In our recent survey, the thing that was most requested was an improved dictionary. We have been working to improve our dictionary functionality and we launched some significant improvements today.
You will now see a “Dictionary Settings” link above the Babylon translation in the LingQ widget on the Lesson page. If you want to use one of our “Other Dictionaries” as your default dictionary or if you would like to change dictionary language, you can do so in the Dictionary Settings. Give it a try.
Also, please tell us all your favourite dictionaries. We are now able to add them much more easily and will try to add as many dictionaries as we can. Would you like to see a language combination we don’t offer? Send us a link to a web dictionary that does.
New Front Page Design
We have also upgraded our front page design. It’s quite similar to the previous design but it’s been spruced up a bit! We hope you like it. Of course, you members will have to logout first in order to see it.
logout? I never logout… even though i have been lingqlazy lately (I moved).
anyway, the dictionary settings is a GREAT tool. I know many people here in Japan who have told me that they refuse to use Lingq because they dislike the Babylon dictionary. It is the most common complaint that I get, to which I tell them it doesn’t matter, and to use their fancy electronic dictionaries they have in their hands. But alas, they just don’t get
If you can hook the Japanese people learning English up with an option to use the ALC dictionary (http://www.alc.co.jp/) I am sure that you will have many more satisfied customers.
these dictionaries are also popular among Japanese people:
“Dictionary settings” is really a great tool, although my wife misses ABBYY Lingvo, what she liked to use for translation to Russian. Could this dictionary be available again?
Certainly you had a reason to make the entry “Log in” so small, somebody might get troubles to find it.
Thanks Val, for those dictionaries. We will try to add those in right away. If it’s possible to add them, we are now able to do it quite quickly with these new changes we made.
Jurgen,
You can tell you wife we will be adding Lingvo back hopefully today. Also, if there are other dictionaries that are good for any language combinations, please tell us so we can add them.
I’m not sure what you mean by the Login box. On the home page the Login area is in the top right corner.
but it might be very similar to Val’s suggestions, I haven’t checked.
My favorite is WordReference for any language due to the interactive community element (similar to here to some ways). Unfortunately Japanese is not yet well supported.
Leo for German <–> English, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese
Lingvo for Russian <–> English, German, French, Italian, Spanish
Goo for Japanese → English
ALC for Japanese <–> English
Dict.cc - German <–> English
The other suggestions are going to require more effort and may not be possible to add.
Hi Mark, the Russian dictionary (Lingvo) now works perfectly; it didn’t before (only by pasting in the word form). Thank you for adding leo-dictionaries. Could you please add Lexin Swedish-English dictionary again? http://lexin.nada.kth.se/cgi-bin/swe-eng
Great improvement!
Nevertheless, I tried to set my dictionary to wordreference (French > English) but it is not returning any meaning to me. When I go back to babillon, then there are some translations, the same ones I usually got before.
How about adding Google Translate to Chinese->English (any language combination really)? Right now the only two options I have is Babylon and Wordreference, none of which provides any results for most of the words I’m saving nowadays.
Does anybody know of any other good online Chinese->English dictionary, possibly with pinyin+tones?
I’m happy to be able to use ALC’s English-Japanese dictionary in LingQ system.
I always used to open ALC’s site in another tab and typed phrases manually when I couldn’t find them in Babylon (and that would happen frequently). It’s really neat and stress-free that I don’t have to type them again any more.
Thanks Mark, for the great work!
And also, thank you Val for suggesting the addition of ALC dictionary.
Hi,
Still a problem. When I lingq a word in Spanish and want to have the French translation, it doens’t works but the dictionnary (babylon) give me the translation in English. It’s not very convenient.
Cecile,
Is there another dictionary you would rather use, one that is better for French speakers? Please let us know and we will try to add it to the list.
Hello Mark,
I was already very happy of the previous English-Italian dictionary options.
Now I miss Google Dictionary that provides both translation and phonetics.
Would it be possible to have it back?
Thanks for all
We have no control over what Babylon shows. Usually, if you scroll down you can find the Spanish-French translation. Make sure to click on Dictionary settings and check the French is the Translation language you have set. Also, if you are unhappy with Babylon, you can switch to a different default dictionary.
Monica,
I have added Google Dictionary back for Italian-English.
