Linguabot Chinese Dictionary

[scytale]

Hey everybody. I recently put together a new online Chinese-English dictionary: http://www.linguabot.com

It has an intelligent search interface, so you can look up words in English, Chinese characters, or pinyin all from the same text box without having to mess with any radio buttons or drop down menus. It features streaming html5 audio character pronunciation instead of flash so you can use it on an iPad or whatever. I also put the database together from a couple of different sources, including Wikipedia, so you can find words that aren't in most other dictionaries, like the names of famous songs or movies in Chinese.

I'd really like some feedback, so if anyone's interested, go ahead and check it out and let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Tom

[Safi]

Bookmarked! ;)

[abcdefg]

Who is the target user? If it is English-speaking Chinese learners, these strange English pronunciations are a waste of your time and effort. Even if they are intended for a Chinese user looking up the English, I doubt anyone could figure out how the English word is said from these symbols. Some of them are pretty strange:

张 [zhāng] -- sheet of paper -- ˈʃit ˈʌv ˈpeɪpɝ

让子弹飞 -- [ràng zi dàn fēi] -- Let the Bullets Fly -- ˈlɛt ðə ˈbʊləts ˈflaɪ

In the Chinese to English direction, as far as I can see, the pronunciation is only given for single characters, not words. For example: It's not possible to click on 发展 and hear fāzhǎn。 Instead you first click on 发 and get a fā， then you click on 展 and get a zhǎn. Perhaps programing constraints are such that getting both syllables together is impossible. I'm not a programer, just an end user.

I thought perhaps it would excell with Chinese street slang and vulgarisms, but it did not. Won't post my "test" words, since I've been told this is a "family rated" forum. On contemporary stuff, it did have 让子弹飞。But to be really useful, that entry would have a link to something about the movie, not just a word for word translation of the title.

Am underwhelmed. Cannot see it replacing any of the tools I already use. Furthermore, it's on-line only. I often work off-line.

[scytale]

...these strange English pronunciations are a waste of your time and effort. Even if they are intended for a Chinese user looking up the English, I doubt anyone could figure out how the English word is said from these symbols.

The symbols used for the English pronunciation data come from the International Phonetic Alphabet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IPA_for_English This is one of the more recognized standards for the transcription of English phonemics, and it is used by several organizations; for example Wikipedia, and the Oxford English Dictionary.

Right now the English pronunciation data is something of an afterthought, but adding it to the database from the beginning will make things a lot easier on me if I decide to create a Chinese version of the site.

[abcdefg]

The symbols used for the English pronunciation data come from the International Phonetic Alphabet: http://en.wikipedia....IPA_for_English This is one of the more recognized standards for the transcription of English phonemics, and it is used by several organizations; for example Wikipedia, and the Oxford English Dictionary.

I see. I was ignorant of that system. Maybe the project will evolve over time. I do like the easy user interface.

[Ole]

I do like the easy user interface.

I like that too.

[sukitc]

Thanks. Very easy to navigate.

[Hugh]

This makes me think of Google. Just a plain page with a smart search box. Looks very good. Is the pinyin auto-generated? I noticed some errors (e.g. giving xíng for 行 when it should be háng). Anyway this looks very cool Seems to load pretty quickly as well which becomes very important for an online dictionary (it's why I use MDBG over nciku despite nciku having more features). I'd say one essential that it lacks is handwriting recognition, but that's pretty hard to get right. Could it also have radical lookup? Currently it has no way to look up a character you don't know other than guessing the pinyin. The song and film title entries are cool as well. +1 from me.

[abcdefg]

I noticed some errors (e.g. giving xíng for 行 when it should be háng).

That's not an error.

[Gharial]

Just going by the two entries posted here, I'd say they need to 1) be more comprehensive or supply better definitions and/or part of speech labels (张 by itself doesn't mean even just 'sheet of paper'), 2) if possible supply traditional as well as simplified forms, at least as head entries, and 3) have the Pinyin checked for tones, and if possible made to conform to the following guidelines (so "zi dàn" should really be the [tonally correct] conjoined/whole Pinyin word zǐdàn): http://www.pinyin.in.../zyg/rules.html

Regarding the 'xíng for 行 when it should be háng', obviously any dictionary should be indicating both pronunciations and usages, in separate but linked (i.e. 'see also') entries.

Regarding the IPA, the use of /i/ for the vowel sound in 'sheet' conflicts a bit with the phonemic inventories used in learner dictionaries (e.g. http://www.ldoceonline.com/howtouse.html , in which /i/ is given as e.g. the last phoneme of 'happy', which is a bit too indeterminate in length compared to /i:/ versus /ɪ/); that is, in somewhat rude ELT "minimal pair" practice the long ("colon-ized") /i:/ of ʃi:t would likely be contrasted with the short /ɪ/ of ʃɪt (just like Ship or Sheep? LOL! http://www.amazon.co...10518349&sr=8-1 ). And ʌv (or in Brit English ɒv ) seems more like the strong form of 'of', whereas the usually weak/unstressed form uses instead the "schwa" symbol/phoneme (i.e. əv): http://www.oxfordadv...m/dictionary/of

[richwarm]

East Asia Student wrote

I noticed some errors (e.g. giving xíng for 行 when it should be háng).

and abcdefg replied

That's not an error.

银行 is yínháng and it would be an error if it were written yínxíng.