iBooks built-in dictionary look-up - Chinese dict?

[hbuchtel]

I just stumbled upon the built in dictionary look-up feature in iBooks. The option comes up when you select a word in a book.

Unfortunately it does not have a Chinese-Chinese or a Chinese-English dictionary, and I wasn't able to find any related options in the settings.

Is anybody more familiar with how to use this? Is it possibly to download other dictionaries for use by iBooks?

[mikelove]

There does not appear to be a way to do this at the moment - we've filed a few bug reports / feature requests on the subject but haven't heard anything back so far. There might be a way to do it on jailbroken devices, though - stands to reason they'd use the same format as Dictionary.app, or something similar to it.

[hbuchtel]

Thanks Mike. I would be using the Pleco document reader as I usually do, but in this case I only have the file in ePub format, which does not seem to be supported.

[Areckx]

Does anybody know of any alternate apps for iOS that read epub files that have a cn-cn and/or cn-en dictionary capabilities?

Or in the least, an in-app link that looks up the selected text in an app that you have installed? iBunko does this with daijirin/daijisen for jp-jp.

Also, pleco is the best cn-en dictionary, but what are some good cn-cn dictionaries for iOS that you know of? baike.baidu is great but it's internet only.

Also alternatives to baike??

[imron]

Also, pleco is the best cn-en dictionary, but what are some good cn-cn dictionaries for iOS that you know of?

Pleco also has a great cn-cn dictionary, and which of its cn-en dictionaries are you talking about when you say it's the best?

[Areckx]

I'm aware that pleco uses multiple dictionaries, including unihan, but the interface itself is what I like best.

[waiman]

For those losing hairs over how to set up a dictionary (e.g. Chinese) other and default English, here is how I managed to get things working on iPad iOS6 and iBooks 3. There is no need to switch the system language to Chinese . Before continuing, ensure you have WiFi connection.

1. Look for a free Chinese ebook (ePub format) and upload it to your Dropbox folder.

2. Use iPad Dropbox app to access the Chinese ePub book just uploaded.

3. Use the Open-in function in Dropbox to open the ePub book (the icon on the top-right corner of Dropbox app).

4. Choose the Open in IBooks icon. This will copy of the ePub book to your IBooks local bookshelf on your iPad.

5. Once the ePub book is opened in iBooks, highlight a Chinese word to look-up in the dictionary (Choose "Define" to look-up word in dictionary).

6. At this point, iBooks will prompt "Would you like to download a dictionary now?" - This being that the word in not in the local dictionary yet. If it does not prompt you, look for another ePub book.

7. Click on "Download Dictionary". If your WiFi is not turned on, it will prompt you to do so.

8. Watch the download progress bar in action. It maytake a minute or two depending on your WiFi connection speed.

9. When the download is completed, the Chinese word highlighted earlier in the dictionary is displayed - Voila!

In this case, the dictionary downloaded is a Chinese-Chinese dictionary. Good thing is that the PinYin is shown in the look-up to help in reading the word.

To search for a Chinese-English translation, click on "Search Wikipedia" in display box of the dictionary. It will look up the word in Wikipedia. If this word is not found in Wikipedia and then click on "Wikitionary" form the list of sister projects (listed on the right-side of the page).

Voila again! You now have the word defined in Wikitionary, with explanation in English, pronunciation in Mandarin and other useful information.

I believe all of the above also works for other languages besides Chinese!

I have got screen grabs of the steps successful captured as well.

Best of luck for your attempts with other languages dictionaries

[radioman]

Hey Waiman,

Using iBooks, It is unclear to me about downloading the file. I loaded a Hanzi based ePub formated document, and when I select Chinese characters for dictionary lookup, it says it cannot find the word. Then it gives me options to:

1) look up on the web, or

2) look up on wikipedia.

No option to download a different dictionary on iBooks.

Specifically I want a Chinese to English dictionary. And it is interesting that I have found that with the Kindle iOS application, there is an option for Chinese to English Dictionary download. However, that is not the case for the Kindle App on my Android device (Nexus 4), as only English to Chinese is available (among others).

I would love to use Pleco (and probably will anyway). However, I really like the feature of being able to move between devices and have the bookmarks ported, like on the Kindle app (between iPad, iPhone, Nexus 4, etc).

Insights appreciated.

[waiman]

Radioman,

Not sure if you followed exactly steps 1, 2, and 3 as I had described. In other word, don't open then ePub book directly from iBook, but through Dropbox - Open-In function.

Also, if the word that you highlighted in the opened ePub book does not show a "Define" Option, it may be that this ePub book is not compatible to iBook look-up dictionary features. Just go to another site to download a different ePub book and try again.

I had to try about 3 ePub books before I got the option to download the Chinese dictionary when I highlighted a word to look up for.

Hope this helps.

[gato]

I posted about the Duokan book reader app here. You can consider it as an alternative:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/37821-ipad-textpdf-reader-apps-that-include-built-in-chinese-dictionaries/#comment-303260