are written together. 
  • For Chinese personal names, the family name separate from the given name.
    • E.g., "李白" as "Li Bai"
  • For geographical names, join the syllables associated with multi-character geographic names.Separate the names of jurisdictions and topographical features from the geographical names.
    • E.g., "海南岛" as "Hainan Dao"

For a more comprehensive search, consider using a combination of:

  • Pinyin (without the tones)
  • Wade-Giles (without the tones)
  • Chinese characters

Search tools (catalogues & databases) may search for original language and/or transliteration and/or translations. The results depend on what information (metadata) exists for each item. The UAL Catalogue can generally map simplified to traditional characters, and vice-versa. While there are specific rules regarding spacing in pinyin and Wade-Giles, consider trying variations in how you join characters as records may contain different information.

  • E.g., “道德经” OR “道德經” OR “daode jing” OR “dao de jing” OR “daodejing” OR “tao te ching” OR “taoteching”

 

Additional resources:

English Language Databases and Collections

Chinese Language Databases

Open Books Hong Kong Pilot Project

A collection of nine Chinese books published by three university presses, covering history, philosophy, religion, law, anthropology, gender studies and other fields of humanities and social sciences. 

More will be added in the coming months. 

Newspapers

English newspaper databases with Chinese content: 

China-specific or in Chinese

Audio-visual (music, films, documentaries, etc)

DVD / Blu-Ray / VHS

Use terms like "feature films" or "television programs" combined with the country name (e.g. China, Taiwan, Hong Kong).

Limit results by searching in the subject field (or using DE in ebsco databases).  

  • "feature films" AND china
  • "television programs" AND "hong kong"  
  • DE "Feature films" AND Taiwan

Notes

  • DVD region code: Most are Region 1 (Canada and USA). Discs with other region codes require multi-region DVD player.
  • Subtitles: Many have English subtitles - but not all

Streaming Video

See the Audio & Video subject guide for a variety of streaming film and video sources

Dictionaries / Enclyclopedias

We have hundreds of Chinese dictionaries (from simple language learning to thematic to historical) in Chinese-only, Chinese to English, English to Chinese, both C-E and E-C, as well Chinese to other languages. They are catagorised by many subject headings and many call number ranges. Here are some ways to find them. 

Quick e-access

A Student’s Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese Online (Brill online) - Chinese character dictionary

China Encyclopedic Reference (Brill online). 4 titles: Brill's Encyclopedia of China Online; Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature; Biographical dictionary of the Qin, Former Han and Xin Periods (221 BC - AD 24); Biographical dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdomes (23-220 AD)

中国大百科全书. The Encyclopedia of China (Zhongguo Da Baike Quan Shu). Largest and most authoritative Chinese-language encyclopedia. It does reflect official Chinese government positions on all politically sensitive topics but most articles are objective, detailed, and reflect the current state of research. (free online access).

Shelf browsing: 

  • Chinese language is PL1001-3208 
  • Many dictionaries clustered in PL  (particularly PL 679)
  • Thematic dictionaries may be in relevant areas (e.g. DS 700-800 Chinese history, NA for architecture, HF for business, GV for sports/recreation, etc)

Comprehensive search 

NOTE:  select Databases --> university of alberta library in left-side menu (includes all  UAlberta and NEOS library holdings).

Chinese-English, English-Chinese

("Chinese language" AND (Dictionar* OR "terms and phrases" OR glossar*) AND English) OR "English language" AND (Dictionar* OR "terms and phrases" OR glossar*) AND Chinese [in subject terms]

Dictionaries of Chinese, in Chinese

"chinese language dictionaries" [in subject terms but] NOT ( english OR japanese OR french OR korean OR tibetan )

All China-related dictionaries in UAlberta and NEOS libraries (almost).

To limit above results further:

  • Add more AND terms: e.g. idioms, etymology, slang, "ancient chinese", dialects, translat*

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Subject Librarian

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Cheng Yin Zhu
I use any pronouns (he/she/they)