best dictionary in an epub reader?

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by speedlever

I'm not sure what you mean by standard definition for Mobipocket dictionaries, can you explain?

You have a way to say a book is a dictionary, and you have elements which allow you to differentiate terms and definitions. So, everybody can know how to make and to use a dictionary.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by speedlever

I'm not sure what you mean by standard definition for Mobipocket dictionaries, can you explain?

There are tools for creating Mobipocket dictionaries, and such a dictionary will work on any Mobipocket device (including the Kindle). ie a dictionary is a special type of Mobipocket book.

The ePub standard, on the other hand, does not mention dictionaries, so with an ePub device, dictionary support has to be added by the device manufacturer, and is specific to that manufacturer. A Sony dictionary can't be used on a nook; a nook dictionary can't be used on a Kobo.

[diamante]

In an earlier post, I mentioned that in my experience the Kindle is a little bit better than the Sony at taking you immediately to the correct dictionary entry. Let me be more specific. The Kindle does better with plurals and other inflected forms. With the Sony, sometimes if you double-click on a plural noun, the dictionary tells you "No entry found." You then have to go through a series of taps to manually enter the desired term, usually by subtracting letters from the end of the word you clicked on.

To compare dictionary functionality, I put the same e-book on my Sony and on my Kindle and set both devices to use the New Oxford American Dictionary. I tried to look up the hyphenated term "four-square" on both. On the Kindle, I simply positioned the cursor before the word, and the definition of "four-square" popped up instantly. On the Sony, I double clicked near the hyphen and got the definition for "four" -- not what I wanted. So I double clicked on "four," dragged to the end of "square" and released the stylus. The result: "No entry found." At this point I have to click on "manual entry" and delete the hyphen. The Sony then goes to the correct entry. I think it's fair to say that a dictionary should be able to cope with hyphens if it contains hyphenated entries, but unfortunately the current Sonys can't.

Another example: Both the Kindle and the Sony immediately go to the correct entry for "parties." Obviously, the desired entry is "party." However, within the full definition for "party" the word "manipulations" appears, in the usage example "I felt a wave of revulsion at the manipulations I'd been party to." With the Kindle, if you position the cursor before "manipulations" you immediately get the definition of "manipulate." With the Sony, you get "No entry found" and you're back to searching manually. You delete the final s, but "manipulation" is not found either. The Sony doesn't give you a result until you also delete the n and the o, at which point it gives you "manipulating," which redirects to "manipulate." To me, this is a pretty significant difference in functionality.

Again, the Sonys also come with some excellent translation dictionaries. For some people, having these references alone could justify the $129 cost of the Sony Reader Pocket Edition. The official availability of foreign-language dictionaries for the Kindle is limited. I know that a couple of Merriam-Webster translation dictionaries are available for Spanish and French, but these have a relatively small number of entries and I would not recommend them. There are quite a few Mobipocket dictionaries available however, and these include monolingual dictionaries like the Diccionario de la Lengua Española de la Real Academia Española, in addition to some good translation dictionaries from Harrap's, Vox, and Cambridge Klett. The comprehensive Oxford Spanish and French dictionaries that come with the Sony to my knowledge have not been published in Mobipocket or Kindle format. I wouldn't recommend the Oxford Mobipocket dictionaries that are currently on the market for Spanish and French, as they are pocket editions. Mobipocket dictionaries can be made to work on the Kindle, by means that most of us have heard about by now. Because of the software modifications Amazon made for the "popup" definitions on the Kindle, however, you will probably not get the popup, on-page definitions for dictionaries other than the ones that Amazon supplies with the device. Unfortunately I don't think there is a good monolingual French dictionary available in Mobipocket or Kindle format (veering slightly off topic, let me also recommend that French speakers check out Franklin's new BFS-2160, which is excellent if a little old-fashioned). And that is about the extent of my knowledge of dictionaries for the Kindle and the new Sony Readers.

UPDATE: I recently noticed a useful dictionary feature on my Sony 350. If you double-click on a word for which there is a corresponding entry in the dictionary, the dictionary suggests the first corresponding entry. If there are more corresponding entries, it also displays a small icon that looks like a bulleted list. If you click on this icon, you get a list of other entries that begin with the letters in the word you clicked on. For example, if you look up might and click on the "list" icon, you get a list of entries that includes terms like might-have-been and mighty. This provides an alternative way of looking up hyphenated terms like the example "four-square" I used above. Instead of selecting the entire term and deleting the hyphen, you can just double-click on the word before the hyphen, click the "list" icon, and select the term you are looking for from the list. The list is limited to 100 items, which may not be enough to reach the term you are looking for without adding more letters to your search term. It took me a while to notice this feature; the "list" icon is rather easy to miss in my opinion.

