Favorite Popup Translator - Lingoes, Powerword, Wakan, Stardict, NJStar, Wenlin et al

[Luobot]

I tried installing it but was unable to, possibly because it installs over the net through an installer program that poops out on me. I would need to download the entire installation program and install it locally, but that doesn't seem to be available.

It's a free download, so why don't you try it and let us know ...

[imron]

Here are a couple more desktop dictionary products (not sure if they all provide popup translations, but they were included in a recent survey of desktop translators used by Chinese Internet users - sorry, no online source available for the survey):

http://cidian.youdao.com/

http://soft.cn.yahoo.com/ly/index.htm

http://dict.hjenglish.com/client

Out of interest, that same survey showed Kingsoft Powerword to be the clear leader in the market with 74.2% market share, followed by Google/Kingsoft Powerword, Yodao, Yahoo Leyi, Lingoes, Babylon, hjenglish, Stardict and then others.

[Gleaves]

The MDBG Reader appears to be a rebranded Loqu8 iCE . Not that I really know anything about Loqu8. I gave the free trial a test run. It had a very clean presentation that I liked. The user guide is a pretty impressive overview, if folks are looking for details = MDBG Reader user guide. I couldn't see (or maybe I just couldn't find) most of the options in the free trial. The software appears to update itself with the MDBG database when you start it up. As I am a big fan of MDBG, I would love pop-up software to be constantly up to date with the online dictionary. But it seems to considerably slow down my cursor across many programs, which is a total deal-breaker for me.

As is, I placed my vote for Lingoes. I haven't tried all the programs listed, but Lingoes earned my vote for being free, fast, and having customizable font size (You can make it nice and big). So far, Lingoes works for me in Firefox 3, Mnemosyne, Notepad, and most Windows menus/folders. Unfortunately, it has not worked in Chrome, Anki, or Open Office.

[ABCinChina]

MDBG Chinese Reader looks very promising indeed! If they could have a function to edit or add submissions into their cedict database, that would be the topping on the cake! I looked at the pricing and $59 seems quite steep. On another note, they should change the tone numbers to tone marks because nobody works with tone numbers anymore.

[Luobot]

I looked at the pricing and $59 seems quite steep.

I agree. CEDICT is a great, free dictionary, but it's still not quite yet on the same level as the ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary, which Pleco offers for $59.95, by way of price/value comparison.

To get $59, I would need more value, such as the ABC dictionary in the popup, or possibly having a full offline version of MDBG thrown in.

On another note, they should change the tone numbers to tone marks because nobody works with tone numbers anymore.

Just call me, "Nobody xian1 sheng5"

The dictionary build should have it both ways, and the display should be based on a user selected preference setting (like ZDT).

Edited December 5, 2008 at 06:02 AM by Luobot
fixed my tone numbers

[flameproof]

I looked at the pricing and $59 seems quite steep.

Agree.

If I have Chinese text that I need to popup translate I paste it into Firefox and use Chinese Pera-kun - fast and free.

Lingoes is also not bad. Doesn't work anymore for me right now. Probably have to re-install it.

Wakan is also OK. He should design a slimmer version for for Chinese. But seems development has stopped altogether.

[ABCinChina]

I think MDBG Chinese Reader still needs some work. Here's my other comments so far after trying it out:

1. When adding/editing entries, MDBG opens IE explorer instead of my default Firefox browser.

2. Trying to cut and paste text from the popup translator is tedious. You must first add the word to your favorites, go to lookup, then right-click, copy, then paste to notepad to get the text you need. Perhaps grabbing the text from the popup window would be easier.

3. An optional English-Chinese or English-English dictionary can be added. Or maybe just a link to an popular free online dictionary where you would just type in the word in MDBG and it would bring up the link in your default browser. This would help greatly for us translators.

4. MDBG Chinese Reader seems to lag my cursor quite often when running tasks.

Edit: Actually MDBG is quite laggy even when nothing much is going on in the background. Whenever it is turned off then the cursor lag goes away. Definitely not something I would pay $59 for...

