Dictionaries

January 31, 2016 — January 24, 2019

language

Especially: translation dictionaries.

Weirdly hard to get decent translation dictionaries that integrate into your device/OS of choice. Most electronic dictionary companies prefer to sell you an overblown, overpriced piece of custom software with an inferior user experience that doesn’t run on your smartphone, rather than just selling you a dictionary data file for one of the dictionary applications that come built into your OS.

I don’t want more dictionary software; I want a dictionary data file for my existing software.

NB, the rate at which dictionary sites appear and disappear suggests some nasty intellectual property disputes going on here. Check the laws of your local jurisdiction before downloading and/or converting files whose origin you don’t know. And beware of the risks of software of unknown pedigree.

1 Translation dictionary sources

if you like German, dict.cc has downloads.
babylon makes translation software, which is a bit crap, but they index free translation dictionaries, which puts them ahead of their competitors.
Pre-converted versions of some of the above by the Stardict developers (Thanks Hu Zheng!)

2 Conversion

xdxf I think is now the anointed white hat dictionary conversion format.
Stardict, the original dictionary format conversion tool, has been shut down a few times now in aforementioned intellectual property disputes about companies who would rather sell you unsatisfactory software than an actual dictionary.
goldendict is a successor to the beleaguered Stardict (Linux, Windows, especially Russian-friendly).
lingaea converts some dictionary formats too. (especially Czech-friendly)
makedict is trying to unify all the standards.
pyglossary is the no-fuss python converter. Seems to work well, so long as you avoid the GUI, which is a nightmare horrorvoid, so turn it off using --ui=cmd. This is the one I ended up using.

2.1 Apple

to make Apple dictionaries bareback you need the dictionary development kit as part of the Auxiliary tools for Xcode (You do NOT need Xcode) then to do some magical XML processing.

This sounds tedious. It can be automated away in a less tedious manner using pyglossary.

~/Software/pyglossary/pyglossary.pyw --ui=cmd \
  --read-options=resPath=OtherResources \
  --write-format=AppleDict \
  Duden_Synonym.BGL Duden_Synonym.xml
make
make install

dictunifier used to do an ok job of this, but original seems to have vanished? jjgod/mac-dictionary-kit is a mirror.

2.2 Kindle

kindle dictionaries are hard to find on amazon.com. Here they are
Actual translation dictionaries, free (German Russian Italian Croatian French Portuguese)
Or you can convert a different dictionary into a Kindle dictionary, I think?
translation dictionaries for kindles
more kindle translation dict howtos
Roll your own kindle dictionary workflow

3 Spelling dictionaries

You don’t need definitions? Try this free spelling dictionary list.