Index of Custom Dictionaries for Kobo eReader

[Rojofo]

Originally Posted by r3turn3r

Hey guys, I'm currently attempting to read my first book in spanish (El Aleph by Borges) and I'm really struggling to find a good spanish to english dictionary that would recognize different verb forms. I've tried several in this thread, but none of them seem good enough.
So, a little help, please

Hi r3turn3r, you have put your finger on what seems to me too a major defect of Spanish to English dictionaries for e-readers: they almost all are largely incapable of finding the infinitive of a verb form in a very inflected language. The defects seem incredible as though the dictionaries were compiled by people who don't understand that Spanish has complex inflected forms! There is little hope of being led to CANTAR in you come across CANTANDOLO for example but even the most simple regular inflected forms such as CANTABA are not recognised as forms of CANTAR. Sometimes one is pleasantly surprised to be led directly to the correct infinitive but it's not frequent whereas it should be the norm. There is a lot of progress to be made in this field in which even a few simple tweaks could bring considerable progress but the "experts" seem totally unaware of the fact that Spanish has complex inflected forms.
This will not help you I'm afraid but I share the same problem as you and probably many other readers who are learning that marvellous language with its very rich literature. Who knows perhaps some dictionary expert will become aware of the problem in the not too distant future!

[r3turn3r]

Originally Posted by Rojofo

Hi r3turn3r, you have put your finger on what seems to me too a major defect of Spanish to English dictionaries for e-readers: they almost all are largely incapable of finding the infinitive of a verb form in a very inflected language. The defects seem incredible as though the dictionaries were compiled by people who don't understand that Spanish has complex inflected forms! There is little hope of being led to CANTAR in you come across CANTANDOLO for example but even the most simple regular inflected forms such as CANTABA are not recognised as forms of CANTAR. Sometimes one is pleasantly surprised to be led directly to the correct infinitive but it's not frequent whereas it should be the norm. There is a lot of progress to be made in this field in which even a few simple tweaks could bring considerable progress but the "experts" seem totally unaware of the fact that Spanish has complex inflected forms.
This will not help you I'm afraid but I share the same problem as you and probably many other readers who are learning that marvellous language with its very rich literature. Who knows perhaps some dictionary expert will become aware of the problem in the not too distant future!

Yeah, that seems pretty baffling, making these dictionaries nearly useless. At the moment, I have to use Spanish to English, Spanish to Russian (which is a bit better, but not by much) and when they fail I resort to a DeepL dictionary on my phone. Of course, all of that makes reading less than enjoyable

[kandwo]

Originally Posted by Rojofo

Hi r3turn3r, you have put your finger on what seems to me too a major defect of Spanish to English dictionaries for e-readers: they almost all are largely incapable of finding the infinitive of a verb form in a very inflected language. The defects seem incredible as though the dictionaries were compiled by people who don't understand that Spanish has complex inflected forms! There is little hope of being led to CANTAR in you come across CANTANDOLO for example but even the most simple regular inflected forms such as CANTABA are not recognised as forms of CANTAR. Sometimes one is pleasantly surprised to be led directly to the correct infinitive but it's not frequent whereas it should be the norm. There is a lot of progress to be made in this field in which even a few simple tweaks could bring considerable progress but the "experts" seem totally unaware of the fact that Spanish has complex inflected forms.
This will not help you I'm afraid but I share the same problem as you and probably many other readers who are learning that marvellous language with its very rich literature. Who knows perhaps some dictionary expert will become aware of the problem in the not too distant future!

Originally Posted by r3turn3r

Yeah, that seems pretty baffling, making these dictionaries nearly useless. At the moment, I have to use Spanish to English, Spanish to Russian (which is a bit better, but not by much) and when they fail I resort to a DeepL dictionary on my phone. Of course, all of that makes reading less than enjoyable

This is definitely a problem. I read my books in Spanish, Russian, etc, on Onyx and Hisense devices because of this (they both use Android).

A partial solution could be to use Koreader instead and try to install a Spanish stardict dictionary (or several). It also has the functionality to use Google Translate when selecting several words. That way you wouldn't have to use a separate device for the translate function.

[Lys]

Originally Posted by r3turn3r

Yeah, that seems pretty baffling, making these dictionaries nearly useless. At the moment, I have to use Spanish to English, Spanish to Russian (which is a bit better, but not by much) and when they fail I resort to a DeepL dictionary on my phone. Of course, all of that makes reading less than enjoyable

As a work-around, you can install NickelMenu and enable a short-cut to an online translation tool (I tried it with google translator, but it should work also with deepL, if you provide the correct url). In this way, when you highlight a word or a sentence you will also have the option to check over the online translator.

[r3turn3r]

Originally Posted by Lys

As a work-around, you can install NickelMenu and enable a short-cut to an online translation tool (I tried it with google translator, but it should work also with deepL, if you provide the correct url). In this way, when you highlight a word or a sentence you will also have the option to check over the online translator.

