A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

by Xiaolu Guo
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
book data
543 ratings, 3.44 average rating, 167 reviews (more data...)
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published
February 1st 2007 by Chatto & Windus

binding
Paperback, 256 pages

literary awards
Orange Prize Shortlist (2007)

isbn
0701180382    (isbn13: 9780701180386)




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Jason Pettus
12/11/07
Jason Pettus rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in December, 2007
(My full review of this book is much longer than GoodReads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

So first, a confession from my personal life that is relevant to today's essay; that like many others, I too once fell in love with someone while on a foreign trip, in many ways precisely because it was a foreign country and she was a foreigner within that country. And like many others, it wasn't just simple ...more
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Yulia
02/14/09
Yulia rated it: 3 of 5 stars

Read in February, 2009
This is a charming and surprising book, but one that is also very frustrating to read (which is both a compliment and a complaint).

Note: It's best to read this book in the voice of someone struggring with Engrish. If you do so, it becoming easier adopting the tone and the mindset of the protagonist. (In my immigrant-raised habit of taking what is said and written with entire seriousness and my snobbery about proper grammar and pronunciation, I was initially offended by the author'...more
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Vicky Lim
10/25/07
Vicky Lim rated it: 3 of 5 stars

bookshelves: 2007, own
Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in December, 2007
Things I liked:

1)The title of this book, which is named after an actual Chinese to English dictionary.

2)Z's unintentional humor, like--"I not understanding what she saying. Mrs. Margaret have a neatly cut pale blonde hair, with very serious clothes. Top and her bottom always same colour. She not telling her age, but I guessing she from 31 to 56."

3)Z's language reflections, like--"I thought English is a strange language. Now I think French is eve...more
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Therese
09/19/07
Therese rated it: 1 of 5 stars

Read in September, 2007
YAWN.Couldn't finish it. The female protagonist, Z, is so feeble and boring. She has some kind of love affair with some old hippy guy. Blah. Am totally bummed cuz it was really horrible and maybe I'm just not 'getting' what it is all about to be an Asian woman in modern society. This made me angry with Z's timid comformity and neediness. And I thought the boyfriend was really annoying and disgusting. Meh. Read if you must. But there have to be better things out there to spend your time on.
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Shoshanapnw
03/14/09
Shoshanapnw rated it: 4 of 5 stars

bookshelves: 2009, asia, fiction-literature
Both funny and poignant, this novel uses a word and definition to open each chapter of the narrator's diary or notebook. A student from China in England, she writes in English, which improves over time, as does her ability to express more complex and nuanced ideas and emotions. At times it's hilarious and the observations pithy; at others it is a tale of protracted yearning. A very enjoyable novel, perhaps especially so for English as a Foreign Language teachers.
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Tina
08/19/08
Tina rated it: 3 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0307278409)

Read in August, 2008
Just finished this quick read - it is interesting reading the view on the English language from Chinese that leads to confusion - such as why do we say "We are going to go..." why two verbs where they just have one? I also like how as the chapters progress the English of the narrator is becoming better. The definition of the word at the start of each chapters holds the deeper meaning of that short chapter theme.

I enjoyed this for the view it gave me of the English to Chi...more
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Gitta
08/23/08
Gitta rated it: 3 of 5 stars

bookshelves: fiction
Read in January, 2007
Craggy, life-size account of a Chinese woman's experiences when she arrives in London to learn English and falls in love with an English man.

I was a bit disappointed by the inconsistent use of 'bad' English; the conceit of learning vocabulary, grammatical rules etc doesn't work as well when, early in the book, she's using 'me' and 'I" quite well, and then lapses completely much later on when it's the focus of a chapter.
As a bilingual writer I would have expected more accu...more
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Lee
03/10/08
Lee rated it: 5 of 5 stars

bookshelves: 2008-reads, china, favourites
Read in June, 2008
I completely identified with this book because it brilliantly captures the feeling of immersing oneself in a foreign language and culture. What happens when you begin to fluently speak, live and love in another language is fascinating. What the author conveys so well here is how the beliefs impregnated within the language alter how you interact with people and conduct relationships.

I loved Z and her practical wisdom. Her 5 week solo travel stint through Europe in many ways felt ...more
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brian tanabe
02/28/08
brian tanabe rated it: 4 of 5 stars

What a beautiful little book. What a tragic love story. What a sexual coming-of-age tale. What a narrative on the Everyman being a broken man. What an account of the cultural differences between the east and the west. What an illustration of an asian woman in western society.

This is a powerful book about love in a modern relationship told through a captivating narrative.

In the beginning and in the end it is a love story -- a very sad love story but a completely realisti...more
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Jessica
bookshelves: novels
Read in June, 2007

A young Chinese woman comes to London to study English for a year. As she learns the language, she also learns about love and independence. The language in the book changes, starting with very poor, stilted English, peppered with errors, to near-fluent English at the end.

