VietNamNet Bridge – After the media wrote about a Vietnamese dictionary with many serious errors, the Publication Agency asked publishing companies to review all dictionaries they have published.

On October 21, the Publication Agency held a press conference to answer questions about the dictionary compiled by Vu Chat.

At the meeting, the agency announced that it would withdraw the Vietnamese Dictionary and the Vietnamese Dictionary for Students by Vu Chat, and asked the Ministry of Information and

Communications to consider the responsibility of the Hong Duc and Culture Publishing Houses in publishing the dictionary.

The agency has asked all publishers across the country to review the dictionaries that they have released and even manuscripts. The agency said that the process of publishing dictionaries should require examination by a specialized scientific council.

Ms. Mai Thi Huong, head of the Publication Management Division, said that the Publication Agency annually receives 28,000-30,000 book titles for inspection. The agency has only 10

employees who are in charge of reading books so they cannot read all of the books.

Previously, the Vietnamese dictionary for students compiled by an author named Vu Chat, which is riddled with very serious and odd errors, was found in the lookup list of the Vietnam National Library.

The book includes inaccurate definitions for a large number of words. For example, the word “quan giao” (superintendent) is explained as a “person who is in charge of the affairs of a cathedral or monastery”. And the definition of “tu truong” (the head of a tribe) is “the head who take cares of prisoners”.

Netizens tried to track down the origin of the book. When checking the lookup list of the Vietnam National Library, they found that the book was published by Tre (Youth) Publishing House in 2001, and the author was Vu Chat.

Other versions of the book, published by Hong Duc and Thanh Nien Publishing Houses, are also available.

The representative of the Tre publishing house said in 2006 that it had sent staff to look for the dictionaries in the market. However, since the books had been published many years before, they were no longer available.

The name “Vu Chat” is printed on the cover of the dictionary as the author. However, no one knows who the person is.

Le Ha