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Old 10-20-2012, 06:37 AM   #1
Nible
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Chinese-English Dictionary (highlight to translate)

Hi!

I'm thinking of buying a Kindle, pretty much only to learn Chinese and Spanish by reading books. I would need a good dictionary to do this, a dictionary that works like the one Kindle is shipped with where you highlight a word to get a translation.

I know that there are Spanish dictionaries that do this, but after searching for quite a while, I still can't find any Chinese ones.

I read about the software Duokan which was supposed to have a dictionary, but I couldn't find anything about how that dictionary worked, I don't know if it's only a regular dictionary that I need to open and search the word I want to translate, or if it's of the kind that I want. If there are only regular dictionaries, the whole idea with getting a Kindle would be kind of ruined, if that's the only option, I could just buy physical books and search the internet for translations instead of buying a 69£ machine to do it.

I also found this dictionary (the one below English), but I'm not sure if it's the kind I want, is it?

Thanks a lot in advance for any help!
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Old 10-21-2012, 10:08 AM   #2
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On my PW, Amazon automatically pushed a free Chinese-English dictionary (新华词典) into my account before I even received it. It works beautifully, the 'highlighting shows you Chinese definitions' function.

Last edited by jeffyen; 10-21-2012 at 10:30 AM.
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Old 10-21-2012, 10:30 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffyen View Post
On my PW, Amazon automatically pushed a free Chinese-English dictionary (新华词典) into my account before I even received it. It works beautifully, the 'highlighting shows you Chinese definitions' function.
Alright, thanks for answering! I've been reading further and found that translating Chinese has worked, but poorly, in the past with Kindle. It's better now with the PW software, you say?

Or do you mean that it only showed you definitions in Chinese?

Last edited by Nible; 10-21-2012 at 10:35 AM.
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Old 10-21-2012, 10:43 AM   #4
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oops I guess you want English definitions but this one gives Chinese definitions.

Right now, Chinese characters are all able to be displayed. I had lots of blank tiles on a Touch. Not sure whether this is due to Calibre's conversion, but probably not.

Last edited by jeffyen; 10-21-2012 at 10:47 AM.
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Old 10-21-2012, 10:55 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by jeffyen View Post
oops I guess you want English definitions but this one gives Chinese definitions.

Right now, Chinese characters are all able to be displayed. I had lots of blank tiles on a Touch. Not sure whether this is due to Calibre's conversion, but probably not.
Yea, my Chinese is still on a very low level, so translations are what I need.

But does it work well with the Chinese definitions? I'm not entirely sure about what the problems were with the Chinese dictionaries on the previous Kindles but from what I understand it had something to do with that it didn't know every character (as you said, blank tiles), and that it didn't recognize several-character words that well. Is this correct? Has this improved?

Do you know if there are any Chinese-English dictionaries that I can buy or anything like that?

And a last question, if you don't mind, what is "Calibre's conversion"?

Thanks very much for your help!

Last edited by Nible; 10-21-2012 at 10:59 AM.
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Old 10-21-2012, 11:26 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffyen View Post
oops I guess you want English definitions but this one gives Chinese definitions.

Right now, Chinese characters are all able to be displayed. I had lots of blank tiles on a Touch. Not sure whether this is due to Calibre's conversion, but probably not.
I have no issue of Chinese characters on a Kindle Touch since 5.04. Prior versions might have fonts in which characters have strokes of uneven widths. But apart from that, everything works out of box.
AFAIK the different encoding systems (GBK/Big5/UTF8) put sand in the wheel, but Kindle handles UTF8 quite well except for TXT documents.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nible View Post
Yea, my Chinese is still on a very low level, so translations are what I need....
Duokan doesn't use Kindle's dictionaries, not its format in which books are wirelessly delivered. Probably such Chinese-English dictionaries in MOBI format exists. (I'd say the best place to look for such stuff is a Chinese-based forum on Kindle...)
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Old 10-21-2012, 11:42 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by phoeagon View Post
I have no issue of Chinese characters on a Kindle Touch since 5.04. Prior versions might have fonts in which characters have strokes of uneven widths. But apart from that, everything works out of box.
AFAIK the different encoding systems (GBK/Big5/UTF8) put sand in the wheel, but Kindle handles UTF8 quite well except for TXT documents.



