Best dictionaries for use with LWT?

All about language programs, courses, websites and other learning resources
User avatar
Brun Ugle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2273
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 12:48 pm
Location: Steinkjer, Norway
Languages: English (N), Norwegian (~C1/C2), Spanish (B1/B2), German (A2/B1?), Japanese (very rusty)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=11484
x 5821
Contact:

Best dictionaries for use with LWT?

Postby Brun Ugle » Tue Apr 04, 2017 2:09 pm

I’ve recently started using LWT and I’m trying to figure out what the best dictionaries are for each language. My ideal dictionary:

1- fits well in the window and can be used without opening a pop-up window
2- has a large number of entries
3- can find the word no matter its case or tense
4- tells me what form the word is in and indicates its base form (and preferably also has a link to the entire conjugation/declination)
5- has common collocations and expressions

Some of you have been using LWT for a while. What dictionaries have you found to be the best for the languages you are studying?
2 x

User avatar
blaurebell
Blue Belt
Posts: 840
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:24 pm
Location: Spain
Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
x 2240

Re: Best dictionaries for use with LWT?

Postby blaurebell » Tue Apr 04, 2017 3:38 pm

I don't know any dictionaries that fit all your criteria. Especially 4 is a bust. You will get the base form, but it won't tell you what form your original search term is. It would be great if Cooljugator could be integrated into LWT, but since their search doesn't work via the URL, I haven't figured out how to do it. It would already help if one could tell LWT not to automatically append the search string, but well ...

How good a dictionary is also depends on the language - Lingvo live is good for Russian, but whether it has example sentences seems to depend on the language. It does for Russian, but not for Spanish. Also, the dictionaries aren't on the same website aren't all equally good. The Spanish lingvo live dictionary finds "pelotudo" - my typical test word -, but the French dictionary doesn't find any slang. I tend to stick with my usual choices: lingvo live for Russian, wordreference for Spanish and French & Cooljugator in another tab.
3 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

User avatar
Brun Ugle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2273
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 12:48 pm
Location: Steinkjer, Norway
Languages: English (N), Norwegian (~C1/C2), Spanish (B1/B2), German (A2/B1?), Japanese (very rusty)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=11484
x 5821
Contact:

Re: Best dictionaries for use with LWT?

Postby Brun Ugle » Tue Apr 04, 2017 4:18 pm

Word reference for Spanish does tell me the base form and tells me what form the word is in, so I'm pretty satisfied with it for Spanish, though it could be better, of course. For my other languages, I'm still looking.
1 x

Stefan
Green Belt
Posts: 379
Joined: Sun Dec 20, 2015 9:59 pm
Location: Sweden
Languages: -
x 920
Contact:

Re: Best dictionaries for use with LWT?

Postby Stefan » Tue Apr 04, 2017 6:32 pm

LWT makes it possible to sort words by frequency and export translations into Anki so I tried to be specific in the beginning but eventually figured that I'm not using the info anyway. A quick look says that I've got 19.376 words translated or ignored (names) just for German. So now I aim for a basic translation and edit it if I stumble upon a new context where the old translation doesn't fit.

If a dictionary gave me a perfect summary of base form and declination I might rethink, but often it can be difficult just to figure out the translation of a word. As a result, my main dictionaries are Glosbe and Google Translate API. They integrate with LWT so I can click on a word to autofill - no need to copy/paste. If I feel lost, I translate the whole sentence (GTr) to figure out the basic meaning.

Image

Besides those two I use Linguee. Especially the "external sources" with a bunch of real world examples and their translations tend to be helpful. Unfortunately they don't offer any API so I tend to stick with Glosbe and Google Translate.
1 x

User avatar
Teango
Blue Belt
Posts: 766
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2015 4:55 am
Location: Honolulu, Hawaiʻi
Languages: en (n)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 9&p=235545
x 2943
Contact:

Re: Best dictionaries for use with LWT?

Postby Teango » Tue Apr 04, 2017 6:48 pm

blaurebell wrote:It would be great if Cooljugator could be integrated into LWT...

Cooljugator also works with Hawaiian - I'm impressed! :)
1 x

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23128
Contact:

Re: Best dictionaries for use with LWT?

Postby rdearman » Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:31 am

I have been working with LWT (Installing it using Docker) and then configuring it. Here are some dictionaries I found useful for general purposes, and some specific to French. I'll add to this later as I update my settings for Mandarin and Italian

There is also a spreadsheet on google drive with some dictionaries listed. It would be good if we could pull these into here and test them?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NdSuuFVVLX3an_ED4nlJYnH3zY_h7Oz6AXxfqvCScgM/edit?hl=en_US&hl=en_US#gid=0

Configure new dictionaries for LWT;
### is used to as an indicator to pass the word you want to look up. An * in front is used for sites (like google translate) which will not work in a frame.

