《新华字典》APP上线却被网友吐槽太贵?

A new paid app for the Xinhua Dictionary ——regarded as the highest authority on the Chinese language——has been criticized for charging for the product.

近日，最权威的汉语词典《新华字典》APP上线，但软件的收费却引起网友们的口诛笔伐。

Commercial Press, which publishes the book, launched the app for Android and Apple devices, and almost instantly came under fire when users discovered that only their first two searches were free.

商务印书馆出版了适用于安卓和苹果系统的《新华字典》APP。然而，APP刚上线就被网友痛批，原因是用户发现每天只能免费查询两个字。

After that, they must pay 40 yuan to continue using the service——more than double the price of a hard copy sold online.

要想继续查询，用户必须支付40块钱，这相当于网上所售纸质版字典的两倍还要多。

"Why should we pay when there are so many ways to look up a word, such as on Baidu?" asked one netizen on Sina Weibo. "It only makes sense if there is no alternative to your product."

“我们可以通过百度等多种方式免费查询字词，为什么要花钱呢？”一位网友在新浪微博上写道：“只有在没有其他查询方式的情况下，用户才会使用这款APP。”

Jiang Yan, operations director for Shanghai Shangdi Digital Publishing Technology, which developed the app, said that the charge will remain.

软件开发方上海商笛数字出版科技有限公司运营总监蒋琰表示，软件不会改变收费的规定。

"The app is being download more than 100,000 times a day, far more than we expected," he said. "The cost of research and development, operation, maintenance and follow-up services should all be included in the pricing."

“APP的日下载量达到了10万次，这远远超乎我们的预料，”他说：“收费是用于软件的研发、运营、维护和后续服务等。”

He added that the app is not in the same category as the print edition, since users can keep the app without any worries about it becoming damaged or outdated, and it will be updated regularly.

他还说，APP与纸质版字典的不同之处在于用户不用担心字典会损坏，也不用担心字典会过时，因为我们会定期更新软件的版本。

Xinhua Dictionary was the first to use pinyin, a system for transliterating Chinese characters into a Latin alphabet. Its first edition came out in 1953 and 567 million hard copies had been sold as of July 2015.

《新华字典》是第一个使用拼音（将汉字转化为拉丁字母）的字典。1953年，第一版《新华字典》出版，截止到2015年7月全球发行量共达5.67亿本。

Generations of Chinese used the dictionary as a reference book to learn Chinese characters in primary school. Last year, Guinness World Records recognized it as the "most popular dictionary" and the "best-selling regularly updated book".

《新华字典》是一代代中国人上小学时使用的工具书。去年，世界吉尼斯纪录将《新华字典》列为“最受欢迎的字典”和“最畅销的书”。

                                                                               （转自：中国新闻网）