Chinese dictionary for macOS

MDBG Chinese-English Dictionary for macOS

Do you use Windows 10? Please check out or Windows software instead.

Offline dictionary

Looking for an easy to use offline Chinese-English dictionary for macOS? Look no further! With the MDBG Chinese-English Dictionary for macOS you can quickly look up Chinese words using Chinese characters, Mandarin pinyin or the English definition. An internet connection is not required for using the dictionary, so you can use it anywhere, any time!

Look up result

Features

Comprehensive Chinese-English word dictionary
Can be used offline, does not require an internet connection
Look up Chinese words using Chinese characters, Mandarin pinyin or the English definition
Mandarin Pinyin can be displayed with tone marks, numbers, colors or as Bopomofo
Detailed information is shown for every character in Chinese words, including Mandarin Pinyin, Yale Cantonese / Jyuping and Radical / Strokes

Try it FREE

A free trial version of the MDBG Chinese-English Dictionary for macOS is available for download:

The trial version does not have a time limit but its content is limited to HSK level 1-4 words (Elementary & Intermediate, approximately 3000 entries). The full version features over 120.000 entries.

Please follow the instructions below if you see the following error during installation: “Installer.pkg” can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software

click "Installer.pkg" with your right mouse button
click "Open"
In the dialog that appears, click "Open"

The error appears on macOS 10.15 Catalina due to new security policies.

Please follow the instructions below if you see the following error during installation: “Installer.pkg” can’t be opened because it was not downloaded from the Mac App Store.

open "System Preferences" from your "Applications" folder
click on the "Security & Privacy" icon
click the lock to make changes
set "Allow applications downloaded from" to "Mac App Store and identified developers"
now install the MDBG Chinese-English Dictionary for macOS
after the installation you can change the security setting back to it's original state

Purchase

You can purchase the full version of the MDBG Chinese-English Dictionary for macOS in our webshop:

Please try the free trial version before purchasing this product to ensure compatibility with your system.

Tips

Mouse over hover translation (as featured in MDBG Chinese Reader) is not supported by the MDBG Chinese-English Dictionary for macOS. It is possible to get popup translation in some programs such as Safari. To use the popup translations, install the full version of MDBG Chinese-English Dictionary for macOS and follow the instructions in the User Guide to set it up correctly. While using a program such as Safari, hover your mouse cursor over a Chinese word and press CMD-CTRL-D or use a three finger tap on the touchpad. A popup with the translation should appear. Sometimes OS X refuses to show translations for certain words / characters (due to limitations in OS X), it might help to select the word or character manually and press CMD-CTRL-D again.

Did you know that Chinese text input is bundled with macOS? This page explains how to enable it.

Spread the word!

Do you like this product? Tell your friends, tell your teacher, tell your classmates. Do you own a blog? Write a blog post about it. The more people buy the product, the more we can improve it! And by buying the MDBG Chinese-English Dictionary for macOS you also support the MDBG Chinese-English dictionary website, thanks!

Tip: Pinyin can be entered with or without tone numbers, e.g. 'nihao' or 'ni3hao3'.