Wordreference:
Change the "fren" in this example to the two iso codes you want, this example uses FR, and EN to get FREN

Code: Select all

http://www.wordreference.com/fren/###


linguee.com

Code: Select all

https://www.linguee.com/french-english/search?source=auto&query=###


lingvozone

You'll have to go to the site and run an example through in order to determine the language_id of the languages you want. French is 6 and English is 23 in this example.

Code: Select all

http://www.lingvozone.com/main.jsp?do=dictionary&action=translation&language_id_from=6&language_id_to=23&word=###


These don't like frames, have to open popup so put a * before the URL

Code: Select all

*https://en.bab.la/dictionary/english-french/###


Code: Select all

https://en.pons.com/translate/french-english/###


Specific to French

Code: Select all

https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais-anglais/###


https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page
You can use wiktionary to look up words, but it doesn't do translations per se. You just put the ISO code of the language you want into the URL here (FR in this example)

Code: Select all

http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/###
3 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

User avatar
MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2114
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
x 4824

Re: Best dictionaries for use with LWT?

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sun Mar 29, 2020 6:51 pm

Dictionaries that I use currently (like, today) but that are different from the spreadsheet on Google Drive:

Ancient Greek Dictionary 2

Code: Select all

http://logeion.uchicago.edu/index.html###


Spanish Dictionary 1 URI:

Code: Select all

http://www.wordreference.com/esen/###


Latin 1 Dictionary 1 URI:

Code: Select all

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?la=la&l=###

Latin 2 Dictionary 2 URI: :

Code: Select all

*http://latin-dictionary.net/search/latin/###


In the past (definitely not today) I used for German
German Dictionary 1 URI:

Code: Select all

http://www.linguee.de/search?direction=auto&query=###ISO-8859-15###

German Dictionary 2 URI:

Code: Select all

http://de-en.dict.cc/?s=###


EDIT BY ADMIN: Fixed the URL links to be code links so people are able to copy them into LWT.
0 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

Online
themethod
White Belt
Posts: 40
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2020 3:38 pm
Languages: English (N), Russian (Upper Intermediate), Spanish (Upper Intermediate)
x 124

Re: Best dictionaries for use with LWT?

Postby themethod » Mon May 04, 2020 8:04 pm

Any good ones for Russian? I'm currently using Linguee, Lingvo, and Yandex.

I'm usually a fan of openrussian.org, since it gives word frequency and other helpful info, but for some reason it can't handle words that have been modified in any way when used through LWT, even if I make it a pop-up. Yet if I copy/paste the same word directly on the site it works fine.
0 x

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23128
Contact:

Re: Best dictionaries for use with LWT?

Postby rdearman » Mon May 04, 2020 8:52 pm

themethod wrote:Any good ones for Russian? I'm currently using Linguee, Lingvo, and Yandex.

I'm usually a fan of openrussian.org, since it gives word frequency and other helpful info, but for some reason it can't handle words that have been modified in any way when used through LWT, even if I make it a pop-up. Yet if I copy/paste the same word directly on the site it works fine.

There are a couple Russian ones in the spreadsheet I linked to. Try those out and post back here if they work. :)
0 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

Online
themethod
White Belt
Posts: 40
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2020 3:38 pm
Languages: English (N), Russian (Upper Intermediate), Spanish (Upper Intermediate)
x 124

Re: Best dictionaries for use with LWT?

Postby themethod » Mon May 04, 2020 9:06 pm

rdearman wrote:
themethod wrote:Any good ones for Russian? I'm currently using Linguee, Lingvo, and Yandex.

I'm usually a fan of openrussian.org, since it gives word frequency and other helpful info, but for some reason it can't handle words that have been modified in any way when used through LWT, even if I make it a pop-up. Yet if I copy/paste the same word directly on the site it works fine.

There are a couple Russian ones in the spreadsheet I linked to. Try those out and post back here if they work. :)


Yep, I already checked that. Forvo is not a dictionary, and WordReference seems pretty basic, at least for Russian. Google, which is the default dictionary is okay, but I replaced it with Yandex, since it gives more info (base form, example sentences, etc.)

I also tried most of the other ones in your post; that's where I found Linguee. I like the look of bab.la, but I prefer to only have one dictionary that opens in a separate window, and I have Yandex in that slot. Lingvo is fine too, but it doesn't fit well in the LWT side window.
1 x


Return to “Language Programs and Resources”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests