One of the most interesting lessons in elementary school Chinese class was the one in which we learned how to use a dictionary. This might seem weird or incredible to those of you used to flipping through an alphabetized discovery. But using a Chinese dictionary takes a little more time and skill. To look up a word in Chinese, you need one of two things: its pronunciation or its appearance. If you know the pronunciation, it's pretty simple and largely identical to how you'd use an English dictionary. Except, of course, you would need to account for tone. For example, to look up 唐 táng, you'd go to T and then táng, and you'd locate the second tone from the four other ones, and under their pronunciation, there would be about a dozen words, one of which would be 唐. It is rather imprecise because one sound corresponds to many characters. It is nevertheless less time-consuming than the alternative. The second way is used only when you don't know the pronunciation. For most words, you can guess the pronunciation from the composition (as explained in the first issue of this newsletter), so this method is used rarely. But it's very important when you need it, and it's very precise. Again, take 唐 as an example. First, you need to identify the radical or basic component. There is a limited number of radicals in Chinese, and they're usually easily identifiable. In 唐, the radical is 广. After identifying the radical, you need to count how many strokes there are in it. You write the radical 广 with a total of three strokes. So, you go to appendix I and find the radical with three strokes. You would find a page number next to each radical listed. That page number is for appendix Ⅱ. After flipping to the page as directed, you would locate a column with the radical you're looking for as the heading. Now you have to count the strokes it takes to write the character you're looking for minus the radical, in this case 7. Find the place in the column for 7-stroke 广 radical words. There would be about a dozen, but it'd be easy to find 唐 among them. The number next to the word is its page number. After flipping the page, you would see 唐 with its pronunciation, meaning, couplings, and other information such as how it came about. And that's how you use a Chinese dictionary. It cleverly dissects each Chinese character into two parts and through the combination of both parts, allows you to locate any word without knowing its pronunciation.