Duokan doesn't use Kindle's dictionaries, not its format in which books are wirelessly delivered. Probably such Chinese-English dictionaries in MOBI format exists. (I'd say the best place to look for such stuff is a Chinese-based forum on Kindle...)
Thanks for answering!

I know of a Chinese-English dictionary in MOBI format, this one, is that the kind you're saying would work? And I'm sorry, I don't quite understand the last paragraph, are you saying I need Duokan for using a dictionary like the one I linked?
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Old 10-22-2012, 10:32 AM   #8
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well i think MOBI dictionaries should work for Kindle out of box.
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Old 10-22-2012, 01:12 PM   #9
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Originally Posted by phoeagon View Post
well i think MOBI dictionaries should work for Kindle out of box.
Alright, thanks!

I think I'll go for it and buy a PW as soon as the issues with them are fixed, hoping that will happen soon. They're out of stock for a month anyways.

If it doesn't work as I hope it will, at least I'll be able to read Spanish books this way. And as for the Chinese, it's always easier getting ahold of Chinese books on an e-reader than importing physical books from China.

Last edited by Nible; 10-22-2012 at 01:15 PM.
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Old 10-30-2012, 02:10 PM   #10
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I had trouble finding a good mobi version of CC-CEDICT, so I ended up creating one, you might find it useful.
Attached Files
File Type: mobi CC-CEDICT.mobi (8.71 MB, 23699 views)

Last edited by digbybare; 11-01-2012 at 05:27 PM. Reason: Fixed issue with words with multiple pronunciations
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Old 10-30-2012, 09:16 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by digbybare View Post
I had trouble finding a good mobi version of CC-CEDICT, so I ended up creating one, you might find it useful.

Thank you so much for this, I am studying Chinese (4rth semester right now) and have been looking for something like this for quite a while
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Old 10-31-2012, 11:15 PM   #12
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Can anyone make a dictionary out of the Cantonese CEDICT?

http://writecantonese8.wordpress.com...edict-project/
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Old 11-04-2012, 03:09 AM   #13
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Can anyone make a dictionary out of the Cantonese CEDICT?

http://writecantonese8.wordpress.com...edict-project/
There were several entries which were badly formatted and/or were otherwise hard to parse. I fixed a few of them, but also ended up removing the following:

Code:
春天夏天秋天冬天 在一天中出現 我的心情不會隨著它改變 從小生活在這高原 這塊牧場的邊緣 早unknown經習慣了那是自然 當藍白雲草原牧場 浮現在我眼 春天夏天秋天冬天 在一天中出现 我的心情不会随著它改变 从小生活在这高原 这块牧场的边缘 早己经习惯了那是自然 当蓝白云草原牧场 浮现在我眼前 [cheun1 tin1 ha6 tin1 chau1 tin1 dung1 tin1] [chun1 tian1 xia4 tian1 qiu1 tian1 dong1 tian1 zai4 yi1 tian1 zhong1 chu1 xian4 wo3 de5 xin1 qing2 bu4 hui4 sui2 zhu3 ta1 gai3 bian4 cong2 xiao3 sheng1 huo2 zai4 zhe4 gao1 yuan2 zhe4 kuai4 mu4 chang3 de5 bian1 yuan2 zao3 yi3 jing1 xi2 guan4 le5 na4 shi4 zi4 ran2 dang4 lan2 bai2 yun2 cao3 yuan2 mu4 chang3 fu2 xian4 zai4 wo3 yan3 qian2] / /

魯休思 馬份 鲁休思 马份 [lou5 yau1 si1] [lu3 xiu1 si1 ma3 fen4] /Lucius Malfoy/

露娜 羅古德 露娜 罗古德 [lou6 no5] [lou4 na4 luo2 gu3 de2] /Luna Lovegood/

我能感覺 我像只麋鹿奔馳思念的深夜 我能感觉 我像只麋鹿奔驰思念的深夜 [ngo5 nang4 gam2 gok3] [wo3 neng2 gan3 jue2 wo3 xiang4 zhi3 mi2 lu4 ben1 chi2 si1 nian4 de5 shen1 ye4] / /