Edited December 6, 2008 at 05:22 AM by ABCinChina

[singlung]

i also tried mdbg chinese reader and i noticed the same with the laggy cursor.

wouldn't bother me to much though, but as i just started learning chinese i think having a popup translator will slow down my character learning a lot.

besides it is quite expensive, yeah. one thing really disturbing me were the windows balloon tips sometimes covering parts of the mdbg popup.

[mdbgdict]

Some users have been reporting a slow response when moving the cursor quickly around the screen. The latest version of MDBG Chinese Reader (v5.0.3.22 or later) adopts a self-tuning performance enhancement. This should eliminate any delay when moving the mouse rapidly. This fix has been incorporated into the trial and licensed versions of the software.

When MDBG Chinese Reader starts, accept the update to the latest version. Alternatively, download it from http://mdbg.loqu8.com/

To check the version number of your software, right-click on the MDBG icon in your system tray. Choose Help > About. It should be version 5.0.3.22 or later.

MDBG CR

Technical Support

[randall_flagg]

I am somewhat skeptical of mouse over dictionaries as they tend to make looking up a word too easy. I don't use them at all. With a mouse over dictionary, there is no more real incentive to learn the word -- you can just mouse over it. When I set out to study Chinese I always thought to myself: better learn it now or you'll have to look it up again x-times in the future. Memorizing characters for me used to be in part about saving time in the future.

Maybe this is the phobia of the lazy?

Edited December 13, 2008 at 09:57 AM by randall_flagg

[ABCinChina]

But you can always capture the words you want to remember by writing them down or by pasting them into your flashcard software program. Many mouse-over dictionaries let you save the words/definitions you want to remember and even if you don't, you'll eventually remember a word you mouse-over after seeing it a few times. But the biggest advantage of pop-up translators for me is the function of typing in a word I don't know to get an instant translation. It sure beats looking it up in a paper dictionary, don't you think?

[anon6969]

I'm having trouble finding a mouse-over dictionary to use with Anki:

Lingoes - doesn't seem to work with Anki

Powerword - all Chinese so can't figure out the options to set it up:S

Wenlin - can't do mouse-over translations

NJStart - doesn't seem to do anything?!

What do you guys recommend?

Edited February 4, 2009 at 10:37 AM by anon6969

[citambulos]

What is the favorite pop-up translator for Linux?

thanks

[ABCinChina]

I'm having trouble finding a mouse-over dictionary to use with Anki

I don't think there's any pop-up translator that works with Anki. Lingoes does work with Mnemosyne though.

What is the favorite pop-up translator for Linux?

I also think there's no pop-up translators that work with Linux. Anybody?

[flameproof]

What is the favorite pop-up translator for Linux?

Chinese Perakun will work in Firefox, no matter where.

I think StarDict has a MouseOver function too, I never installed though.

http://stardict.sourceforge.net/

[waiguoren]

MDBG works with ANKI. Actually it seems to work with 90% of all windows. Now if they would only fix that damn memory leak...

[hanxue]

What about on a Mac? What's the best pop-up translator and dictionary?

Here's what I know so far: WenLin can be used on Mac. I use NJStar through CrossOver though. Also, there's the Zhong Wen add-on for Firefox, but I recently switched to Safari. And besides, the pop-up thing may get annoying over a period of time because it often keeps popping up even when you don't want it to. I found some pop-up translation plugin for Safari called LiveDictionary, but it seems to have a really poor vocabulary base so I ditched it.

I also use the CEDICT (PY Pingguo) dictionary on my Mac; it's a neat dictionary, yet still lacking lots of 成語 and 2-character words/expressions. The good thing is though, that you can simply right-click on a word in your browser and look it up in the dictionary.

Any other suggestions?

[anthony_barker]

What is the favorite pop-up translator for Linux?

Wenlin running in Wine (works fine)

[JP Micco]

So what is the verdict on the MDBG Reader? I just got the freeware version and must say that I am impressed. Would any of those who have tried or used it actually recommend paying $59USD for it (or even $99USD for the Professional version)?

How does it compare to some of the other electronic dictionary programs mentioned in this thread?

[haton]

Hello all,

it's been a while since I last checked on the forum. Speaking of popups, the new version 2 of Pablo offers popup definitions, working in many programs.

And they come with Pablo's great search and navigation features, for the same great price (free, donations only).

Info and download at:

http://ehaton.blogspot.com

H.