Thanks, I'll try that.
Still, it's kinda ridiculous, that kobo's built-in dictionaries are so bad. Shouldn't they test them? It's my first major gripe with kobo readers outside of some quality control issues

[nezih]

Originally Posted by Rojofo

Hi r3turn3r, you have put your finger on what seems to me too a major defect of Spanish to English dictionaries for e-readers: they almost all are largely incapable of finding the infinitive of a verb form in a very inflected language. The defects seem incredible as though the dictionaries were compiled by people who don't understand that Spanish has complex inflected forms! There is little hope of being led to CANTAR in you come across CANTANDOLO for example but even the most simple regular inflected forms such as CANTABA are not recognised as forms of CANTAR. Sometimes one is pleasantly surprised to be led directly to the correct infinitive but it's not frequent whereas it should be the norm. There is a lot of progress to be made in this field in which even a few simple tweaks could bring considerable progress but the "experts" seem totally unaware of the fact that Spanish has complex inflected forms.
This will not help you I'm afraid but I share the same problem as you and probably many other readers who are learning that marvellous language with its very rich literature. Who knows perhaps some dictionary expert will become aware of the problem in the not too distant future!

I have a python script that can 'inject' inflections to the dictionary. What it basically does is read dictionary via PyGlossary library, add inflections for every word when possible, save dictionary. As for the inflection source, I use 'unmunched' Hunspell dictionaries created by another script of mine. It does an okay job I think. I can share the scripts if someone wants.

[Rojofo]

Hi Nezih, thanks for this suggestion. I personally don't have the ability to apply your approach but I hope someone on the forum can do it.

I can see some difficulties (but there are certainly more! ).

Firstly there are the simple regular forms (CANTABA etc.) But also the irregular forms which are not simple suffixes (SAPIENDOLO) of which there are (unfortunately ) so many in Spanish! Also there are the double suffixes/transformations such as DICIENDOMELO.

I don't know if it would be a lot of work to take a dictionary and improve it this way. There would also be copyright problems. In any case, it would be a godsend for many readers!

All we can do is hope something is done to improve the present unfortunate situation!

[nezih]

Rojofo, I think for ease of writing you omitted the diacritics because I could not find your examples (with ctrl+f) ending with -lo. Anyway, at least decir -> diciéndomelo is present. I'm attaching the unmunched Spanish dictionary if you want to review it yourself.

[nezih]

And if by SAPIENDOLO you meant to type sabiéndolo (saber) it is here too. If you point me to the dictionary you want inflections added (and if your dictionary is not encumbered by copyrights also) I can try to add inflections.

[r3turn3r]

Originally Posted by nezih

And if by SAPIENDOLO you meant to type sabiéndolo (saber) it is here too. If you point me to the dictionary you want inflections added (and if your dictionary is not encumbered by copyrights also) I can try to add inflections.

Could you do that to one of these
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...postcount=1117

[nezih]

Originally Posted by r3turn3r

Could you do that to one of these
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...postcount=1117

Please test the attached files. Note: English-Spanish dictionary has useless "(to -)"s in verb headwords. Therefore, the script could not find their inflected forms. In fact, even without inflections, Kobo may not be able to find Spanish definitions of English verbs.

[r3turn3r]

Originally Posted by nezih

Please test the attached files. Note: English-Spanish dictionary has useless "(to -)"s in verb headwords. Therefore, the script could not find their inflected forms. In fact, even without inflections, Kobo may not be able to find Spanish definitions of English verbs.

Thanks a lot, I'll test them. I only need the Spanish to English one, anyway

[Rojofo]

Originally Posted by nezih

Rojofo, I think for ease of writing you omitted the diacritics because I could not find your examples (with ctrl+f) ending with -lo. Anyway, at least decir -> diciéndomelo is present. I'm attaching the unmunched Spanish dictionary if you want to review it yourself.

Thank you so much for this Nezih! I will test it in the next couple of days though I'm rather busy at the moment! I will get back to you and to all other members of the forum on this. Let's hope other members interested will be able to take advantage of your work on this!

[Rojofo]

Originally Posted by nezih

Rojofo, I think for ease of writing you omitted the diacritics because I could not find your examples (with ctrl+f) ending with -lo. Anyway, at least decir -> diciéndomelo is present. I'm attaching the unmunched Spanish dictionary if you want to review it yourself.

Thank you once more Nezih for this contribution. I put this dictionary on my Kobo and unfortunately, it could not analyse ESCAPÁRSELES, simply giving it as a word not in the dictionary. Whereas, of course, ESCAPAR is in the dictionary.

I will try the modified Stardict dictionary that you gave below and test it also.

[Leilu]

Hi,
I'm trying to use penelope to make a Tolkien to French Stardict dictionary but I don't understand the structure that my .csv file must have to make it a working Stardict dictionary.
I tested this newly created dictionary on KOReader. I can load it but no entry seems to be at the right place.

To understand better, I converted an existing Stardict dictionary into a csv file and its formatting is incomprehensible in addition to obviously having an encoding problem:https://imgur.com/AS9wL9Z

What am I doing wrong please?