How can i find out what a chinese word/character means in english?

I have like 14 words that i need to fill in gaps, but i don't know what they mean.





1 - My parents aren't in.


2 - i've tried chinese to english translators, however it needs the pinyin and i don't even know how to say the words.


3 - i can't post pictures on here for the words because my camera is really rubbish and it all just goes blurry.





I know how many strokes there are in each words, anyway i can find out what the words mean?|||Uuum... you're saying you can't type them, you don't have a dictionary and you can't take a photo or a scan... How can we help? Draw the words in paint? Then post them and we can help. You could install Chinese handwriting recognition and use the mouse to write the 婕㈠瓧.|||guess and hope for the best





or put the funniest! |||You need a real Chinese dictionary. The method is to find the radical first. There's a table showing these, usually at what seems to be the back of the dictionary, which is really the front of the book, if it's a Taiwanese dictionary, because they tend to read from right to left. That radical is like the root of the word, except that we're talking about writing, not grammar. These radicals are listed in order of how many strokes it takes to write them.





Once you find the radical, you count many more strokes it takes to make the word. You go to the next table, which lists all the words that are made from each radical, and you find your word in this list. They are shown in order according to how many strokes it takes to make them; all those taking one extra stroke beyond the radical first, then all those taking two extra strokes, then all those taking three extra stokes, and so on. This table will tell you what page of the main dictionary your word will appear on.





You go to that page and find your word. Now, this page will give you the full information, the pronunciation in Pinyin (hopefully, assuming you got a good, up-to-date dictionary), also in Romanized script, all the various meaning of the word in English; plus it should show you various idiomatic combinations. That's because in Chinese what a word means depends a lot on what other words it's next too. That's like in English when you say "look" it can mean one thing, but if you say "look up" as in "Look up that word in a dictionary" the combination of two words really means "seek". Chinese is full of combinations like that, so you must have a really good dictionary, not some simple hand-held translator that gives you a one-word glossary style listing.





That's how it's done. Now go to Amazon.com to find a really good Chinese dictionary since you have such a long list of words to look up. Or go to a good library, say, one at a college or university where Chinese is taught.|||Just find a Chinese to English dictionary.