A small, seldom received, praise for the Kobo dictionary

[twowheels]

I was almost afraid to buy a Kobo after reading so much about how bad their dictionary was. So far, every word that I've looked up has been there, so... yay.

Anyhow, I just saw a word that I didn't know:

nacreous

So, I clicked it. I get this definition:

"possessing the qualities of, consisting of, or abounding in nacre"

Grrr.... I hate those definitions. On my Kindle PW1, with the latest firmware that it received (maybe they're better now), that was it -- dead end. But on the Kobo I was able to click on a word in the dictionary and get a definition of that word! I hold down on nacre, and I get:

mother-of-pearl

Yay! That I know! That said, once I got to that secondary dictionary view, I could no longer click, though I was in a search interface where I could type the words if I needed to.

[geek1011]

If you want an even better dictionary (albeit lacking in modern words), try my converted Webster's 1913 Unabridged Dictionary. It's surprisingly complete, and the definitions and examples are excellent.

[Sirtel]

I've not found the Kobo dictionary to be particularly awful either, though I did install an additional one.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by geek1011

If you want an even better dictionary (albeit lacking in modern words), try my converted Webster's 1913 Unabridged Dictionary. It's surprisingly complete, and the definitions and examples are excellent.

I'm new to Kobo. How would I install this? Just copy it on like a book? Looking in the zip file I see a lot of HTML files, hopefully I don't have to clutter the root folder with so may files

EDIT: Looks like maybe I copy the zip file to \.kobo\dict ?

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by twowheels

I'm new to Kobo. How would I install this? Just copy it on like a book? Looking in the zip file I see a lot of HTML files, hopefully I don't have to clutter the root folder with so may files

EDIT: Looks like maybe I copy the zip file to \.kobo\dict ?

You'd want to copy the file to ".kobo/dict" as-is, add "ExtraLocales=wb" to "Kobo eReader.conf", then enable the "Enable searches on extra dictionaries" patch (to work around a bug in the firmware).

Alternatively, these steps can be done for you by downloading dictutil, opening a Command Prompt, and running "dictutil install dicthtml-wb.zip".

See here for more details.

[Gone]

It’s so bad that if I could buy a "real" one on Kobo Store, I’d gladly pay.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Claude_C

It’s so bad that if I could buy a "real" one on Kobo Store, I’d gladly pay.

THIS. I've said exactly this several times here. It's bizarre that Kobo doesn't offer an "upgrade". In the meantime, I just keep reading with my phone by my side - and my library's OED subscription a tap or two away.

[jackie_w]

@twowheels,

@geek1011's solution is the most flexible long-term if you're planning to install several custom dictionaries. But, if you're just looking for a quick way to add a second English dictionary, with minimal effort and no learning curve, this may suffice:

• rename geek1011's dicthtml-wb.zip to dicthtml-en-en.zip
• drag-drop it to the \.kobo\dict directory
• reboot

That should give you an extra dictionary, labelled 'English - English', in your dictionary drop-down list. The Kobo default dictionary will still be there as 'English'.

[JeanPierre]

FWIW I find v3 of Owl_'s multidictionary to be the best dictionary for Kobo. I agree that the Kobo English dictionary is underrated though.

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by JeanPierre

FWIW I find v3 of Owl_'s multidictionary to be the best dictionary for Kobo. I agree that the Kobo English dictionary is underrated though.

Owl_'s dictionary is nice for overall word coverage (note that CIDE is partly based on Webster's 1913), but the pure Webster one I converted includes everything from the original Webster's dictionary (e.g. etymology, examples, archaic forms of words) as-is, which I find helpful when reading older books or fantasy. It's good to have both.

[Gone]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

THIS. I've said exactly this several times here. It's bizarre that Kobo doesn't offer an "upgrade". In the meantime, I just keep reading with my phone by my side - and my library's OED subscription a tap or two away.

Yeah, me too.

If anyone ever find a great French dictionary, let me know.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by twowheels

I was almost afraid to buy a Kobo after reading so much about how bad their dictionary was. So far, every word that I've looked up has been there, so... yay.

That's been my experience too. I believe the Kindle dictionary is better/more complete. But I have no complaints about the Kobo dictionary.

[ps67]

Of course it can vary depending on Your Country. The embedded Italian dictionary is so useless that nothing could be the same thing. But, for some reason, there is a link somewhere in Kobo for the previous embedded dictionary that was better, so I use it.

And I don't know why they changed a fairly good dictionary with a useless reduced edition of the same dictionary, may be for financial reasons? Or simply to reduce occupied space?

[twowheels]

Thanks everybody. I tried the multi-dict for now, using the en-en trick, and it worked (no reboot required). Might try the other later too.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

• rename geek1011's dicthtml-wb.zip to dicthtml-en-en.zip
• drag-drop it to the \.kobo\dict directory
• reboot

That should give you an extra dictionary, labelled 'English - English', in your dictionary drop-down list. The Kobo default dictionary will still be there as 'English'.

Thank you!

That trick I didn't know. Works like a charm and had the useful by-effect of removing the spurious 'French-English' dictionary that Nickel insisted was installed and I couldn't get rid of (not through the GUI, as it claimed it wasn't installed, and idem with dictutil). But simply putting dicthtml-en-en.zip in place fixed it. Without a reboot, even.

(Does happy dance )