关于金山词霸

On Kingsoft PowerWord

> By Li Xiaolai · 2007-12-21 · [Original (web archive)](https://web.archive.org/web/20111113104513/http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/235.html) (Chinese)
> Our translation from the Chinese original.

*Kingsoft PowerWord* (《金山词霸》) must be one of the most widely used pieces of domestic Chinese software; probably the only ones that can rank ahead of *Kingsoft PowerWord* are Tencent's QQ and a few download tools such as Xunlei. Among IM tools, besides QQ there are many other choices, such as MSN and GTALK; among download tools, besides Xunlei there are FlashGet, Dianlei (电雷) and so on; but among English–Chinese dictionary software, for ten years *Kingsoft PowerWord* has almost always been the undisputed leader.

This software, which has helped countless people, is actually an unholy mess. For ten years it has kept putting out new versions, and apart from having more and more errors, its new features are nothing to write home about. (As for PowerWord's errors, you can [take a look on Google](http://www.google.cn/search?complete=1&hl=zh-CN&newwindow=1&q=%E9%87%91%E5%B1%B1%E8%AF%8D%E9%9C%B8+%E9%94%99%E8%AF%AF+-%22%E5%AE%89%E8%A3%85%22+-%22%E7%B3%BB%E7%BB%9F%22&btnG=Google+%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&meta=).) Besides textual errors, there are many other shortcomings, for example:

- Most word pronunciations are not real human voices but Microsoft's machine engine, slurred and unclear—true "ghost talk." A few words do have real human pronunciation, but who knows where they found the people who read them; it's neither standard nor pleasant to hear—so it's completely useless.
- Phonetic transcriptions are given in three systems, AHD, D.J. and K.K., but are riddled with errors, so they're simply not fit to look at.
- It includes countless junk dictionaries. Only two are useful: a) the *Concise English–Chinese Dictionary* (the largest number of words, concise definitions); b) the *American Heritage Dictionary* [bilingual]—you must use the bilingual version, because the Chinese definitions in the English–Chinese monolingual version, who knows who was found to translate them, are unbearable to look at.

However, although *Kingsoft PowerWord* has never been a satisfactory product, it does have its merits. The most useful of these is its "automatic phrase recognition"—a feature Kingsoft itself has not publicized with any fanfare. Look at the picture below and you'll see what this feature is good for.

［图］

When learning English, one of the frequent frustrations is "I know every word, but put together I don't understand……" But there's something even more frightening than this, namely "thinking you've understood when in fact you haven't……"—I often say, "Not knowing isn't frightening; what's frightening is that you **don't know** that you don't know." This is exactly the situation I mean. Take the phrase "purple passage": everyone knows purple, everyone knows passage, so, without a mouse-over dictionary as "smart" as *Kingsoft PowerWord* (the precondition, of course, being that the text you're reading is electronic and not printed), the vast majority of people might just fool themselves into getting past it, completely unaware that "purple passage" is a phrase, and that this phrase means "a passage of ornate language," not "a purple chapter." As I remember it, the first time I was jolted by this feature of *Kingsoft PowerWord* was many years ago, when I casually ran the mouse across an article and learned that "birds of prey" actually means "carnivorous birds, raptors," and not "birds that are preyed upon," as I had taken for granted—at that instant my scalp tingled and my back went cold, and so I developed the habit of often running the mouse over articles I've read; over these years, I've really benefited endlessly. [Translator's note: the original writes 振动 ("vibrated"), a slip for 震动, "jolted"; translated by the intended sense]

On its tenth anniversary, PowerWord launched the 2007 edition. But surprisingly, a feature that, although not used much, is certainly actually very useful—"full-text search"—was removed. [Translator's note: this clause is garbled in the original (一个尽管使用则并不多但肯定实际上很有用功能); translated by its evident sense] (Or is it that I just don't know how to use it? Could some expert tell me?) When the 2003 edition came out, "full-text search" was a feature heavily hyped that year—even though most users didn't know what this feature could be used for.

［图］

［图］

In the past, when we had only printed dictionaries, one predicament we often faced was:

> "How should '居然' (unexpectedly) be expressed in English? Obviously the 'actually' I've just found in this Chinese–English dictionary isn't right……
> Why do I say so? Because I remember that a few days ago, in this same dictionary, I saw an English example sentence whose Chinese translation had the two characters '居然' in it, but I remember that that English example sentence definitely didn't use 'actually'……
> But I just can't remember where exactly that example sentence was!—Damn it!"

One practical use of "full-text search" is that it can help us get out of this kind of predicament. Type "居然" into the input box, then, as shown in the picture above, click "full-text search," and see what you can find?—in other words, you'll see all the entries containing the two characters "居然," that is, you'll find many English example sentences that don't use the word "actually" yet express the meaning of "居然"……

This feature is very useful—imagine you want to express "确实……" (really, indeed), so you use a Chinese–English dictionary or PowerWord's default lookup to look up "确实," and you'll get

> **确实**
> *for sure
> in faith
> assuredness
> certitude
> positivity
> sure thing*

but you can't possibly find a sentence like this: "I do hate such behaviors…"—full-text search can help with that (although, right up to the 2006 version, full-text search was also done very badly, but having it is still better than 2007 not having it at all, of all things.) [Translator's note: the original writes 榜上忙 ("list-top busy"), a slip for 帮上忙, "help"; translated by the intended sense]

Copyright: © LookMinds. Our own edited text and translation, not a substitute for the original; rights in the original belong to the author and the platform. Please see the original link.