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by diamante

In an earlier post, I mentioned that in my experience the Kindle is a little bit better than the Sony at taking you immediately to the correct dictionary entry. Let me be more specific. The Kindle does better with plurals and other inflected forms. With the Sony, sometimes if you double-click on a plural noun, the dictionary tells you "No entry found." You then have to go through a series of taps to manually enter the desired term, usually by subtracting letters from the end of the word you clicked on.

To compare dictionary functionality, I put the same e-book on my Sony and on my Kindle and set both devices to use the New Oxford American Dictionary. I tried to look up the hyphenated term "four-square" on both. On the Kindle, I simply positioned the cursor before the word, and the definition of "four-square" popped up instantly. On the Sony, I double clicked near the hyphen and got the definition for "four" -- not what I wanted. So I double clicked on "four," dragged to the end of "square" and released the stylus. The result: "No entry found." At this point I have to click on "manual entry" and delete the hyphen. The Sony then goes to the correct entry. I think it's fair to say that a dictionary should be able to cope with hyphens if it contains hyphenated entries, but unfortunately the current Sonys can't.

Another example: Both the Kindle and the Sony immediately go to the correct entry for "parties." Obviously, the desired entry is "party." However, within the full definition for "party" the word "manipulations" appears, in the usage example "I felt a wave of revulsion at the manipulations I'd been party to." With the Kindle, if you position the cursor before "manipulations" you immediately get the definition of "manipulate." With the Sony, you get "No entry found" and you're back to searching manually. You delete the final s, but "manipulation" is not found either. The Sony doesn't give you a result until you also delete the n and the o, at which point it gives you "manipulating," which redirects to "manipulate." To me, this is a pretty significant difference in functionality.

Again, the Sonys also come with some excellent translation dictionaries. For some people, having these references alone could justify the $129 cost of the Sony Reader Pocket Edition. The official availability of foreign-language dictionaries for the Kindle is limited. I know that a couple of Merriam-Webster translation dictionaries are available for Spanish and French, but these have a relatively small number of entries and I would not recommend them. There are quite a few Mobipocket dictionaries available however, and these include monolingual dictionaries like the Diccionario de la Lengua Española de la Real Academia Española, in addition to some good translation dictionaries from Harrap's, Vox, and Cambridge Klett. The comprehensive Oxford Spanish and French dictionaries that come with the Sony to my knowledge have not been published in Mobipocket or Kindle format. I wouldn't recommend the Oxford Mobipocket dictionaries that are currently on the market for Spanish and French, as they are pocket editions. Mobipocket dictionaries can be made to work on the Kindle, by means that most of us have heard about by now. Because of the software modifications Amazon made for the "popup" definitions on the Kindle, however, you will probably not get the popup, on-page definitions for dictionaries other than the ones that Amazon supplies with the device. Unfortunately I don't think there is a good monolingual French dictionary available in Mobipocket or Kindle format (veering slightly off topic, let me also recommend that French speakers check out Franklin's new BFS-2160, which is excellent if a little old-fashioned). And that is about the extent of my knowledge of dictionaries for the Kindle and the new Sony Readers.

Thanks for your detailed review!

[speedlever]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

You have a way to say a book is a dictionary, and you have elements which allow you to differentiate terms and definitions. So, everybody can know how to make and to use a dictionary.

Originally Posted by HarryT

There are tools for creating Mobipocket dictionaries, and such a dictionary will work on any Mobipocket device (including the Kindle). ie a dictionary is a special type of Mobipocket book.

The ePub standard, on the other hand, does not mention dictionaries, so with an ePub device, dictionary support has to be added by the device manufacturer, and is specific to that manufacturer. A Sony dictionary can't be used on a nook; a nook dictionary can't be used on a Kobo.

And here I was merely considering what dictionaries are available to buy and add to an EBR.

My inference is that to link a word in an ebook to a dictionary definition is one thing in a Mobipocket dictionary (software specific) and quite another in an epub dictionary (hardware specific). I assume the practical implications are that it's much easier to find/create a functional dictionary in a Mobipocket device vs doing the same for an epub device.

If the above is true, then Kindle support for epub becomes even less likely.

