Troubleshooting Dictionary function not working in some parts of the book

hellou · 08-05-2020, 08:07 AM

Hello,
I have a Kindle Paperwhite 3 which I use to read Japanese books on. The problem is that for a few pages the dictionary box doesn't appear when I highlight a word, just wikipedia and translation boxes, then it starts working for a few pages, this keeps going on for the whole book. This happens for some books that I have converted to mobi using Kindle Previewer 3.37.0 (I use Win7). I can't use Calibre for mobi conversion because it doesn't preserve the vertical text, it just turns it horizontal and word selection gets messed up. What is causing the problem and how can I fix it? Any help would be appreciated.

hellou · 08-05-2020, 08:22 AM

I have attached some examples. The parts where dictionary doesn't work are larger in 吾輩は猫である. (the books copyrights have expired)

colinsky · 08-05-2020, 08:40 AM

One thing you might want to confirm is that the language tag of the book is correctly set to Japanese after conversion (you can check this in Calibre metadata setting). I've had unexpected dictionary lookup behavior when this was inadvertently mis-set.

jhowell · 08-05-2020, 09:28 AM

It is odd that the translation dialog comes up, but not the dictionary.

Is Japanese shown as the current language in the "From" section of the translation dialog when that happens?

Added: After further thought, it seems likely that the absence of the dictionary dialog indicates that the Kindle has incorrectly determined that multiple words have been highlighted. There may be issues with that in languages that do not use spaces between words. Japanese and Chinese books published on Amazon include a table of word boundaries that will not be present in homemade sideloaded books.

hellou · 08-05-2020, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by colinsky

One thing you might want to confirm is that the language tag of the book is correctly set to Japanese after conversion (you can check this in Calibre metadata setting). I've had unexpected dictionary lookup behavior when this was inadvertently mis-set.

Thanks for replying. I have already checked and no problems there.

hellou · 08-05-2020, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhowell

It is odd that the translation dialog comes up, but not the dictionary.

Is Japanese shown as the current language in the "From" section of the translation dialog when that happens?

Added: After further thought, it seems likely that the absence of the dictionary dialog indicates that the Kindle has incorrectly determined that multiple words have been highlighted. There may be issues with that in languages that do not use spaces between words. Japanese and Chinese books published on Amazon include a table of word boundaries that will not be present in homemade sideloaded books.

It is interesting because I can sometimes look up the same word that I couldn't before depending on where the word is in the book. If what you said is the cause, which makes quite a lot of sense, it is odd that selection works just fine and selects the word correctly in Japanese (it doesn't select one character less or more) but somehow determines that the highlight contians multiple words.

Any suggestions on how it can be fixed? If it can't be fixed do I have to only buy books from Amazon or is better to switch to an Android tablet because I'm starting to regret buying a Kindle

. The main reason I bought it was the pop-up dictionary feature, if it is going to make me spend money for copyright free books I'd rather replace it.

jhowell · 08-05-2020, 01:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hellou

If what you said is the cause, which makes quite a lot of sense, it is odd that selection works just fine and selects the word correctly in Japanese (it doesn't select one character less or more) but somehow determines that the highlight contians multiple words.

It is just a guess on my part of the cause of the problem. I know very little about how Japanese books are handled on the Kindle platform. I only know about the existence of the GESW word boundary table from my research on Kindle e-book formats.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hellou

Any suggestions on how it can be fixed?

If I am correct and the lack of this table in books not supplied by Amazon is the cause of the problem then I know of no fix. I have never come across any software that could either create or read this table.

If something else if causing the problem perhaps there is a workaround. Hopefully a Japanese Kindle user will weigh in on this.

rupan88 · 08-05-2020, 04:06 PM

I had a similar problem on PW3. Sometimes I couldn't get a definition for words that I knew were there for certain. It happened randomly, a lot of time when trying to look a word at the extreme left or extreme right. Sending files through Amazon's cloud helped a bit but then you lose the covers. If I remember I've read about the same issue somewhere on reddit. Generally nothing to be done about it unless Amazon does something.

08-05-2020, 08:07 AM	#1
hellou Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2020 Device: none	Dictionary function not working in some parts of the book Hello, I have a Kindle Paperwhite 3 which I use to read Japanese books on. The problem is that for a few pages the dictionary box doesn't appear when I highlight a word, just wikipedia and translation boxes, then it starts working for a few pages, this keeps going on for the whole book. This happens for some books that I have converted to mobi using Kindle Previewer 3.37.0 (I use Win7). I can't use Calibre for mobi conversion because it doesn't preserve the vertical text, it just turns it horizontal and word selection gets messed up. What is causing the problem and how can I fix it? Any help would be appreciated.

08-05-2020, 09:28 AM	#4
jhowell Grand Sorcerer Posts: 7,073 Karma: 91577715 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Charlottesville, VA Device: Kindles	It is odd that the translation dialog comes up, but not the dictionary. Is Japanese shown as the current language in the "From" section of the translation dialog when that happens? Added: After further thought, it seems likely that the absence of the dictionary dialog indicates that the Kindle has incorrectly determined that multiple words have been highlighted. There may be issues with that in languages that do not use spaces between words. Japanese and Chinese books published on Amazon include a table of word boundaries that will not be present in homemade sideloaded books. Last edited by jhowell; 08-05-2020 at 10:02 AM.

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08-05-2020, 08:40 AM	#3
colinsky Addict Posts: 240 Karma: 3500000 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: Sony PRS-300, PRS-T1, PRS-T3	One thing you might want to confirm is that the language tag of the book is correctly set to Japanese after conversion (you can check this in Calibre metadata setting). I've had unexpected dictionary lookup behavior when this was inadvertently mis-set.

08-05-2020, 04:06 PM	#8
rupan88 Member Posts: 16 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2018 Location: Poland Device: PW3, KO3	I had a similar problem on PW3. Sometimes I couldn't get a definition for words that I knew were there for certain. It happened randomly, a lot of time when trying to look a word at the extreme left or extreme right. Sending files through Amazon's cloud helped a bit but then you lose the covers. If I remember I've read about the same issue somewhere on reddit. Generally nothing to be done about it unless Amazon does something.