Quickly getting to the dictionary from a book

[Fish-Face]

Hi all, I just downloaded my first foreign-language (German) eBook, and have been making good use of the dictionary I apparently already have on my Kindle (I thought I would have to download or buy one, but I seem to have the Oxford German-English dictionary on there without doing either, so yay!)

However, there is an annoyance: if I highlight an obscure compound word, it won't be in the dictionary. Likewise for some inflections. Or also, German has separable verbs where one part flies off from the main bit, and if you try to look up either part you don't get the right entry. Now, for the latter case, you can tap the three-dots and then 'Open Dictionary' to search for the real word you wanted, but if the word is simply not found, this menu is disabled.

Is there a way to get straight to the dictionary in this situation, other than by navigating by the main menu, or highlighting another word and using the menu there?

[HarryT]

No, you've described the only two ways of doing it.

[Fish-Face]

Ach, that's a shame. I don't suppose there's a way to hack it in on a jailbroken kindle?

[eschwartz]

Maybe, but no one has done it. It would involve writing a custom ACX.

On my Kindle Touch, I can search the dictionary directly from the top navigation bar. It has a scope for searching the book, all books on device, the dictionary, Wikipedia, or the Kindle Store.

Alternatively, find a third-party dictionary that has more inflections and stuff. Or (mentioned for the sake of completeness) write your own if you have the spare time, there are guides here on compiling your own dictionary.
Just because the Kindle comes with pretty good free dictionaries, doesn't mean you aren't allowed to look for more options.

[Fish-Face]

Oh, I haven't tried searching from the top bar... I'll have a look.

The dictionaries I have on hand seem very very good (I also got PONS) and have very complete inflections for the most common words or the basic forms. I don't think I'd have much of a hope of improving them to any significant degree by hand or from freely available data. In this respect there is also a huge difference between a "proper" dictionary (like the default one is), and the kind of data you can compile from free online dictionaries. Perhaps, though, it would be possible to use the free data to find inflections and then include the relevant main entry from the Oxford dictionary into that one, in a new custom dictionary.

It's just a shame that you can't press a word in a dictionary entry to go to that entry! That would make the entries like "3rd person singular of fahren" rather more useful if you didn't immediately know the referred word.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Fish-Face

It's just a shame that you can't press a word in a dictionary entry to go to that entry! That would make the entries like "3rd person singular of fahren" rather more useful if you didn't immediately know the referred word.

A dictionary is just a book. Once you're in the dictionary itself, in the situation you describe, you could simply tap and hold on the word "fahren" to get its definition.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A dictionary is just a book. Once you're in the dictionary itself, in the situation you describe, you could simply tap and hold on the word "fahren" to get its definition.

This works if you have the dictionary open, but not in the pop-up definition you get when you press and hold a word from within a book. I believe that this is the functionality that the OP is looking for.

Shari

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by shalym

This works if you have the dictionary open, but not in the pop-up definition you get when you press and hold a word from within a book. I believe that this is the functionality that the OP is looking for.

Shari

True, of course. I was simply suggesting a potential workaround for the OP.

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by shalym

This works if you have the dictionary open, but not in the pop-up definition you get when you press and hold a word from within a book. I believe that this is the functionality that the OP is looking for.

Shari

Actually it may work because you can go from the pop-up to the dictionary being open.

Thus (Kindle Fire 2) in a book I pressed and held 'disengaged' and the definition popped up I then pressed 'Full Definition'

Here I pressed and held 'oddly' and was offered /Search Wikipedia Web/ and chose (pressed) Search which took me to the 'odd' entry that contains 'oddly'. I then hit 'back' arrow twice which returned me to the book

[HarryT]

It's not too bad on an eInk Kindle. If there's a word in the pop-up definition you want a definition of, you just have to tap first the button with three vertical dots, and then "Open Dictionary", after which you can tap and hold the word you want the definition of. So two extra taps for what's probably a relatively uncommon operation.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's not too bad on an eInk Kindle. If there's a word in the pop-up definition you want a definition of, you just have to tap first the button with three vertical dots, and then "Open Dictionary", after which you can tap and hold the word you want the definition of. So two extra taps for what's probably a relatively uncommon operation.

Nice!! I was just about to reply to Little.Egret's post saying that the option for "Full Definition" doesn't seem to be available on my e-ink Kindles anymore, and then you posted a workaround that *is* available on the e-ink Kindles!

Thank you!

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

Thus (Kindle Fire 2) in a book I pressed and held 'disengaged' and the definition popped up I then pressed 'Full Definition'

Shari

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by shalym

Nice!! I was just about to reply to Little.Egret's post saying that the option for "Full Definition" doesn't seem to be available on my e-ink Kindles anymore, and then you posted a workaround that *is* available on the e-ink Kindles!

Thank you!

My pleasure .

Yes, in older versions of the firmware the "Show Full Definition" link was at the bottom of the pop-up definition, but they've replaced it with a link allowing you to select which dictionary you want to look the word up in, and relegated "Open Dictionary" to a sub-menu.