Tom Motoyoshi Kalland <tmk@infeline.org>, 2007-01-22 18:40 +0900:
> On Jan 22, 2007, at 18:13 , Raphael Mazoyer wrote:
> >> I'd like to use a regular number, and I'd also like it to have a
> >> Japanese-English dictionary.
> >
> > Casio's W42CA for au features a phone-based dictionary. (Then again,
> > it's that enormous water-proof and scratch-proof model, not sure your
> > girlfriend will enjoy its look.) The interface is in Japanese. I
> > imagine other Casio/au phones might feature it as well.
>
> The au phones won't work in Canada. As for dictionaries I think most
> au phones have the above,
On some (or all?) of the Au handsets that have that dictionary,
the actual dictionary data is provided on an SD card. You can't
use the dictionary without having the SD card installed. Or
potentially I guess you can use a variety of dictionaries by
swapping out SD cards (though the only dictionary I've personally
seen that works with the dictionary app is the one on the SD card
that ships with the handsets).
> however I've only found the phones from Sanyo to provide the
> dictionary feature built into the input-system (atok or
> whatever it is).
I think all the Au handsets with the dictionary UI and that ship
with the J<->J/J<->E dictionary have always (since the first such
ones came out -- a year and half or more ago now) had some degree
of integration with the input-method editor.
> It makes it a lot more usable when you don't have to copy and
> paste it into a dictionary application.
Right -- you don't have to close the e-mail app in order to look
up a work in the dictionary.
> For example; you're typing a mail in Japanese. You enter a word in
> hiragana, and the phone pulls up a bunch of different kanji
> suggestions and you can't remember which one has the right meaning.
> Just select one, and click dictionary and it displays the English
> meaning. You can also write the word in English, and have it insert
> the Japanese word, etc. Also works so that you can highlight text and
> then query the dictionary - great if you receive mails beyond your
> kanji skills.
Yeah, that's how it works across the different handsets that have
the dictionary UI -- e.g., there's a "look up this word in the
dictionary" item on the right-hand contextual submenu in the IME
whenever you use the copy/cut command to select any text; after
you look up a word it returns you from the dictionary back to the
IME and to whatever text (e.g. e-mail message body) you were
inputting when you launched the dictionary to look up the word.
> Does any other phones have this?
The Au Toshiba handsets all have it as well. I think others too,
though I can't remember which. I don't know what non-Au handsets
may have something similar.
But as nice as the integration of that dictionary with the UI on
Au handsets is, it's an extremely limited dictionary. I don't know
what dictionary source it's based on or how many words it has, but
it's not a large dictionary.
At times when I really need to get a good definition and usage
examples for a particular word, I launch the Au PC Site Viewer and
go to the ALC/Eijiro site:
http://www.alc.co.jp/
There's also a subscription-based mobile-optimized (WAP) version
of that you can access from the EZWeb browser, but having a full
Web browser on the handset that lets you get to the normal
Web-based version (the same one you can access from your desktop
PC) kind of obviates the need for using the WAP version.
Of course that lacks the IME integration that the built-in
dictionary app has, but the Eijiro dictionary probably has 50 or
100 times as many words in it as that built-in dictionary.
--Mike
--
Michael(tm) Smith
http://people.w3.org/mike/
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Received on Mon Jan 22 13:25:55 2007