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> I also want to try to bring this app to as many languages as I can, but I have to be able to source the necessary definitions from somewhere, and I've really

by yorwba 6y ago

> I also want to try to bring this app to as many languages as I can, but I have to be able to source the necessary definitions from somewhere, and I've really found that there's nothing quite like Jisho.org when it comes to their API. Many dictionary projects let you download a dump of all definitions that you can query locally. Actually, even jisho.org is backed by dictionary files sourced elsewhere, as stated on their about page https://jisho.org/about https://jisho.org/about . If you want dictionaries in a single format for as many languages as possible, you can try FreeDict https://freedict.org/downloads/#dictionary-downloads https://freedict.org/downloads/#dictionary-downloads but if you're looking for specific language pairs, they might not be covered there.

lrorpilla 6y ago
I have looked into other sources. From what I've gathered so far, the best thing I could do is to pick a very prominent dictionary format that many other formats can convert into with existing open source tools. Then, I would let users import their custom dictionaries themselves. This would reduce maintenance on my part while ensuring very broad support for a lot of languages. I'm thinking that a format like DSL should work out. Beyond my plans for more language support, I also want to extend the tap to select functionality to the other CJK languages, so I've been looking at text segmentation libraries I could port to Dart for Chinese and Korean. Otherwise, drag to search should work out for most languages, though a lack of deconjugation would get in the way. Jisho.org's deconjugation is why I query their site for definitions rather than just use their data sources -- I actually have a Chinese-English branch already working by scraping MDBG, but the owner explicitly disallows any scripted use of the site, so I can't release it. I really wish the websites for other languages were as scrape friendly.
- yorwba 6y ago
  MDBG, too, offers their data for download https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=cc-cedict https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=cc-cedict I think they prefer paying the one-time cost of a relatively small download over the continuous cost of performing a search every time a user of some other service wants to look up a word.

by yorwba 6y ago

lrorpilla 6y ago

I have looked into other sources. From what I've gathered so far, the best thing I could do is to pick a very prominent dictionary format that many other formats can convert into with existing open source tools. Then, I would let users import their custom dictionaries themselves. This would reduce maintenance on my part while ensuring very broad support for a lot of languages. I'm thinking that a format like DSL should work out. Beyond my plans for more language support, I also want to extend the tap to select functionality to the other CJK languages, so I've been looking at text segmentation libraries I could port to Dart for Chinese and Korean. Otherwise, drag to search should work out for most languages, though a lack of deconjugation would get in the way. Jisho.org's deconjugation is why I query their site for definitions rather than just use their data sources -- I actually have a Chinese-English branch already working by scraping MDBG, but the owner explicitly disallows any scripted use of the site, so I can't release it. I really wish the websites for other languages were as scrape friendly.

yorwba 6y ago
MDBG, too, offers their data for download https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=cc-cedict https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=cc-cedict I think they prefer paying the one-time cost of a relatively small download over the continuous cost of performing a search every time a user of some other service wants to look up a word.