The Polish Embassy in Beijing became the venue for the groundbreaking project to create a Polish-Chinese dictionary on 4-5 November. It is intended to be the first-ever comprehensive linguistic tool devoted to the needs of Polish learners of Chinese and Chinese learners of Polish, in addition to translators and others involved in communication between speakers of the two languages.
The conference concerning the dictionary was opened by H.E. Jakub Kumoch, the Ambassador of the Republic of Poland to China, and the dictionary's originator, head of the Political Department of the Polish Embassy in Beijing, Wojciech Jakóbiec (a graduate of the Poznań sinology). The director of the Polish Institute in Beijing, Magdalena Czechońska (also a graduate of the Poznań sinology), was also involved in the project.
The conference's participants comprised representatives representing leading sinology centres in Poland - Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Jagiellonian University and Warsaw University, as well as Polish studies in China, including Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Shanghai International Studies University, Jilin International Studies University and Beijing International Studies University.
The two-day deliberations resulted in the outlining of a framework plan for the dictionary development and the organisation of working teams. The whole process will take several years, but it is certainly worth the effort - it will ensure that intermediate tools, mainly based on English, will no longer be needed.
