Monolingual dictionaries for Kobo - Future customer

[penna]

Hi all,

I have been looking for an e-reader and I think I will either buy the Kobo Touch 2.0 or Kobo glo HD.

My question is regarding the monolingual dictionaries' comprohensive quality. How good is the English, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian monolingual dictionaries?



Are the dictionaries as good as those in on an IPad? - I have been reading my books on my IPad and felt the definitions were very good and could find all definitions on the IPad monolingual dictionary.

The monolingual dictionaries are the most important point for me.

[anacreon]

The dictionaries are Kobo's weak point, but their monolingual dictionaries are better than their translation dictionaries which are abyssal.

I found the English, Spanish and Italian dictionaries decent. In particular, the Italian is good for reading Dante, since all his obsolete words are explained using quotes from his work. You are not interested, but the French is poor, especially since one can't look directly inside, and the German very annoyingly doesn't recognize declensions and such variations.

[penna]

Originally Posted by anacreon

The dictionaries are Kobo's weak point, but their monolingual dictionaries are better than their translation dictionaries which are abyssal.

I found the English, Spanish and Italian dictionaries decent. In particular, the Italian is good for reading Dante, since all his obsolete words are explained using quotes from his work. You are not interested, but the French is poor, especially since one can't look directly inside, and the German very annoyingly doesn't recognize declensions and such variations.

Thanks for replying.

Do you know any other e-reader with similar specs as the Kobo Touch 2.0 , but with better monolingual dictionaries?


For me , the dictionaries are the deal-breaker.

The more I look around, the more obvious it is that most e-reader are good devices for reading. It is just the stupid extras like awards for reading, games and social media crap I don't require for my reading.

[svenlind]

I think that the English dictionary is quite bad. It is far inferior to the corresponding dictionary in the Kindle.

The control of text rendering is superior in the Kobo reader. But I returned to my Kindle after using the font Charis SIL supplied by JSWolf because of the dictionary.

[giododa]

The Italian monolingual dictionary was good.
It seems that after firmware 3.17.3 it has been replaced with a concise version.
The original dicthtml-it.zip was about 12 mb.
The new one is about 2.6mb.
In Kobo Aura H2O anyway you can replace the new one with the old one that you can find here
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=196931
I don't know if you can do the same with the new Kobo devices.

[davidfor]

Whoops. Pay attention to where you are posting

[anacreon]

Originally Posted by giododa

The Italian monolingual dictionary was good.
It seems that after firmware 3.17.3 it has been replaced with a concise version.
The original dicthtml-it.zip was about 12 mb.
The new one is about 2.6mb.
In Kobo Aura H2O anyway you can replace the new one with the old one that you can find here
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=196931
I don't know if you can do the same with the new Kobo devices.

It is because access to the French dictionary was made almost impossible after the 3.15 firmware that I keep to it, but I didn't know that Kobo had worsened the Italian dictionary afterwards. It feels like Kobo doesn't care for its European or French Canadian customers: access to Nederland dictionary has the same problems as the French one, and the German dictionary as I said is very poor.

[GERGE]

You can install any dictionary you want with Kobo. There are instructions somewhere on the forum. I am using Webster's 1913 myself.

[eenk]

Installing a replacement dictionary is no fun as it will be overwritten on the next sync. Either you need to sideload only or you need to live with the totally weak Kobo dictionaries. I have an electronic Oxford Shorter English on my tablet and smartphone for lookup while I'm reading. The Kobo is just for reading, I'm afraid.

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by eenk

Installing a replacement dictionary is no fun as it will be overwritten on the next sync. Either you need to sideload only or you need to live with the totally weak Kobo dictionaries. I have an electronic Oxford Shorter English on my tablet and smartphone for lookup while I'm reading. The Kobo is just for reading, I'm afraid.

I didn't know that! I thought they were only overwritten with a firmware update... I only use syncing for Pocket but I wouldn't want to stop using that.
Hope that something really happens on that front, it's annoying that with all the restrictions (ecosystem, hyphenation, etc), Kindle is still the most reader-friendly device in terms of features...
I wish Kobo would actually take a page out of that book and try to compete on hardware differences alone... It really annoys me the most when features are poorly executed and are therefore mere additions to the comparison table checklist...
Still love my H2O for plain and simple reading, because custom fonts and the hack make it the most book-like (that is, least unobtrusive) device of all devices out there...

[penna]

Originally Posted by GERGE

You can install any dictionary you want with Kobo. There are instructions somewhere on the forum. I am using Webster's 1913 myself.

Great dictionary , I suppose, if one doesn't want to know the mening of "LOL", and other crap.

[Robik]

Originally Posted by eenk

Installing a replacement dictionary is no fun as it will be overwritten on the next sync.

Not necessarily...

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=272762

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=273820

[eenk]

Robik, thank you very much for making me aware of that thread about adding new languages and dictionaries. It's slightly inconvenient atm but it's a great step forward.