creating wordlists using wenlin

[Normunds]

Wenlin uses pretty good dictionary, and makes an excellent reading helper, but I cannot figure out how to use it to easily build wordlists. The closest I can come to is:

1) use select mode,

2) select word

3) rightclick, lookup

4) select entry in the dictionary lookup window, copy to clipboard

5) got to another window with your wordlist, paste

6) add separator tabs between entry and pinyin, pinyin and English translation

Attempt to pass through wenlin flashcards is no success as well. First it takes a bunch of clicks until you add the selected word. And then it saves only "entry" itself, not the lookup from dictionary, so you cannot use XML and parse it to some other format.

There are other good ways to obtain wordlists, say DimSum - paste the text, select tools... append definitions, edit out those you do not want on the list and you are set. Or doing lookup using Pablo dictionary soft that takes less clicks. However they both use CEDICT, not ABC dictionary.

Any ideas what is the most efficient way to get the wenlin definitions to mnemosyne or Anki?

[T-revor]

I think they do that on purpose. They've spent a lot of time putting together the best dictionary out there and I think they don't want people ripping it off. And for good reasons.

If you don't want to use an open source dictionary, you can use one of the nciku dictionaries. They are pretty good. Not sure if that would be fewer clicks for you.

If you wanted to make some compromises (not use Anki), you could store the word definitions as images. I use a screen-capture tool called SnagIt. Every time you want a definition, just press printscreen on your keyboard and select what you want portion of the screen you want to capture. It'd save the definition as an image which you could paste into Word to make a study list. Add clipmate (clipboard management software) and you'd have a pretty fast way of getting your definitions out for personal study. Clipmate allows you to copy, copy, copy, etc, and then paste all at one time.

Good luck!

[Normunds]

thanks for the idea. I can nearly imagine to try hook up some ocr soft that then goes and converts it back to the text - lots of bother :-/ Or maybe I can try to do something with autoit; another idea.

I do not think anybody could rip them off with just a little bit easier interface. Nciku is great and sometimes probably better than ABC. But you cannot use it as a pop-up dictionary IMO and it ties you to the internet. And once you pay a bunch for wenlin then you kinda feel entitled for a bit better UI than the freeware has. Alas... And I think a good expert who is determined enough or gets angry with them enough, could crack their dictionary.

If there were just a magical key combination to "freeze" the instant lookup pane while you go and copy the text out of there. No threat to precious ABC and convenient enough. It could be also useful for the cases when there is only reference in lookup pane... you get no smarter - no way to click on the reference arrow in instant lookup.

[Ole]

Any ideas what is the most efficient way to get the wenlin definitions to mnemosyne or Anki?

Pleco allows to import/export (Wenlin´s) ABC dictionary entries into txt or xml.

a xml-entry looks like:

<entry><headword charset="sc">翻译</headword><headword charset="tc">翻譯</headword> <pron type="hypy" tones="numbers">fan1yi4</pron><defn>v. translate; interpret ◆ n. ① translator; interpreter ② translation; interpretation</defn></entry><dictref dictid="PABC" entryid="1003438713"/><catassign category="New HSK Level 4"/></card><card language="chinese" created="1297716688" modified="1297716688"><entry>

hope that helps ...

Ole

[Normunds]

thanks Ole, I had looked at Pleco, because I had read something about Pleco, wordlists and ABC, but all I could see were their mobile products. Or by installing the mobile product you get also some part that's running on PC/Mac to do this kind of filling up of mobile wordlists? Which of their products allows me to do this?

I looked once more at their site and I still do not have a clue. They do not say a word about anything that's not mobile. Or maybe you mean I could get their app on my windows mobile phone, produce wordlists, upload to PC and convert to mnemosyne or anki format?

I have looked at XML of wenlin wordlists but there you get only the word/character itself not the translation. Frankly I have my reservations about over-using the wordlists, but I still find them helpful at some point. Maybe using freeware to easily generate wordlists of doubtful quality and use in parallel wenlin to go through texts so any discrepancies will show up... In fact I think CEDICT is rather large and helpful dictionary. It's not brilliantly edited, but that's understandable. I've seen only few occasions where I get the word in nciku, but not in CEDICT; but then ABC is also not ideal, so using at least two dictionaries to have a comparison is not a bad thing.

so many choices and none are fit for a really lazy person :-)

[imron]

Pleco is only for mobile phones, but it also has built in SRS if that's what you're after so you may not even need to worry about importing into Anki or Mnemosyne.

[Normunds]

thanks for the explanation, but then I do not see a link here.

I use wenlin as a reading helper. I get a new word and want to add to my existing wordlist on mnemosyne. Ok, not easy - get Pleco. Using Pleco will mean, taking my phone, looking up this word (that I already have looked up in wenlin), easily adding to the wordlist. Even if I discard my old mnemosyne decks and use Pleco as the principal SRS, this still does not bridge the gap between using wenlin and SRS, right?

Or maybe just buy NJStar - their dictionary is sometimes flaky and their character set misses some useful characters, but else it lets you create lists quite easily. I wonder, probably I cannot define ABC dictionary from wenlin to be used with NJStar, can I? Any experiences?

[imron]

Pleco also has a document reader :-)

[Normunds]

oh, ok, great. Means I also have to buy an iPad as I do not imagine reading much on phone. Not that it's such a bad turn. Maybe another excuse to buy an iPad. But this sounds to be a pretty fat solution for my current problem :-) I think I will still investigate wenlin+autoit way and see how much I can gain in efficiency. With this combo I might even be able to feed it straight from wenlin into mnemosyne.