# Dictionary from Project Gutenberg not recognized as a 'real' dictionary!?



## dante (Apr 30, 2012)

Hi folks,

browsing through the pages of the Gutenberg Project (http://www.gutenberg.org), I found some free dictionaries. As I often read books in foreign languages, the dictionary lookup function of my kindle touch is essential for me. So I tried to install one of them: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3209

I downloaded the kindle-version (mobipocket-Format), sent it via eMail to my kindle and one minute later it appeared on my home page screen. But obviously it's not recognized as a dictionary. I can open and read it like a normal book, but it's not possible to move it to the dictionary-folder of my kindle and assign it as a standard dictionary of a language.

Sending the dictionary again via eMail and with subject convert, in order to transform it to kindle's own AZW format didn't solve the problem. Still it's only handled like an ordinary book! I've also searched through the menues and context-menues of my kindle but I couldn't find any helpful commands.

It would be really sad, if we couldn't use these free dictionaries for our kindles.

Does anyone have a clue, why kindle is not recognizing these dictionaries

Thx,
Dante


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I don't know WHY -- that would be a question for Amazon/Kindle Customer Service -- but I'm pretty sure that only dictionaries bought from Amazon can be used as a 'look up' dictionary with other books on the device.  Probably has to do with how the linking is coded or something.  I don't really find it very surprising that dictionaries acquired elsewhere don't work as a 'look up' dictionary.   There are even some on Amazon that won't work as the 'look up' one.


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## dante (Apr 30, 2012)

@Ann:
Theoretically it works. I've found this site:
http://blog.mikeasoft.com/2011/01/05/free-as-in-gpl2-translation-dictionaries-for-the-kindle/#dictionaries

This guy also offers some dictionaries. After downloading one to my kindle, it was automatically recognized as a dictionary, which can be associated to a language!

The files are again in mobipocket format, so this format is in fact capable to function as a kindle-dictionary. There must be some other problem, why the gutenberg-dictionaries are not recognized...


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Dante, I see you have the Kindle Touch. I don't know if it's just for European devices, but when I bought my Touch a couple of weeks ago in the UK, not only did it have an American and British English dictionary already on the device, but I also gained dictionaries in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German and French, which are listed on my MYK page. I tried downloading the Spanish one and it is an official dictionary as it goes straight into the Dictionaries folder and it is also assigned as the default Spanish dictionary.

Have you noticed if you have the same dictionaries on your MYK page? Obviously they don't cover every language but it's a start and they're free. As I said though, it may be a new thing for the release of the Touch in Europe. Maybe Amazon would let you have copies if you ask nicely!  


EDIT: It occurs to me that these aren't translation dictionaries, but definition dictionaries, which probably isn't what you're after anyway. Oh well.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

FWIW, the Basic Kindle I got last fall -- in the US -- also came with a boatload of different language dictionaries.  And the users guides in multiple languages too.  Once I picked a language the others went into archive, but I could get them on to the kindle any time if I want to.  

My point being only that it's not just a Euro thing. 

But, as you say, they're definition dictionaries, not translation dictionaries. . . .the definitions are given in the same language as the word so it won't help if you don't know the language in the first place.


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## Morf (Nov 18, 2010)

dante said:


> @Ann:
> Theoretically it works. I've found this site:
> http://blog.mikeasoft.com/2011/01/05/free-as-in-gpl2-translation-dictionaries-for-the-kindle/#dictionaries
> 
> ...


I suspect it's in the format of the dictionary itself. I've had a quick look at the scripts at that site and it's clear they're doing some complex processing of the dictionary from a basic tab delimited format to an OPF format (which is HTML based) and then pushing that through the Kindle converter to generate a Kindle file.

So clearly a Kindle dictionary is not just a list of words, whereas the PG dictionary is just that.

In addition, the PG dictionary you link to is not tab delimited, it has spaces in between the word/phrase and the definition, so you can't just run the scripts on it.

IE:

Apertium file
Word[tab]definition

PG file
Word[space][space]....[space]definition

I guess if you wanted to, you could take the PG dictionary as a text document, load it into a text editor (I'd suggest notepad++), remove all the PG headings at the top, replace all the spaces with a single tab, then save it. You might then have something that Michael Sheldon's script would translate into a dictionary - chances are you'll need several attempts to get it right.

But...

Why not just use the dictionaries he links to instead of the PG one? In the comments there are links to several other languages.


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## dante (Apr 30, 2012)

@Morf:
Yup, currently I'm using Michael Sheldons dictionaries. But of course it would be really nice, if I could use all dictionaries from PG, as they are probably maintained regularly.

But thanks to your suggestions, maybe I can code a little tool that converts these dictionaries to the right format...


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## SusanCassidy (Nov 9, 2008)

Dictionaries in Mobipocket format take a lot of extra tags for special formatting. See: http://www.mobipocket.com/dev/article.asp?BaseFolder=prcgen&File=advancedbooks.htm for details.


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## Morf (Nov 18, 2010)

dante said:


> ...dictionaries from PG, as they are probably maintained regularly...


I'm not sure that's the case, the Apertium dictionaries look more up to date to me than the PG ones although there are undoubtedly some more "unusual" dictionaries on PG 



SusanCassidy said:


> Dictionaries in Mobipocket format take a lot of extra tags for special formatting. See: http://www.mobipocket.com/dev/article.asp?BaseFolder=prcgen&File=advancedbooks.htm for details.


Good find Susan, I think that's the clue to what the script is doing.


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## dante (Apr 30, 2012)

Thanks to you all. That really seems to be the solution.

So probably I will have to write my own script to do that conversion...


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## Morf (Nov 18, 2010)

Good luck, keep us posted if you get anywhere!


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