I thought I share with you how I use the custom Japanese-English dictionaries in order to get the most out of them.
General situation:
1) I replaced the original dicthtml-ja.zip on the reader by my custom build dicthtml-ja.zip.
2) I renamed japdic01.zip and japdic02.zip to dicthtml-ja-it.zip and dicthtml-ja-es.zip respectively, and copied them to .kobo\dict. (
You cannot do this anymore with FW 2.4.0, cf.
this post)
3) The language of the epub is set to Japanese in the opf file (<dc:language>ja</dc:language>). Note: Even with epub 3.0 and kepub.epub the reader seems not to accept any language settings in the (x)html files or via css file.
4) The user language of the reader is set to Japanese.
Usage:
1) I select an expression in the book and wait for the dictionary (dicthtml-ja.zip) to pop-up.
If the dictionary does not pop-up or it does pop-up and I am not happy with the result, I have 2 options:
2.1) I select "Translation Dictionary". The "Translate Word" screen appears with "日本語 - English" preselected and shows the highly appreciated information:
Quote:
|
We cannot translate from 日本語 - English. Sorry, but we don't currently offer a 日本語 - English translation dictionary.
|
If the selected passage starts with a common Kanji I choose 日本語 - Italian, and if the selected passage starts with a less common Kanji or Hiragana/Katakana I choose 日本語 - Espaņol . In both cases I can edit the searched for term or select from the up to six proposed lexical entries. Editing might be necessary in order (1) to change the grammatical ending, (2) to add something that I was unable to select in the book's text, (3) to delete something that I was unable to unselect in the book's text.
You ask why the whole process is so complicated? The reason is a bug that prevents the editor window of some dictionaries (Japanese, French, Netherlands) from opening. (Edit: I have learned that this is not a bug, but is on account of a specific user licence.)
2.2) The second option: If I am sure that I do not need to edit the searched for text I select the (definition) "Dictionary". Sometimes the dictionary does not pop-up because I moved the finger to much around while attempting to select the passage or for some other reason. Note: dicthtml-ja.zip has more entries than japdic01.zip and japdic02.zip together, cf. the first post in this thread for details.
Even if you do not select Japanese as user language the dictionary files japdic01.zip and japdic02.zip can help you by offering the possibility to delete parts of the searched for string and to select from up to 6 proposed dictionary entries. Sometimes it even happens that you can use the Japanese keyboard, but only sometimes. I did not find by which conditions this is triggered. I have a faint impression that entering the editor screen with the otherwise useless "日本語 - English" selected increases the chances that the Japanese keyboard appears.