I really liked the concept of the book and it was a lot of fun to read the main characters language at the beginning, as she tries to learn English. Although I liked the style, I didn't care much for the sto...more
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Adrienne
01/08/09
Adrienne added it

Read in January, 2009
My step-mother gave it to my sister for Xmas, but she had already read it, so she gave it to me. She says that she loved it though and it like changed her life, and she actually skipped class to read it. It's fun reading books that mean a lot to other people.

Twenty-three year old Z, of the unpronounceable (at least to British people) name, moves to London for a year to study English. Due to a linguistic misunderstanding, she ends up moving in with a British man in his forties, who beco...more
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Sonia Gomes
02/23/09
Sonia Gomes rated it: 2 of 5 stars

bookshelves: lost-in-translation
Read in February, 2009
recommended to Sonia by: Got it from British Library
recommends it for: People who like to know about immigrants !
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
Author: Xiaolu Guo

When Zhuang arrives in London for her studies in English, everything is so different for her, observations of her Hostel, food and London and even her teacher, Mrs. Margaret are extremely funny, everything is strange, everything is new, not always pleasant but new, there are phrases like
‘Sorry for my English”, or ‘ Now I am studying hard on English, soon I stealing their language too’
Soon s...more
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Donna Jo
bookshelves: fiction
Read in April, 2009
recommended to Donna Jo by: Bas Bleu
Written in first person in a series of monthly observations, this book is a love story as written by a twenty year old Chinese girl, sent by her parents to London to learn English to better herself and to make their shoe factory more viable.
She knows no one in England, speaks very little English, and is totally bewildered by the customs of such a foreign culture. She goes to the movies and connects with the man sitting next to her.
So far, a rather conventional love story. The conf...more
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Christy
01/04/09
Christy rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in December, 2008
Ha ha! This book was fantastic and will be especially appreciated by anyone who has lived overseas and has had to adjust to the language and culture. There are moments where I laughed aloud and others in which I felt the utmost sympathy for the protagonist. One of the things that I liked best about the book is that it is based on the journal of the author while she was learning English and so the book reads like something one of my students would have written. The English is intelligible but ...more
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Bookmarks Magazine

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers remains light as it explores love across a cultural divide. The novelXiaolu Guo's first in Englishwas short-listed for Britain's 2007 Orange Prize and has charmed critics on this side of the pond as well. Inspired, in part, by Guo's own experience relocating from China to London, the novel is a moving and mostly humorous narrative of cultural dislocation. Some critics had difficulty adjusting to Z's initially halting English, but most agreed

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Jesse
02/17/08
Jesse rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in February, 2008
This is really a beautiful book with a unique story. It's a quick read, the writing is simple as it is the diary of an ESL student living in England. But within that it is surprisingly complex. The subtleties of language and culture are amplified by the protagonist who is learning the words as the book progresses. I would recommend it to anyone.
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Vicki
04/17/09
Vicki rated it: 3 of 5 stars

bookshelves: borrowed
Read in April, 2009
This was an interesting book to read - the main character is a Chinese woman who is learning English, so at the beginning its written in quite broken English, but later on the spelling and grammar etc. improve. Its a neat gimmick, but seeing as the reasoning for that was that she was writing a journal in English, sometimes I did wonder if she would have been making such massive journal entries, sometimes in written in the present tense...but I think that's just nitpicking really.

Sto...more
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Milan/zzz Ranisavljevic
04/23/09
Milan/zzz Ranisavljevic rated it: 4 of 5 stars

bookshelves: 2009-read
Read in March, 2009
Oh this is such a sweet novel! It was very enjoyable and fast read. I was more than once burst out laughing in the public transport! But humour is not everything and even not the main thing. This is story about extraterrestrial difference between two cultures told in very original (and undoubtedly very funny) way. Also this is story about love, its different forms and how love means one thing here and something very different somewhere else, even the word “love” doesn’t have the same weigh...more
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Amy
03/08/09
Amy rated it: 3 of 5 stars

Read in January, 2009
This is a fictional book about a year in the life of a young Chinese woman (she calls herself "Z" because no westerner can pronounce her Chinese name) whose parents have given her an opportunity to study English in London. She meets an older man in London who becomes her
lover, and this book explores how she changes in that year. She matures sexually, she becomes more worldly, falls in love.

Since Z is in London to study English, she is very concerned with definitions of w...more
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Sharm Alagaratnam
12/20/08
Sharm Alagaratnam rated it: 2 of 5 stars

Another book from last year's Orange Prize shortlist, this time by Xiaolu Guo. I read this one in a flash, due in part to the deliberately simplistic language used by the narrator, newly arrived in London from China. It has been a long time since a book has irritated me this much. The broken language did not ring true to my ear, suffice to say this conceit did not work for me.

Thankfully the heroine's language does improve, and with it the book and its love story, if rather marginally...more
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