她通常周五去校園酒吧 了 她通常周五去校园酒吧 了 [ta1 tung1 seung4 jau1 ng5 heui3 haau6 yun4 jau2 ba1] [ta1 tong1 chang2 zhou1 wu3 qu4 xiao4 yuan2 jiu3 ba1 le5] / /

阿不思 鄧不利多 阿不思 邓不利多 [a3 bat1 si1] [a1 bu4 si1 deng1 bu4 li4 duo1] /Albus Dumbledore/

穆蒙 阿卜杜勒 加堯姆 穆蒙 阿卜杜勒 加尧姆 [muk6 mung4] [mu4 meng1] /Maumoon Abdul Gayoom/

奈威 陸巴頓 奈威 陆巴顿 [noi6 wai1] [nai4 wei1 lu4 ba1 dun4] /Neville Longbottom/

榮恩 衛斯里 荣恩 卫斯里 [wing4 yan1] [rong2 en1 wei4 si1 li3] /Ron Weasley/

Bing Ling Bang Lang Bing Ling Bang Lang [bìhng līng bàahng làahng] [] /1. a loud noise/2. a crashing sound/3. a thumping sound/4. very quickly/

半lang kang 半lang kang [bun lāng kēng] [] /to be caught in a dilemma; to not know whether to go forward or back./

M come M come [ēm kām] [] /menstrual period has arrived./

鳩fing fing 鸠fing fing [gāu fihng fihng] [] /(prick wave wave)/a person who continually does stupid things without realizing it./

攰lai lai 攰lai lai [guih làaih làaih] [] /(tired and lame)/exhausted/

le hea le hea [lé he] [] /to be in a muddle./

le fe le fe [léh féh] [] /sloppy, messy, untidy/

戇DOG DOG 戇DOG DOG [ngohng dōk dōk] [] /an humorously obscene insult, puns with 戇鳩鳩 [ngohng gāu gāu] (based on the resemblance between 鳩 gāu and 狗 gáu "dog")./

pat pat pat pat [pēt pēt] [] /bottom, "ass" (child's word, humorous)/

pet pet pet pet [pēt pēt] [] /bottom, "ass" (child's word, humorous)/

食mon mon 食mon mon [sihk mūng mūng] [] /to eat (mother-child language)/

食mum mum 食mum mum [sihk mūm mūm] [] /to eat (mother-child language)/

食鹽多過你食米,行橋多過你行路 食盐多过你食米, 行桥多过你行路 [sihk yìhm dō gwo néih sihk máih, hàahng kìuh dō gwo néih hàahng louh] [] /to be experienced, to have seen a lot of the world/

畫公仔唔使畫出腸 画公仔唔使画出肠  [waahk gūng jái m4 sái waahk chēut chéung] [] /to know in one's heart, to fully understand, to not need to think further (about a course of action to take)./

We We Wet Wet We We Wet Wet [wī wī wēt wēt] [] /1. to go out on the town/2. to have a good time/
As you can see, a couple of the entries were really long and don't really belong in the dictionary anyway, and a couple were just wtf. And, hopefully you don't plan on reading Harry Potter in Cantonese.

It also ended up being rather large, but hopefully it works for you.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/le2swmosyybpn5n/YEDICT.mobi
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Old 11-09-2012, 11:45 AM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by digbybare View Post
There were several entries which were badly formatted and/or were otherwise hard to parse. I fixed a few of them, but also ended up removing the following:
...
It also ended up being rather large, but hopefully it works for you.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/le2swmosyybpn5n/YEDICT.mobi
well, that's not "wtf"... in fact the strange words are Cantonese phrases.
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Old 11-09-2012, 01:23 PM   #15
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well, that's not "wtf"... in fact the strange words are Cantonese phrases.
Is "M come" a standard Cantonese phrase? Also, do phrases like "We We Wet Wet" not have characters they can be written in?

I don't know Cantonese so I'm genuinely curious.
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