Japanese dictionary for Pocketbook 626 Touch Lux 2

[GreenAirplane]

Hello,

I have a Pocketbook 626 Touch Lux 2, I primarily use it to read in Japanese. It works great, except I could really use a built-in dictionary. I went to the official site, looked through the dictionaries on offer only to find that they don't have any kind of Japanese to English dictionary (or indeed Japanese to any other language).

So I googled some more, and found this: http://zderadicka.eu/convert-diction...-ebook-reader/
Apparently it's possible to take a dictionary in ".xdxf" format, and convert it to a format used by Pocketbook. After a lot more googling, I found a Japanese to English dictionary somewhere in the following maze:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/xdxf/files/dicts-XDXF/
I inspected the file, it seemed OK. So I tried to convert it. I used the "eng" folder for config files. The result was a .dic file, which I put in the /system/dictionaries folder of my reader. As a result I got a new dictionary in the menu, and after fiddling with font settings I got it to display correctly. The problem is, the search function misses completely. I tap a word in my book, and the dictionary displays a set of completely different words every time. I tried running the conversion again with empty config files, but the result was the same. I checked the original .xdxf file for some of the words I tried to find, they were there.
Either I'm doing something wrong during conversion (which is likely, I don't really understand those auxiliary files and their impact on the result) or the dictionary software simply doesn't support Japanese.
I tried updating my firmware to the latest version. It didn't help at all. In fact, it made things worse, because the system font has switched to one that doesn't support Japanese again, so I have a lot of rectangles - ▯ in the dictionary. And I can't seem to find a way to change the system font again.

Does anyone have a working Japanese dictionary for Pocketbook 626 Lux 2?

[rkomar]

What encoding is used in the .xdxf file? I believe that only UTF-8 is supported.

[GreenAirplane]

I looked at the encoding of the .xdxf file in Notepad++. It said "UTF without ROM". So I converted it to UTF and repeated the process. The result was basically the same, as far as I can tell (I still haven't figured out how to change the system font in the new update, so the dictionary entries aren't displayed properly)

[rkomar]

Perhaps you know this already, but there are UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32,... standards. You have to make sure that you are using UTF-8.

Also, you need to set up the collates.txt file. If you haven't, perhaps that is what's messing up your searches. In that file, the lines are in alphabetic order. Each line specifies how to translate a group of characters to a single character used in the dictionary searches. You can look at the English version for an example of how to do it. You will need to add any missing Japanese characters in new lines in the correct alphabetic location. Again, this file must be in UTF-8 format.

[GreenAirplane]

My apologies, I should have been more accurate regarding the format. I meant to write that I used Notepad++ to convert the file from a format called "UTF-8 without ROM" to UTF-8.
As for the collates.txt file, I think I know how it works now. Problem is, I haven't the faintest idea how to apply this to Japanese. You see, Japanese uses 3 different alphabets. Actually, 4 if you count the latin alphabet.
Two of these are phonetic, they represent syllables. (They're called hiragana and katakana, and they look like this: ひらがな and カタカナ) Each has about 50 characters. Then there's the Kanji (漢字). There's literally thousands of these rascals.
The entries in the dictionary can be pure hiragana:

<ar><k>である</k>
(v5r) to be (formal, literary)</ar>

pure katakana:

<ar><k>ディーゼルエンジン</k>
(n) diesel engine</ar>

or probably the most frequent, Kanji with pronunciation written in hiragana in the parentheses:

<ar><k>電波 [でんぱ]</k>
(n) electro-magnetic wave (P)</ar>

How do I make a collate file for this?

[rkomar]

I think you have to pick the alphabet that matches the dictionary (assuming that the dictionary has entries for just one). I would also forget about Kanji, since there are so many symbols and you can't make a keyboard for it that will fit on the screen.

I looked through the available languages on my devices, and I couldn't find Japanese there. I could swear that I used to be able to choose that language for the user interface. Maybe I need a different firmware version, or a new pair of glasses.

[GreenAirplane]

So the collates file is used only for the onscreen keyboard? I don't care about that. Being able to search for a word by typing it in is not much use to me. Japanese is specific in that if I don't know a word that's written in Kanji, I generally don't know what the reading is either. So I can't look it up by typing it in a phonetic alphabet. I'd need a more advanced Kanji lookup feature, which is beyond the capabilities of the built in dictionary software. What I need this dictionary to do is to find the correct word when I tap on it in the text I'm reading.

[mihhim]

Originally Posted by GreenAirplane

What I need this dictionary to do is to find the correct word when I tap on it in the text I'm reading.

The same problem. Could anyone already solve the problem?

[mihhim]

Originally Posted by mihhim

The same problem. Could anyone already solve the problem?

The problem is partly solved. In this dictionary words (glyphs) had hiragana transcription in the searching field. In this way the dictionary didn't find any glyphs. I've put the transcription in the explaining article. So the dictionary translates single glyphs, but the problem is that the dictionary can not translate the words with 2 or more glyphs.

[mihhim]

Upload my Japanese-English dictionary for pocketbook. It has hiragana keyboard. https://yadi.sk/d/ZLRnxSwfOddiKQ

[mihhim]

Upload my "Japanese-English Hiragana dictionary" for pocketbook. All words in it are written in hiragana. It has hiragana keyboard too. So you can type any Japanese word in hiragana and the dictionary will have found it. There is morphem search in the dictionary.
So if you type ののしった (cursed) the dictionary will show ののしる (to curse).
https://yadi.sk/d/Mi3col6Be76NUQ

[mihhim]

I plan to make "Japanese-English Romaji dictionary" for pocketbook. The Japanese words will be shown as Latin (English) "abcd.." letters.
Does anyone need it? Please write here.

[mihhim]

Originally Posted by mihhim

Upload my Japanese-English dictionary for pocketbook. It has hiragana keyboard. https://yadi.sk/d/ZLRnxSwfOddiKQ

I've made some improvements. So you can download better version by this link now.

[rkomar]

Very impressive! It's a fair bit of work to put together a good morphems table. I assume you had to make the keyboard, as well. It sounds like this dictionary was a labour of love for you. Thanks for sharing it.

[mihhim]

rkomar, thanks for kind words.
I've combined kanji and hiragana dictionaries in the one. https://yadi.sk/d/6SY74bcAlVa4gw