Although the publication of abridged and pocket editions has successfully slimmed down the Chinese Dictionary and greatly enhanced its practicability and utilization rate, it is still profound and professional for readers with secondary education or below. For example, the abridged version still retains a large number of ancient Chinese characters, the ancient and medieval sounds of each word, and too many uncommon words and meanings. Unusual examples abound, and every example with the earliest meaning must be listed first. The text inherits the tradition of Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi, and is sorted by radicals. However, for modern readers who have widely accepted the word order search method, pocket edition's practice of retaining all prefixes and meanings is obviously one-sided. These problems have affected the popularity of Chinese Dictionary, a cultural treasure, among readers below secondary education level.

In view of these practical problems, the publishing house launched the Popular Chinese Dictionary in 2003. The idea of writing the popular version is: shortening the length, being easy to consult, being economical and practical, and focusing on popularization.

The "Popular Edition" has reduced the number of prefixes to about 20,000, deleted ancient Chinese characters, storytelling, anti-cutting in the Middle Ages, and ancient rhyme, and directly marked each prefix with modern pronunciation. At the same time, the meaning of pronunciation and explanation without examples, as well as less common meanings, have been deleted. A sememe basically keeps only one instance and deletes other instances. Through these four aspects, the total number of words is about 6.5438+0.6 million, which is only one third of the abridged version.

In typesetting, the popular version has also made two major changes: the text sorting method has been changed from the original radical sorting method to the prefix pinyin sorting method, which is suitable for the retrieval habits of modern readers; Change the complex and simple mixed arrangement into simplified Chinese typesetting. Volkswagen edition 32 carats, hardcover.

Through the above efforts, the popular edition has condensed the essence of The Great Chinese Dictionary, making it affordable and useful for readers, and making the Great Chinese Dictionary, a "swallow of experts and scholars", really "fly into the homes of ordinary people".