Shop on Taobao with this Chinese to English Taobao dictionary

Why join other shoppers in a long line waiting to try on clothes when you could simply shop online (whilst seated, no less) at your own time?

I haven’t always been one to shop on Taobao because let’s be honest, my Mandarin is pretty bad; the barrage of hieroglyphic-like Chinese characters on Taobao scares me.

I remember a time when I once had to flip through a physical copy of a Chinese dictionary to learn the meaning of a word. Gone are those days. Now, translating a word or a phrase from one language to another requires just a few quick clicks.

Use a free online dictionary

Apart from Google Translate , there’s this other website that offers free English to Chinese translation service: https://dict.naver.com/linedict/zhendict/#/cnen/home

What’s different about this is that it also doubles up as a dictionary and if you’re keen about learning Mandarin, there’s a section called ‘Today’s Expressions’ that introduces a new phrase/quote every day so you can learn more about the language in your free time.

Translate the language to English

This hack is a lifesaver. Simply right-click on anywhere on Taobao’s homepage and select “Translate to English” to – yes – translate the page. Alternatively, you can also translate the page to whichever language you are comfortable with.

ShopBack’s free Taobao dictionary

But what if you’re looking for something more specific? Say, you’re on the hunt for a two-piece swimsuit for your beach vacation or some biodegradable disposable cutlery for a party that you’ll be hosting. Sure, you can Google Translate these to Chinese.

But you’ll soon realise that when it becomes too specific, Google will regurgitate a jumble of Chinese characters that won’t help you find what you need when you key it into the Taobao search engine.