Kindle Touch Dictionary woes

[Blog Kindle]

I just did some checks with translation dictionaries that we've published. It looks like Amazon left things half-done.

Their intention seemed to be to enable simultaneous use of several dictionaries (French, if you are reading a French book, German, if you are reading German, etc). That is why in dictionary settings, there is individual selection for every language.

But in reality only English dictionaries are used when looking up words in a book, regardless of the book's language.

I'm pretty sure you can work around it by modding the dictionary file so that Kindle will think a German-English dictionary is indeed an English one. It will then be available for selection as default dictionary and will be used for word look up. I'll investigate this further.

[Stingo]

Originally Posted by sbeckett

Customize Your Reading-->Changing Your Primary Dictionary). Unfortunately, the preselected dictionaries, though good ones for the respective languages, are not translation dictionaries (eg, no Spanish-English, only Spanish-Spanish).

This is wrong for me. My Touch does not have other dictionaries. If I go to the dictionary screen it only has the oxford and the ones that I purchased.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Stingo

This is wrong for me. My Touch does not have other dictionaries. If I go to the dictionary screen it only has the oxford and the ones that I purchased.

Have you checked in Archived Items?

[Stingo]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Have you checked in Archived Items?

Yes. Both through my reader and through the website.

[Helgetus]

Originally Posted by Stingo

Called Amazon support and was told that the Touch would only look up words in English and not in alternate languages. I have to hope that the support person doesn't know what they are talking about.

Unless I can find a solution this is a deal killer since I need the multi-language support.

The K4NT does support multiple dictionaries because it was designed for world wide sales. So far the K4T is only sold in the US.

The K4T is not sold here in Germany. Amazon states that there is no plan as yet to sell it in Germany. The K4NT however is available via Amazon.de and thus supports several language dictionaries and the interface language can be set to German.

I believe that eventually the K4T will be available in Germany as the K4NT. But only after they BETA tested it in the US ... obviously.

[Stingo]

I have trouble shot the problem and it is worse than I thought.

The problem is not a default dictionary problem. Also, any dictionary will work. However, the KT is trying to decide which dictionary to use by word and document. I pulled up a german document. Looked at several words. In two it came up with a german dictionary definition. In another it came up with an english dictionary definition even though the words was in german (a cognate) and in yet another it came up with my spanish dictionary even though the word was in german.

None of my side loaded Spanish documents work at all even after setting language in Calibre. The KT seems to ignore the default dictionary setting. This is either sloppiness or an effort to force Amazon sourcing. For the public domain library this is a serious problem.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Stingo

However, the KT is trying to decide which dictionary to use by word and document.

Nope. The Kindle software simply goes by the document language. For example, if a document is encoded as German, it'll always use a German lookup dictionary even if you look up an English word.
(You can use Alissa's Mobihandler Explorer add-on to quickly check the language code of a .mobi file.)
I've books in multiple languages on my Kindle (including Spanish ones) and my Kindle automatically uses the correct lookup dictionary for each one of them.
If your Spanish books don't work, make sure that the books have the correct language setting and that the dictionary has the correct input and output language definitions, because several free Kindle dictionaries have incorrect language settings and simply won't work.
(Check the <DictionaryInLanguage> and <DictionaryOutLanguage> settings in the .opf file.)

[Stingo]

Sorry Doitsu but you are wrong.

I am looking at a document right now. A german grammar pdf. The default dictionary is set to Spanish. In the document I selected a German word and my german dictionary popped up. I then selected an english word and the oxford dictionary popped up. Same document.

In the Touch the software is identifying words at the document and word levels. The problem is that if it misidentifies the word you have no control. It ignores the default dictionary. As a result none of my spanish language books seem to be recognized.

The Calibre language setting does not seem to be doing the trick.

[DiapDealer]

I am looking at a document right now. A german grammar pdf. The default dictionary is set to Spanish. In the document I selected a German word and my german dictionary popped up. I then selected an english word and the oxford dictionary popped up. Same document.

I didn't think dictionary look-ups worked for pdfs on a Kindle, period(??).

[Stingo]

That is another change on the Touch. PDF's will work with dictionary look-up.

[DiapDealer]

That is another change on the Touch. PDF's will work with dictionary look-up.

But will it work the same way as it does for mobi? I'm not sure setting the language metadata of a PDF with calibre has any bearing on the Kindle's dictionary lookups. Does the touch recognize PDF metadata now? And if it does, is there even a standard language metadata item (internal) for PDFs or is it just being set externally in calibre's own internal metadata database?

[Stingo]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

But will it work the same way as it does for mobi? I'm not sure setting the language metadata of a PDF with calibre has any bearing on the Kindle's dictionary lookups. Does the touch recognize PDF metadata now? And if it does, is there even a standard language metadata item (internal) for PDFs or is it just being set externally in calibre's own internal metadata database?

The knowledge to answer that question is beyond my pay scale. I'm just conveying my experience and trying to get the dictionary to work in Spanish language mobi files.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Stingo

That is another change on the Touch. PDF's will work with dictionary look-up.

K3 supports dictionary lookup with PDF, to the extent that the PDF has properly tagged text in it. I don't know if it pays attention to the PDF Lang property.

[thebestjeter]

Originally Posted by Stingo

That is another change on the Touch. PDF's will work with dictionary look-up.

PDF's work with dictionary look-up since the K3. That's not new. However, PDF and MOBI books don't use the same application to show the text. They use different readers , that work different too. In PDF's, the Kindle never choose the dictionary based on the language. The Kindle does that with MOBI books, but no always.

[Stingo]

thebestjester,

You may be onto something. I just download a free german book in mobi format. In mobi the word is not looked up. It tells me that a dictionary cannot be found. In the pdf it works.