We would like to start this new year with a new look and new functionality.

First the new look. The menu moved from the left hand side to a bar on the top with the most common features. Click the 3 stripes icon on the left to see the full menu. In this menu you will now also find a new feature to quickly switch the size of the Chinese letters on the site. Don't forget, you can always adjust the font size of the entire site using CTRL + or CTRL - (CMD key on the mac).

Why did we move the menu? Moving the menu creates more screen estate for dictionary results. This is mostly important for devices with smaller screens such as tablets and mini laptops. Several parts of the site such as the flash cards have also been adjusted to better suit small screen devices.

Now for the new functionality! Many of you probably already use the character decomposition in the mouse over menu of character dictionary results (字 with scissors), which shows the sub components of which a character is composed. It is now also possible to search characters in the character dictionary using these same components. Say you are looking for the character 吗, you know the left part is 口 kǒu "mouth" and the right side 马 mǎ "horse", just enter both in the component search and you'll find 吗. Another example of a composition is 好 hǎo "good", composed of 女 nǚ "woman" and 子 zǐ "child". Order does not matter and you do not need to enter all of the components, just the ones you know. There's also a link to some of the most common character components next to the search field.

You will also find a new "字?" link in the mouse over menu of character dictionary results allowing you to search for characters containing this character as one of it's components.

There are also several other small adjustments all over the dictionary. And under the hood we replaced several major parts of the dictionary system. If you find that some functionality is broken, just send us a message through the contact form on the MDBG website, thanks!

Happy searching, happy learning! :-)

Please try pressing CTRL-F5 (or CMD-R on a Mac) to clear your broswer cache or try a different browser if the screen layout looks very odd.