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Definitions for other languages #27

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chinese-words-separator opened this issue Feb 16, 2024 · 2 comments
Open

Definitions for other languages #27

chinese-words-separator opened this issue Feb 16, 2024 · 2 comments

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@chinese-words-separator
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chinese-words-separator commented Feb 16, 2024

Review from Chrome web store:

It's very convenient for learning. As a Japanese person, it's a bit inconvenient that the translation is in only English. It would be even more convenient if there was a way to change the language of the dictionary. Since the popup dictionary when I hover over a word is in English, I would like to change it to Japanese or another language. Is there a way to do that?

The only bundled language in this Chinese dictionary is English. If we will bundle definitions in other languages to Chinese words separator (e.g., Japanese, someone requested Thai before), the extension will become bloated

One such example is Inkah, it has both Chinese to English and Korean to English dictionaries bundled. A typical Chinese to English-only dictionary (e.g., Zhongwen, Zhongzhong) is around 5 to 6MB only in file size. Inkah comes in 27MB file size

CWS's file size is 36MB as it also bundles calligraphy strokes animation. Had I not included the calligraphy functionality to CWS, CWS's file size will hover around 10 to 15MB only. The calligraphy animation file size is half of the CWS's whole file size

Another problem with bundling other languages will be the operating memory of the extension. Inkah's operating memory is around 75MB. CWS's default operating memory is at 108MB, but that is due to other added functionalities, e.g., HSK information, word separation information, and CWS has 180K Chinese to English definitions, while Inkah (most Chinese to English dictionaries for that matter) has 120K Chinese to English definitions only

I optimized CWS, it can now be made not to operate with high memory of 108MB, its operating memory will be decreased down to 26MB if the user will opt to offload the dictionary from memory to database, this can be done by clicking the Save the dictionary to database in CWS's setting screen

Currently, CWS's file size is 36MB, and its (default) operating memory is 108MB. If we will bundle other dictionary like Chinese to Japanese, or English to Japanese, CWS's file size might be bloated to 50 to 70MB, and its operating memory will be around 150 to 180MB. If we bundle other languages to CWS, the feedback by the future users of CWS will be is that CWS has big file size and that it's a memory hog

For what it's worth, here are the operating memory of other popular Chinese to English dictionary:

Zhongwen: 42MB
Liuchan: 82MB
Inkah: 76MB
Zhongzhong: 46MB
CWS: 108MB (this can be made to just use around 26MB only, by saving the dictionary to database)

Zhongwen (Chinese to English) file size: 5MB

the developer of Zhongwen created Chinese to French Chrome extension dictionary separately, its file size is 4.7MB

Had the developer of Zhongwen bundled Chinese to English and Chinese to French dictionary together in one extension, the extension's file size will be at 10MB, its operating memory will balloon from 42MB to around 80MB

Most Chinese to English dictionary's data comes from CEDICT project

The data of Chinese to French version of Zhongwen comes from CFDICT

There's no CJDICT (Chinese to Japanese dictionary), see related projects in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEDICT. There are only Chinese to English, Chinese to French, and Chinese to German

If I found where to get the data for Chinese to Japanese dictionary, I might create a Chrome extension for it, but it will be made separately. I don't want to bundle it to Chinese words separator; as browser extensions with big file size and with high operating memory, might discourage learners from trying out the extension

There's a mechanism to get Japanese definitions from Chinese words separator, but it might not be as accurate as the manually-crafted English definitions for Chinese made by CEDICT volunteers, since the mechanism will just rely on the built-in translator of Google Chrome. The Japanese definitions will come from English definitions which will be translated to Japanese by Google Chrome

To do that, right-click the page, then select Translate to (your native language here). Initially the native language on my machine is English, so it's Translate to English

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After selecting Translate to English, you can change it to other languages by clicking the vertical ellipsis

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Then select other language, e.g., Japanese

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Then when you hover over the Chinese word, the definition will be in Japanese instead of English:

image

Likewise, CWS's Parallel Text will be in Japanese too:

image

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Here's a step-by-step guide how to use Parallel Text: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Poz4Lc-eQH0

@chinese-words-separator
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chinese-words-separator commented Feb 16, 2024

After changing Chrome's translation to Japanese, the future translation will default to Japanese. e.g.,

image

@karpalig
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karpalig commented Apr 1, 2024

I think suggestion is add another dictionaries. Like *.dsl in goldendict

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