Dict Applications

Some tips about dictionary applications...

Infos

Sources of dictionaries

A good source of freeware Bilingual dictionaries based on French is FreeLang
But they work only under Windows.
Check e.g. on the French-English page, you'll find a link to a similar website based on English, same for Spanish.

http://www.babylon.com/display.php?id=141&tree=5&level=2#1005
http://xdxf.revdanica.com/down/
http://stardict.sourceforge.net/Dictionaries_dictd-www.dict.org.php
apt-get install babytrans-dic-engtofre

Others (to be checked)

Links for the relationship between languages and charsets

Dictionaries programs under Linux

Dict & Freedict

dict: /usr/share/dictd

apt-cache search dict-freedict

To use dictd I had to hack a bit in /etc/init.d/dictd:

OPTIONS="--locale fr_FR"
start-stop-daemon --start --quiet -o  -c dictd --exec $DAEMON -- $OPTIONS

Apparently dict & dictd don't support yet correctly UTF8

Stardict

Stardict (mirror here).
Stardict is an offline dictionary program running under Gnome, a Windows port exists as well.
Very good support of UTF-8, searches and on-the-fly scanning

apt-get install stardict stardict-tools sdcv

Get some dicts at http://stardict.sourceforge.net/Dictionaries.php and move them to /usr/share/stardict/dic (most are already packaged for Debian, check first!)
For pronounciation database, you can take WyabdcRealPeopleTTS rpm on http://stardict.sourceforge.net/ and use alien.
Stardict needs esd daemon to run to play sounds.

Automatic American<>English<>Canadian "translators"

VarCon
VarCon (Variant Conversion Info) contains tables to convert between American, British (both "ise" and "ize" spellings), and Canadian spellings and vocabulary as well as well as a table listing the equivalent forms of other variants.
Respell
A tool to convert English text from one spelling system to another. At present, there are spelling files for american, british, and canadian spellings.

Others

I used wordtrans but now I'm using Stardict

apt-get install wordtrans-qt

Try maybe also "serpento"?

My own conversion scripts

dict(e.g. Freedict) to Stardict

Utility to convert installed dict (e.g. freedict) packages into stardict versions:

#!/bin/bash

# Converts dictd files to stardict files
# Usage: ./dict2stardict.sh dict1_basename dict2_basename2 ...
# Example: ./dict2stardict.sh freedict-hun-eng freedict-eng-hun

# Copyright Philippe Teuwen <phil à teuwen.org>
# License: GPLv3 or later
# Version 0.92

# Should we install dict files?
# Values are: local/deb/none
#       local: install files in /usr/local/share
#       deb:   create a Debian package (to be installed)
#       none:  leave files here
INSTALL_STARDICT_DEFAULT=deb
INSTALL_STARDICT=${INSTALL_STARDICT:-$INSTALL_STARDICT_DEFAULT}

TEMP_DIR="./stardict-temp"

if [ "$*" == "" ];then
    echo "Usage: $0 dict1_basename dict2_basename ..."
    echo "Detected dict dictionaries:"
    ls /usr/share/dictd/*.dict* 2>/dev/null|sed 's/^.*\///;s/\.dict.*$//'
    ls ./*.dict* 2>/dev/null|sed 's/^.*\///;s/\.dict.*$//'
    exit 1
fi

prefix="dictd_www.freedict.de_"
starprefix="dictd_"
###########################################################################
function dict_to_stardict {
    local FILE="$1"
    echo "Convert $FILE to stardict format..."
    local word=`/usr/lib/stardict/dictd2dic $FILE 2>&1 | grep wordcount | cut -d " " -f 2`
    if [ ! -e "$prefix$FILE.dict.dz" ]||[ ! -e "$prefix$FILE.idx.gz" ];then
        echo "Error in conversion! ($word words)"
        echo "Abort!"
        exit 1
    fi
    mv "$prefix$FILE.dict.dz" "$starprefix$FILE.dict.dz"
    mv "$prefix$FILE.idx.gz" "$starprefix$FILE.idx.gz"
    echo "       $word words"
    local size=`zcat "$starprefix$FILE.idx.gz"| wc -c`

    cat << EOF > "$starprefix$FILE.ifo"
StarDict's dict ifo file
version=2.4.2
wordcount=$word
date=$(date "+%Y.%m.%d")
author=$AUTHOR
email=$EMAIL
description=$DESCRIPTION
website=$WEBSITE
idxfilesize=$size
bookname=$starprefix$FILE
sametypesequence=m
EOF
}
###########################################################################

mkdir -p "$TEMP_DIR"
cd "$TEMP_DIR"

