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HappyPeng2x / SumatoraDictionary

An offline Japanese dictionary for Android.
GNU General Public License v3.0
22 stars 1 forks source link

[Feature Request] Add Japanese to list of definitons #10

Open sG4ZvHrf opened 4 years ago

sG4ZvHrf commented 4 years ago

So, I think it would be really beneficial for Sumatora to add an option to display definitions in Japanese.

The program currently supports English, German, Russian, Spanish, Dutch, Hungarian, Swedish, Slovenian and French, and I think Japanese would make a great addition for a program that's supposed to be a Japanese dictionary.

I am a bilingual and know how to speak Japanese and English. I often use Sumatora for definitions because I know some words in English but not Japanese (and vice versa), and because the UI + offline mode is simply great. (Also, I am not aware of any opensource Japanese dictionary programs. This thing is such a lifesaver)

However, I often feel like there are times when reading the definition of a word in Japanese would be more educational (because it encourages the user to recursively search for Japanese terms they don't comprehend) and simply better much of the times because the nuance of a Japanese word is, well, obviously better expressed using Japanese.

HappyPeng2x commented 3 years ago

Thank you very much for appreciating the app, it means a lot to me.

I think this is a great suggestion indeed and I would like to do it.

The issue holding me back is that JMdict is the dictionary I use and it does not include Japanese definitions, so I need to find them elsewhere and convert them so they can be added.

If someone knows a suitable open source Japanese-Japanese dictionary it would be helpful. I just found this one http://pddlib.v.wol.ne.jp/japanese/index.htm but I didn't look at it in details yet.

sagehane commented 3 years ago

Hello, I'm the guy who originally opened up that issue (I made a new account). Is there any reason why the Wikitionary can't be used? It's under CC BY-SA 3.0, right?

Also, I tried looking for other things, but I honestly couldn't find anything compelling (aside from that one you linked). I guess Japan doesn't really appreciate open source utility.

Humorously, I did find a list of dictionaries that became public domain due to the copyright expiring. The newest one is from 1936, and certainly not relevant or fit for use.

HappyPeng2x commented 3 years ago

Hello, I'm the guy who originally opened up that issue (I made a new account).

Thanks again for caring.

Is there any reason why the Wikitionary can't be used? It's under CC BY-SA 3.0, right?

It is indeed good idea.

To make it work I will need to find which word in the Wiktionary (or any other dictionary) corresponds to which entry in Jmdict, which is not fully trivial to do (if matching is done automatically based on readings and writings there can be mistakes), though not impossible.

Until now in Sumatora I provide the interface and Jmdict is used "as is", so I will need to work on combining contents as well from now on.

Also, I tried looking for other things, but I honestly couldn't find anything compelling (aside from that one you linked). I guess Japan doesn't really appreciate open source utility.

I don't think that is necessarily true as a generality, as the Sudachi tokenizer and unidic dictionary are both active Japanese open source projects, but for definitions it is true that I couldn't find any other active project either.

Humorously, I did find a list of dictionaries that became public domain due to the copyright expiring. The newest one is from 1936, and certainly not relevant or fit for use.

Indeed.