Kobo Dictionary leaves much to be desired!

[davidfor]

@vostro: Yes, the size of the development team is almost definitely a factor in the lack of Chinese support. If they had more people, maybe they could do more. But, the quality of the Japanese support is probably down to the fact that Kobo is owned by Rakuten. I think there's enough money there that if Kobo wanted to expand to add full Chinese support, they would get the resources to do it. That tells me it is their decision not to.

And I should have said it before, I have never heard of a problem with Chinese support when reading on any Kobo devices. I am sure there are a few people here who do, so if there are problems, I thought I would have heard of them. Can you point me to discussion of the problems you are talking about?

As to Amazon, I'm sure they do pay well. I can't comment on how good they are as I've never met any of their developers. But, for all the size of the Amazon development team, I'd bet the Kindle team is tiny and probably not much bigger than what Kobo has.

By the way, congratulations on the degree in Computer Science. Hopefully it will help you find a job where you will actually learn something about software development.

[vostro]

i bought kobo mainly for local library compatibility and kindle for better language and dictionary support. i guess kindle family products profit might be still too small for amazon to expand its kindle product line for same bigger size of aura one. i was hoping amazon could release similar size of aura one this year but newly leaked info renders it hopeless, just like it's hopeless to expect kobo could expand dictionary and language support. btw, kindle touch with built-in speaker and text-to-speak is my favouite feature but it's a pity no newer models has this.(i didn't notice anybody else discussing chinese language books loading and freezing issue but all my kobos got this issue for many books.)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by vostro

i guess kindle family products profit might be still too small for amazon to expand its kindle product line for same bigger size of aura one.

Amazon don't sell Kindles to make a profit; they sell them as a vehicle for content sales. Mr Bezos said in a BBC television interview some years ago that Kindles are sold at cost price (although that may not be true for the recent high-end models like the Voyage and Oasis) and company CEO's can't afford to lie about such things.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19907546

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by vostro

i bought kobo mainly for local library compatibility and kindle for better language and dictionary support. i guess kindle family products profit might be still too small for amazon to expand its kindle product line for same bigger size of aura one. i was hoping amazon could release similar size of aura one this year but newly leaked info renders it hopeless, just like it's hopeless to expect kobo could expand dictionary and language support. btw, kindle touch with built-in speaker and text-to-speak is my favouite feature but it's a pity no newer models has this.(i didn't notice anybody else discussing chinese language books loading and freezing issue but all my kobos got this issue for many books.)

I haven't experienced any difficulty loading or reading Chinese books on my KA1 since learning how to sideload Chinese fonts onto the device. It did freeze once when I was attempting to look up a Chinese character using a sideloaded Chinese-English dictionary. But, apart from that one time, I have had no issues with freezing and I have looked up hundreds of characters.

I was able to sideload a Chinese-English dictionary to the device from generous posts found on this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...82#post3508282

However, if you are looking for better Chinese language support and text-to-speech software, you may want to consider a device from Onyx. I have been able to download multiple Chinese dictionaries to my Onyx Max. Chinese-Chinese, Chinese-English and English-Chinese as well as a chengyu dictionary. They work well. I was also able to install Google Chinese language TTS software.

Although the Max is large and expensive, I believe they have some of the same hardware and software on some of their other devices.

[vostro]

thanks for the info, i checked its review over amazon, it seems the screen is only touchable through stylus, which is a deal breaker for me. btw do you have any info on any kind of operable english-chinese dictionary for kobo-either free or i can buy somewhere? i simply can't find. thanks.

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by vostro

thanks for the info, i checked its review over amazon, it seems the screen is only touchable through stylus, which is a deal breaker for me. btw do you have any info on any kind of operable english-chinese dictionary for kobo-either free or i can buy somewhere? i simply can't find. thanks.

Apparently, there will be a second generation of the Max coming out in the fall which will have both touchscreen and stylus capabilities. Presumably, their newer devices in other sizes will also employ the same technology.

As for an English-Chinese dictionary for Kobo, I haven't come across one yet. However, I haven't really been looking, either. Being a native English speaker, a Chinese-English dictionary is more useful for me. The other various Chinese dictionaries on my Max were available for download through the device itself, presumably from Onyx.

[Question Mark]

Forgot to mention, another thing about the Chinese dictionaries on the Max, and presumably on other Onyx devices as well, is that it will automatically select between up to 5 of them when clicking on an entry. This has proven really useful.

Sometimes a character or a combination of characters is not in one dictionary, but might be in another. When there is no entry in the Chines-English dictionary, there will often be one in the Chinese-Chinese dictionary which will usually help me to get an understanding of the character, term or saying.

On a Kobo device, you would have to actively choose another dictionary for it to search in if it were not in your preselected dictionary. That could be a bit of a pain... if one had more than one dictionary one wanted to check in. However, only having the one Chinese-English dictionary on my device, that's a bit of a moot point.

[tshering]

Originally Posted by vostro

(i didn't notice anybody else discussing chinese language books loading and freezing issue but all my kobos got this issue for many books.)

If your Chinese font file is very large, this could be the culprit. Did you already try different fonts?

[vostro]

Originally Posted by tshering

If your Chinese font file is very large, this could be the culprit. Did you already try different fonts?

yes i tried different size, it turned out files size is irrelevant. i found MSYaHei has less freezing which has larger file size than MingLiu.