# Italian English Dictionary doesn't always work



## bsalthouse (Jul 30, 2011)

HI just purchased the GREAT, new Merriam-Webster italian-English dictionary--I love it!--when it works. I've noticed when I'm reading some Italian language books it behaves as it should: it defines the Italian word into English. However, with other books it doesn't work at all. 

I have a feeling that when the books are formatted for Kindle someone in Kindleland has to enable something so the book is recognized as an Italian text. (the books always say "Italian Version" after the title) but that somehow some of the books aren't recognizing the fact that they are, in fact, written in Italian. Is there any way that I can fix that? I've tried making the Italian Dictionary my primary, but that still doesn't help. Please advise--


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I do not know the answer. However, a couple things I might look at -- at least for my own curiosity  -- are: 

(1) Is there any difference in the file name suffixes between the books that work and those that do not?

(2) Do books that do not work not work at all, or only have problems with some Italian words but not all? (It might be interesting if the only words that do not work are those with letters outside of the English/American A-Z/a-z, in particular those with accents and such, which might be represented by HTML-style character entities (e.g. "&eacute;") in some source files, while others might simply use UTF-8 character codes. My thought process is that such a dictionary would be more likely to work with UTF-8 than with HTML entities -- but that is pure speculation on my part for now.


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## Bjorn2Read (Mar 24, 2011)

I use the Merriam-Webster Italian-English dictionary. It worked with every book I tried so far... However, it doesn't recognize inflected forms. It will find "capire", but not "capisce"; the same with "uomo" and "uomini". Amazon product reviews actually state that.
  It doesn't bother me - if I need to look up an inflected form, I make my best guess as to it's "dictionary form", and I just do a direct lookup. You do this by typing the word (it shows up at the bottom of the Kindle screen) and clicking "search dictionary".
  Of course if Amazon starts selling an Italian dictionary that is smart enough to pick up on ALL possible word forms, I'll be among the first to spend money on it!


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## bsalthouse (Jul 30, 2011)

Bjorn2Read: So what Kindle books are you reading in Italian?--I'd be curious to know how they'd work on my Kindle. 

All the Cinzia Medaglia stories and I promessi Sposi by Manzoni recognize the Merriam-Webster Italian Dictionary, but, for example, Short Stories (Penguin)in Italian and Occhi d'Ambra by Ilaria Isaia don't recognize the dictionary. 

NogDog:
No difference in the suffixes that I can tell. And the books that don't recognize the dictionary, don't any Italian words at all, but go to the English dictionary!


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## Bjorn2Read (Mar 24, 2011)

bsalthouse said:


> Bjorn2Read: So what Kindle books are you reading in Italian?--I'd be curious to know how they'd work on my Kindle.


Bsalthouse,
Off the top of my head - "C'era una volta (Fiabe)" by Luigi Capuana - this one downloaded from Amazon. 
Also, freebies from Guttenberg.org:
"Lezioni e racconti per i bambini" by Ida Baccini
"Il ritratto del diavolo" by Anton Giulio Barrilli
"Nel paese dei dollari" by Adolfo Rossi

I hate to suggest this, but do you check to see if the Italian dictionary is selected as Primary Dictionary on your Kindle, before you attempt to read an Italian book? Kindle DOES NOT automatically determine what language the book is in; you have to tell it which dictionary to use.


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## bsalthouse (Jul 30, 2011)

Thanks, Bjorn2Read, I downloaded "Lezioni e racconti per i bambini" by Ida Baccini and the Italian dictionary works fine. So I'm finding out that it's working for most things and it's not the big problem I thought it was.

I'd be curious to know if your Merriam Webster Italian Dic. works on Occhi d'Ambra by Ilaria Isaia (a free download) or the free sample of La conscienza di Zeno by Italo Svevo (those are ones that didn't work for me)...

Anyway, thanks for the help and for turning me on to Guttenberg Project! 

PS: Don't worry, I'm not totally clueless: I had made the Italian Dic. my Primary Dictionary, but for troubleshooting it was a good possiblity.


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