Babylon is now a little erratic. You may want to change your default dictionary to something else. I find google translate and google dictionary the fastest and most reliable.
On the LingQ widgetgo to Dictionary (settings) and click on settings. Select the dictionary you want as your default and save it.
Maybe everyone knew that.
I think google is the best choice when translating phrases, not individual words.
For individual words, I largely prefer Hoepli’s dictionaries, which give you all their possible meanings. My spanish lingqs were done mostly with google and babylon, thus they are quite incorrect. On the other hand, my german lingqs have all been done with Hoepli and are of the best quality.
This being said, the “create new lingq” window is today much faster and more customizable than before. These are the little things that make you fall in love with LingQ.
I didn’t (or if I knew it once, I forgot it again). Thank you, I just reset mine to Google Translate and it’s working a treat. There’s quite a choice of dictionaries on the list!
Also, google dictionary is a good option as you get both the dictionary an translate in the same window. If you are on firefox (I don’t know about any other browsers), you don’t need to copy and paste either, but can just highlight and drag text from one window to another.
adalberto, you may not like google translate or prefer other dictionaries, but I find that the definitions I get from google are mostly accurate and helpful. I think people can use that dictionary with confidence bearing in mind that a dictionary definition is only a hint and a lot depends on context.
Thanks for another good suggestion. Overall, I like Google, but if I have any doubts about a word I will check other dictionaries. I also do Google searches on French words to see how they are used in online articles. I feel that helps me see how words are used in context.
I generally use dict.cc for phrases or if it’s not there, figure it out or skip it.
For the dictionary 90% of the time I use the definitions other people have put into Lingq. The other times I just use the default dictionary.
Sol, what is your default dictionary. We have Babylon as the default dictionary but it is behaving strangely with some languages.
Yes it’s Babylon.
I use it for German.
It tends to function okay.
Babylon, Google Translate, both are not very good from French → German.
I use my own bookmarklet that allows to use any dictionary of your choice, even it’s not offered within LingQ. You find some for French->German here: http://bit.ly/esoL7A
Here is how you do it for any dictionary
(here as an example “Le Conjugueur”)
IMPORTANT: any blanks in links must be deleted, that’s a problem of this forum.
First you need the URL for a dictionary query:
Le Conjugueur - query for AIMER:
http://mobile.leconjugueur.com/php5/index.php?t=P&v=aimer
AIMER is the word you query, this part must be deleted:
http://mobile.leconjugueur.com/php5/index.php?t=P&v=
Create a new bookmark in your browser, but first change XXXXXXXX in the following to the link in step (2):
javascript:{var%20url=‘XXXXXXXX’;window.open(url+document.getElementById(‘hint-form-column’).childNodes[1].childNodes[3].childNodes[1].childNodes[0].nodeValue.trim(),‘querywin’,‘width=800,height=800,scrollbars=yes’);document.getElementById(‘hint-form-column’).childNodes[1].childNodes[5].childNodes[6].focus();}
While creating or editing a “LingQ”, you may now use this bookmarklet in your bookmarks bar to open the dictionary entry of the current LingQ term. They work only if a “LingQ” with a term is visible, not in other situations or websites!
More about this (in German) - http://bit.ly/gB9IYI and http://bit.ly/esoL7A
You can change these Bookmarklets according your needs.
This is also interesting for language pairs that are not offered by LingQ.
I heard with regards to google translate that with any language exluding English to another (i.e French to German or Russian to Swedish) it isn’t reliable because google translates back to English. So for example, google doesn’t translate French to German but from French to English and then to German. There is an extra step.
@james123: I know that Google is doing a 2-step translation via English. That is the main reason being very often more or less useless for me.
PONS (a dictionary publisher in Germany) is very good and offers many dictionary pairs: http://pons.eu
Hape- I’m a bit lost at step 3 and am not sure about how to do it. Could you post a video, if it wouldn’t be too much hassle?
@James123:
You take the block beginning “javascript” … “focus();}”, remove all newlines (it must be one single line) in a texteditor, then replace XXXXXXXX with the URL of your favourite web dictionary without the query word and create from that a bookmark in your bookmarks bar.
Now you open a lesson and start creating a LingQ. Press the above created bookmark and voilà, you see the dictionary query in a separate window with the current LingQ-ed word.
Okay, I’ve removed all spaces in Microsoft word, added in the URL without the query and then pasted it to the bookmark bar onto my browser. I press on it when making a hint but it is still not working.