Korean Dictionaries

[Zolarius]

안녕.

I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for a good Korean-English dictionary. I have been using the Oxford Japanese Minidictionary for my Japanese study, and have found it incomparable to other dictionaries; a fantastic investment and delightfully travel-sized.
Unfortunately, Oxford University Press doesn't publish a Korean dictionary. So, I turn to the community for some suggestions.

Thank you in advance.

[steved]

The dictionaries that I have I obtained in Korea. I have the 동아 사전 in both the pocket size and standard size in the 한영 and 영한 varieties (Korean/English and English/Korean). At one point I had an Oxford 영영한 dictionary that I found fairly useless. While it was good once in a while to get an English definition of a word, mostly the words that I needed defined in English weren't there. It may have been useful for a non-native English speaker. I have looked at Korean dictionaries in bookstores and haven't seen anything that really compares to the 동아 ones. When all else fails, ask at the local Korean grocery store, they can get just about anything.

[hyunwoo]

I agree with Steve on 동아(dong a)'s dictionaries being the best in the market so far. I know some publishing companies are coming up with newer dictionaries, but nothing's really better than 동아's.

[Zolarius]

Thank you all very much.

I will go looking for the 동아 dictionaries.

[hyunwoo]

Thank you all very much.

I will go looking for the 동아 dictionaries.

Yeah, and please let us know what you think of what you bought ^_^

[steved]

현우, since you are in China now, studying Chinese, do you have any thoughts on a good Chinese character dictionary (옥편)?

[maxiewawa]

Steve, I have a Motorola e680i phone, and I got it expressly for its dictionary. I don't know if you're looking for an electronic dictionary, but you might want to consider it. Writing a character on the screen is much easier than looking up the radical.

If you're using Firefox as your internet browser, look up Pera-kun, it's a plugin. With Pera-kun activated, you can just wave your mouse over a word on the screen and the English translation comes up automatically.

[steved]

맥시와와, 안녕하세요.
I think that those plug-ins only work for Chinese to English. What would be cool is if there was one that went from Chinese to Korean. IME built into XP will take the syllable from Korean to Chinese if you know what character you are after...
Agreed that looking up the radical can be a pain but if all you have is a standard analog dictionary then radicals and counting strokes are about the only way to do it. A handheld electronic one would be very useful I think.

[hyunwoo]

Steve, for Chinese, I only have this electronic dictionary that has many dictionaries included and among which is a Korean-Chinese dictionary. But the dictionary data itself is from the 고려대학교 출판부 dictionary and I think it's not bad.

But if it's 옥편(a dictionary for the traditional Chinese characters used in Korean) that you are looking for, I will let you know after I check some out in a bookstore in Seoul.