[speedlever]

Originally Posted by diamante

snip

To compare dictionary functionality, I put the same e-book on my Sony and on my Kindle and set both devices to use the New Oxford American Dictionary.

snip functional test

That is an excellent, first hand review with something tangible and practical a person can relate to.

Excellent work and very clearly written. Thank you.

You should do a short video of that comparison and post it on YouTube. That's the kind of review that I would find helpful in determining the usefulness of a device under consideration.

[Billi]

Diamante, thank you very much for your long comparison of the Kindle and Sony dictionaries.

Originally Posted by diamante

To compare dictionary functionality, I put the same e-book on my Sony and on my Kindle and set both devices to use the New Oxford American Dictionary. I tried to look up the hyphenated term "four-square" on both.

Could you do me a favor and check one more thing:
Are your dictionaries able to find words that are not combined by an hyphen like in your example above but by an em-dash like in this quote from "Pride and Prejudice"

Affectation of candour is common enough—one meets it every where. But to be candid without ostentation or design—to take the good of every body's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad—belongs to you alone.

My mobipocket dictionary (Pons on a Gen3) is unable to find words with an em-dash as are the dictionaries inside the Pocketbook 902 (epub). But as this quite often occurs I would be interested to know if there are any dictionaries that could translate both words of such a combination correctly.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[susan_cassidy]

Em-dashes are not considered to be part of the word, in normal usage. Em-dashes are meant to imply sub-clauses or parenthetical thoughts.

[speedlever]

Well, I tried it on my K3 and plugged in "bad--belongs". It found the reference right away at location 717. The search found it, I mean. The dictionary just brought up bad. I couldn't cursor to "belongs" for the definition.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Billi

My mobipocket dictionary (Pons on a Gen3) is unable to find words with an em-dash as are the dictionaries inside the Pocketbook 902 (epub). But as this quite often occurs I would be interested to know if there are any dictionaries that could translate both words of such a combination correctly.

Thanks in advance for your help.

I've just checked, and the Kindle will correctly look up words in the dictionary which are separated by an em-dash.

EDIT: The word BEFORE the dash at least. You can't select the word AFTER the dash.

[Billi]

Well, that's much more than the Cybook finds, but sometimes not enough, when I would need the second word.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by diamante

... To me, this is a pretty significant difference in functionality ...

Good examples and clearly written, thank you. My Sony PRS-650 uses the New Oxford American Dictionary Second Edition © 2005 OUP, Inc. Which edition does your Kindle have? Which e-book and what format(s)?

[speedlever]

My K3's New Oxford American Dictionary 2nd edition is also @2005 OUP. My version of P&P is a B&N Classics epub converted to Mobi.

[diamante]

Originally Posted by speedlever

You should do a short video of that comparison and post it on YouTube. That's the kind of review that I would find helpful in determining the usefulness of a device under consideration.

Thanks, speedlever! Hmm, I've never made a YouTube video before...

Originally Posted by Billi

My mobipocket dictionary (Pons on a Gen3) is unable to find words with an em-dash as are the dictionaries inside the Pocketbook 902 (epub). But as this quite often occurs I would be interested to know if there are any dictionaries that could translate both words of such a combination correctly.

Billi, yes, that is an annoying characteristic of Mobipocket (I sometimes still use the Palm OS version). The Kindle retains this behavior in that you cannot move the cursor to the position immediately after an em-dash; the cursor moves word by word and it treats two words separated by an em-dash as a single word (I just realized that speedlever and HarryT have already pointed this out). However, if you highlight the two words and then hit the space bar, a search box pops up in which you can then easily delete everything but the second word before searching the dictionary. It's just a few extra clicks. Em-dashes don't affect dictionary lookup on the Sony; you can double click on either word to get the appropriate definition. This is a point in Sony's favor.

By the way, Billi, can you comment on the quality of the Pons dictionaries? You provided some interesting information; I didn't know whether Mobipocket dictionaries would work at all on a Cybook device.

Originally Posted by boxcorner

My Sony PRS-650 uses the New Oxford American Dictionary Second Edition © 2005 OUP, Inc. Which edition does your Kindle have?

My Kindle 2 has the same dictionary.

[SeaBookGuy]

Originally Posted by boxcorner

Good examples and clearly written, thank you. My Sony PRS-650 uses the New Oxford American Dictionary Second Edition © 2005 OUP, Inc. Which edition does your Kindle have? Which e-book and what format(s)?

Sony has a choice of two English language dictionaries - there's also a British one (Oxford Dictionary of English).