International Kindle & Alternate Dictionary

[rfog]

Originally Posted by Adamastorx

Terisa,

have you tried the Spanish dictionary from Real Academia? I can use it, de-DRMed, but I can't use the quick lookup while I'm reading a text like with the default dictionary or other bilingual dictionaries, where you just live the cursor near a word and the meaning will pop-up. Is there a way to do this?

Sorry, I do not have it.

Try to use it with PC Mobipocket Reader. If it works in PC it must work in Kindle.

[Ea]

It seems that quick lookup from with a book doesn't work with other languages than English, even if the dictionary can be set as default. I've been looking for a German-English dictionary and from what I've found out, it sounds as if thre's no commercially avalable dictionaries taht can do this (at least not in German, but I've alse seen that people have problems with Spanish-English).

I bought a Oxford-Duden German-English dicitonary, which can be set as default dictionary, but quick lookup still doesn't work. I had high hopes for it as I would like to improve my German vocabulary...

[Adamastorx]

Originally Posted by Ea

It seems that quick lookup from with a book doesn't work with other languages than English, even if the dictionary can be set as default. I've been looking for a German-English dictionary and from what I've found out, it sounds as if thre's no commercially avalable dictionaries taht can do this (at least not in German, but I've alse seen that people have problems with Spanish-English).

I bought a Oxford-Duden German-English dicitonary, which can be set as default dictionary, but quick lookup still doesn't work. I had high hopes for it as I would like to improve my German vocabulary...

I use the Merriam-Webster's English-Spanish dictionary bought directly on Amazon and the quick lookup works with English text - I get the translation as pop-up footnote. I haven't tried the Spanish-English edition.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by Adamastorx

I use the Merriam-Webster's English-Spanish dictionary bought directly on Amazon and the quick lookup works with English text - I get the translation as pop-up footnote. I haven't tried the Spanish-English edition.

Exactly - that is what I meant. English-Spanish works, but probably not Spanish-English if you try it on a Spanish text.

[HarryT]

What specific feature of a Mobi dictionary is it that is required to work with "instant lookup" that is lacking in the dictionaries that do not work?

[Adamastorx]

Edit: it works! I've tried the Marriam-Webster's Spanish-English in a Spanish text and the quick lookup works. I get the English translation.



With dictionaries where the quick lookup doesn't work you can do this: inside the book, Menu - Search this book; then, write the word, click right and right again until you select dictionary; click, you'll see a message saying it was not possible to find the default dictionary, click again and you will the dictionary's word list beginning in in the word you introduced. Maybe this is no big secret, it's just an alternative to exit the book, go to the dictionary and search.

[Adamastorx]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What specific feature of a Mobi dictionary is it that is required to work with "instant lookup" that is lacking in the dictionaries that do not work?

I have no idea. Do you think it could be implemented?

[Ea]

Originally Posted by Adamastorx

Edit: it works! I've tried the Marriam-Webster's Spanish-English in a Spanish text and the quick lookup works. I get the English translation.

Good to hear that something works Now I just need to find a German-English that does.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by Adamastorx

With dictionaries where the quick lookup doesn't work you can do this: inside the book, Menu - Search this book; then, write the word, click right and right again until you select dictionary; click, you'll see a message saying it was not possible to find the default dictionary, click again and you will the dictionary's word list beginning in in the word you introduced. Maybe this is no big secret, it's just an alternative to exit the book, go to the dictionary and search.

You can actually skip the 'search this book' and just write the word and click right with the joystick until you hit dictionary.

[Adamastorx]

Originally Posted by Ea

Good to hear that something works Now I just need to find a German-English that does.

Maybe it's safer to buy one from Amazon, could it be?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Adamastorx

I have no idea. Do you think it could be implemented?

Depends what it is that's missing. If it's some simple dictionary markup, there's no reason why not.

Someone needs to expand a dictionary that does work and a dictionary that doesn't work to their HTML source, and find out that's missing in the one that doesn't work.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by Adamastorx

Maybe it's safer to buy one from Amazon, could it be?

I doubt it. They have the one I bought, and I bought despite comments that it didn't work. You know, just in case....

[alterego]

Hello =D.


Well i got my Kindle.
As other people said the Dictionary in question didn't worked =(.

At first i freaked out because i'm studying literature and i absolutely need this dictionary to work with quick lookup, to be able to really use the Kindle as i wanted.

After calming down, I started to do some research because i don't know not much about the format of these books.

I used Calibre to get the HTML and try to fix what was missing but the resulting file is way too big, so i looked in Internet other smaller Spanish-Spanish dictionaries to test.

I found one 'Diccionario Esencial de la Lengua Española'. It was in .lit format so i used ConvertLit to get the HTMLs.

I created some macros in UltraEdit to change the tags i got into tags used in mobi dictionaries and tried to convert the dictionary back with mobigen.

At first it didin't worked at all, the kindle recognized it as a dictionary but the quick lookup feature didin't worked. After many tries modifing the metadata one simple change did the trick. I modified the Input Language and Output language to 'English' and it worked with the quick look up. The Language of the book remained 'Spanish'.

I am temporarly using this dictionary, but if someone can help me to change this metadata in the mobi dictionary i have i would appreciate it soooooo much. As i said i don't know much about this format and i don't know the tools all of you use. If someone knows a fast way to do this it would be great.


Ty again and have an awesome night.
Abigail

[LucasCorso]

Originally Posted by alterego

I am temporarly using this dictionary, but if someone can help me to change this metadata in the mobi dictionary i have i would appreciate it soooooo much. As i said i don't know much about this format and i don't know the tools all of you use. If someone knows a fast way to do this it would be great.

I made a quick and dirty Windows application to patch a mobi file to the language I need. Of course, I'm not at home now so it will have to wait until tonight. But if you understand how to work with a hex editor it's very easy to change the language code yourself.
I will post a screen capture as an example.
Usually you can recognize a dictionary because of a smaller number of FF in the header. In my example it's 28 (a book usually has 40). But search with a hex editor for 20 FFs lets say. After the last FF in that group, ignore the next 12 bytes (I don't know what they are), and the next 12 bytes you need to modify, each group of 4 represents a language code. In the picture attached, it is 04 09, then 09, then again 09. 09 is English, 04 09 is American English. I found in my tests with dictionaries that patching these to English I don't have problems and no more error messages: "can't open the default dictionary".

I hope it helps a little.

[Adamastorx]

That's just great LucasCorso. Maybe I'll try it this afternoon.
Thanks.

Originally Posted by LucasCorso

I made a quick and dirty Windows application to patch a mobi file to the language I need. Of course, I'm not at home now so it will have to wait until tonight. But if you understand how to work with a hex editor it's very easy to change the language code yourself.
I will post a screen capture as an example.
Usually you can recognize a dictionary because of a smaller number of FF in the header. In my example it's 28 (a book usually has 40). But search with a hex editor for 20 FFs lets say. After the last FF in that group, ignore the next 12 bytes (I don't know what they are), and the next 12 bytes you need to modify, each group of 4 represents a language code. In the picture attached, it is 04 09, then 09, then again 09. 09 is English, 04 09 is American English. I found in my tests with dictionaries that patching these to English I don't have problems and no more error messages: "can't open the default dictionary".

I hope it helps a little.