Can the Kobo Touch translate highlighted text?

[Creamola]

Folk,
I am new here (hi) and so apologise in advance if I am asking something that has already been answered (I have been searching the forum - but haven't found anything that quite matches my question).

My (English speaking) daughter is learning French, Spanish and German and intends to continue learning these languages at University.

My wife (also multi-lingual) practices her language skills by reading books in Spanish and French on her Kindle on which we have installed the Kindle Spanish/English and French/English dictionary. As long as the correct dictionary is set as the default, it means that she can highlight text and the Kindle shows the translation e.g. if she highlights a Spanish word, the Kindle shows the English translation of that word.

So, I would like to buy my daughter a Kindle for the same reason. However, the Kindle Touch is not available in the UK and the Kobo Touch (as far as I can tell from all your comments) is far better - and is available in the UK.

Does anyone know if it is possible to obtain the same effect on the Kobo - i.e. the ability to be able to highlight text in one language and see the translation in another?

(Before you ask - I have posed this question of Kobo support twice. Once they said "yes" and then they said "no" - so I am none the wiser!).

Thanks,
Creamola

[clsdclsd]

I have to say that the built-in dictionaries in the kindle are far better than the Kobo's, and the dictionaries are non-replaceable in the Kobo. Anyway, you can highlight a word in the text, ant translate it as long as the dictionary has that word.
I suggest you a test-run:
- register at kobobooks.com
- download the desktop application: http://www.kobobooks.com/desktop
- download a free ebook and start reading it with the desktop app - it has exactly the same dictionary than the Kobo Touch device.

[robko]

The answer is yes and no . Sorry, not trying to be a smart ass, but there isn't a clear cut answer. Kobo has a Spanish/English and English/Spanish dictionary capability (not sure how good the dictionary is) so it technically can do what you are looking for. It will only translate one word at a time, so you can't highlight several words together and get a translation. I'm not 100% sure how it would work if you set the default language to Spanish, but if it is set to English these are the steps you would have to take to translate a word:
Select the word, select book icon at bottom of screen, select translate in the menu, select language to translate (defaults to English to French and that isn't changeable that I'm aware of), select Spanish to English and it will show you the translation if available. This process opens a new page so you can't see the word you are looking up in context while you are reading the translation.
So it does work, and depending how often you need to use it, it works well (I do occasionally use it, but only because I can -- if it was in a paper book I wouldn't be bothered looking up the words). If you want to do a lot of it it may be cumbersome.
Hope that helps.

[FJames]

It might work better if Kobo put a Paste function into their web browser so that you could hilight text in a book, open the web browser, and then paste the text into a field to use Google Translate, web search, Wikipedia etc.

[The Terminator]

Originally Posted by FJames

It might work better if Kobo put a Paste function into their web browser so that you could hilight text in a book, open the web browser, and then paste the text into a field to use Google Translate, web search, Wikipedia etc.

Or even better, a Wikipedia search function.

The Kobo will only translate one word at a time.

[Creamola]

All, a really big thanks for all your input.

I am so disapointed - in that of all the eReaders, Kobo is the best and just seems to have that something special - be it the tremendous community (you lot!) and the ability to break out from a major vendors ecosystem.

However, this dictionary thing is an absolute deal breaker - and so daughter has reluctantly decided to wait until the Kindle Touch is sold in the UK.

Creamola

[SameerH]

Originally Posted by Creamola

All, a really big thanks for all your input.

I am so disapointed - in that of all the eReaders, Kobo is the best and just seems to have that something special - be it the tremendous community (you lot!) and the ability to break out from a major vendors ecosystem.

However, this dictionary thing is an absolute deal breaker - and so daughter has reluctantly decided to wait until the Kindle Touch is sold in the UK.

Creamola

We currently ship our eReader with translation dictionaries for 4 languages (French, Spanish, German, and Italian).

If you want to test it out, I would suggest doing what another reader suggested: download our desktop application, find a spanish / french / german book from our store (we should have some free ones) and see if the translation functionality meets your needs.

I would encourage you to try the product out, you may find it suitable to your needs after all. It was Wired Magazines Editor's pick over the Kindle and Nook, and we have great Customer Satisfaction scores from our lovely customers (I believe it was 90+% customers are either very or extremely satisfied with their purchase).

We have had complaints regarding translation support for inflected forms of some words (many of these complaints revolve around translation from English to something else). This varies by language and we are taking it very seriously and working to improve. Once we have the problem fixed, we plan to issue a software update to our customers as we do fairly regularly.

If you have any further questions, please email me at shasan at kobo dot com. I'm more than happy to help.

[Creamola]

Sameer,
With customer service like that, how can I refuse?

Kobo Touch now ordered - it will be all your fault mind, if she doesn't like it once it arrives :-)

A really big thanks for taking the trouble to reply.

Creamola.