while [ "$1" != "" ]; do
FILE="$1"

    if [ ! -e "../$FILE.dict.dz" ];then
        if [ ! -e "/usr/share/dictd/$FILE.dict.dz" ];then
            echo "File /usr/share/dictd/$FILE.dict.dz not found!"
            echo "Did you install dict-$FILE package?"
            exit 1
        else
            cp -L "/usr/share/dictd/$FILE.dict.dz" .
        fi
    else
        cp "../$FILE.dict.dz" .
    fi
    if [ ! -e "../$FILE.index" ];then
        if [ ! -e "/usr/share/dictd/$FILE.index" ];then
            echo "File /usr/share/dictd/$FILE.index not found!"
            echo "Did you install dict-$FILE package?"
            exit 1
        else
            cp -L "/usr/share/dictd/$FILE.index" .
        fi
    else
        cp "../$FILE.index" .
    fi

    echo "Uncompress..."
    dictunzip "$FILE.dict.dz"

    if [ ! -e "$FILE.dict" ];then
        echo "Error uncompressing $FILE.dict.dz!"
        echo "Abort!"
        exit 1
    fi
    AUTHOR=
    EMAIL=
    DESCRIPTION="Converted from a dictd"
    WEBSITE=
    dict_to_stardict "$FILE"
    rm "$FILE.dict" "$FILE.index"

case $INSTALL_STARDICT in
    local)
echo "Install stardict files..."
sudo mkdir -p "/usr/local/share/stardict/dic/$starprefix$FILE-2.4.2"
sudo ln -s "/usr/local/share/stardict/dic/$starprefix$FILE-2.4.2" /usr/share/stardict/dic
for i in dict.dz idx.gz ifo ; do
    sudo mv "$starprefix$FILE.$i" "/usr/local/share/stardict/dic/$starprefix$FILE-2.4.2"
done
    ;;
    deb)
PKG="stardict-dictd-$(echo $FILE|unaccent UTF-8)"
PKG=${PKG//_/-}

VERSION="1.0-1"
ARCH="all"
FULLPKG="${PKG}_${VERSION}_${ARCH}"
DEST="/usr/share/stardict/dic/$starprefix$FILE-2.4.2"
mkdir -p "$FULLPKG$DEST"
mkdir -p "$FULLPKG/DEBIAN"
for i in dict.dz idx.gz ifo ; do
    cp "$starprefix$FILE.$i" "$FULLPKG$DEST"
done

SIZE=$(du -ks "$FULLPKG"|sed 's/[^0-9].*$//')
cd "$FULLPKG"
find . -type f -not -path "DEBIAN"|xargs md5sum|sed 's/  \.\//  /' > DEBIAN/md5sums
cat <<EOF > "DEBIAN/control"
Package: $PKG
Version: $VERSION
Section: text
Priority: extra
Architecture: $ARCH
Depends: stardict
Installed-Size: $SIZE
Maintainer: Anonymous <anonymous@web>
Description: Stardict version of a dictd dictionary
 This package contains a Stardict formatted dictionary
 converted from a dictd dictionary.

EOF
cd -
dpkg-deb -b "$FULLPKG"
if $DELETE_TEMP; then
    rm -rf "$FULLPKG"
    rm -f "$starprefix$FILE.dict.dz" \
        "$starprefix$FILE.idx.gz" \
        "$starprefix$FILE.ifo"
fi
echo "Debian package created and left in $TEMP_DIR"
    ;;
    none)
        echo "Files left in $TEMP_DIR"
    ;;
    *)
        echo "Error: unknown installation method $INSTALL_STARDICT"
        echo "Assuming no install"
    ;;
esac

    shift
done

dict (e.g. Freedict) to Wordtrans

(old scripts)

#!/bin/bash
# Exemple: dict2wt.sh freedict-eng-hun.dict.dz
 
 if [ "$1" == "" ]; then
     echo "Syntax: $0 dict-file.dict.dz"
     exit
 fi
 
 FILE="$1"
 FILEOUT="${FILE%%.dict.dz}.wt.gz"
 
 zcat "$FILE" \
 | gawk '
     /^00-database/      {
                             do getline;
                             while ($0 !~ /^$/);
                             next;
                         }
     /^     /            {
                             gsub(/^     /,"");
                             print word " :: " $0;
                             next;
                         }
     /^$/                {
                             word="!!!";
                             next;
                         }
                         {
                             word=$0;
                         }' \
 | gzip > $FILEOUT

Put the converted dicts in /usr/local/share/wordtrans
For wordtrans: remove spaces in filenames!
For converted dicts: " :: " is the separator & files are UTF-8