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IPad vs. Kindle | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6432 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 33 of 67 11 April 2011 at 7:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
I just recently (within the past month) purchased a Kindle 3, and unfortunately, the dictionary situation is still the same. I assumed that I could just go to amazon.com, buy a decent target language <--> English dictionary, set it as my primary dictionary, and be ready to go. That's not the case. You can change your primary dictionary, but the available dictionaries are, frankly, pretty awful. I was able to install a hacked together German dictionary that someone mentioned here on the forum, but it's clearly a "pieced together" type of thing, not a professionally compiled dictionary. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5306 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 34 of 67 11 April 2011 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
That depends on the languages that you're interested in. The Kindle can read MobiPocket dictionaries, and Mobipocket still offers a number of dictionaries though mostly for English and the most common Western European languages. Another often overlooked feature that English learners might find helpful is the integrated English text-to-speech feature.
Mobipocket offers an ebook version of the PONS Professional Dictionary English, Volume 2: German-English (AKA "Großwörterbuch Englisch für PDA, Smartphone und PC") with about one million headwords that works fine on the Kindle, if you select it as the lookup dictionary. However, some advanced PDA lookup features such as wildcard search won't work. Edited by Doitsujin on 11 April 2011 at 7:42pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Guests Guest Group Joined 7362 days ago 0 - 22 votes Logged on | Message 35 of 67 12 April 2011 at 10:46am | IP Logged | |||||
There could actually be a case for getting a PC based tablet computer, where you could install popup dictionaries. This kind of functionality is sort of blocked on the iPad right now, except through webpages. Edited by cocochen on 12 April 2011 at 10:46am | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6568 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 36 of 67 12 April 2011 at 11:44am | IP Logged | |||||
Well, I've almost got this functionality on my iPhone, with Mandarin. QingWen is a dictionary app that automatically looks up any word you've got in your clipboard. So to look a word up, all I need to do is select it, copy and switch to QingWen (very quick now that there's multitasking). It's not a popup dictionary, but it's close. For dictionary apps without automatic clipboard lookup it's a bit slower, of course, since you need to paste the ord, as well. But surely there are pdf readers with integrated dictionaries for the iPad, no? Edited by Ari on 12 April 2011 at 11:45am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dmaddock1 Senior Member United States Joined 5419 days ago 174 posts - 426 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Esperanto, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 37 of 67 18 April 2011 at 10:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As a former Kindle2 owner and current iPad2 owner I thought I chime in with my 2 cents...
Adding foreign dictionaries is possible on the Kindle, but not that useful in practice. If you're studying Spanish or French then you can probably find a professionally done dictionary that parses inflections, etc. Otherwise, you're stuck trying to roll your own, which even if you are successful, won't work great without the parsing information or usable unicode interface. Unfortunately, iBooks has the same problem. (Here's a link for the techies to add custom dictionaries to iBooks.) However, I found the iPad's PDF support so far beyond the Kindle's. So learners outside of the "big four" can take solace in PDFs from Google Books which display fantastically. Also, iOS supports non-english keyboard layouts and 3rd party dictionary apps mentioned earlier. (I must give props to Lexidium and Lexiphanes, Latin & Greek dictionaries respectively.) I also hated that the Kindle won't display unicode characters in title & author fields even though it clearly has the fonts since the book content can be unicode. The one and only thing that I preferred on the Kindle is that the display did not emit light. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Leftcoaster Diglot Newbie China Joined 5017 days ago 22 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Russian | Message 38 of 67 19 April 2011 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't know if this is too off-topic, but if you decide on buying an iPad it might be best to wait for the next version due out this fall. The iPad2 is great (certainly works for me) but its more of a 1.5 rather than a true 2.0 upgrade. I would imagine that the iPad3 will be the real 2.0/3.0 upgrade. However, in terms of language learning the iPad2 should cover most everything you would want, waiting for the iPad3 is only worth it for the extra non-language learning features.
Of course you could wait for the iPad3 to come out and then snap up an iPad2 at a lower price ;). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5116 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 39 of 67 19 April 2011 at 6:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
But couldn't you say that about any piece of technology? There's ALWAYS going to be a better version around the corner. If you're waiting for a better version, you'll never be satisfied with what you've got. If it fits your needs today, buy it. It's always going to be outdone by the next version anyway. If it doesn't fit your needs today, look for another product that does. R. == 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Leftcoaster Diglot Newbie China Joined 5017 days ago 22 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Russian | Message 40 of 67 19 April 2011 at 7:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
Quite true. If you have a pressing need and given that "the next version will always be better" then go ahead and get what's currently available. However, I've noticed with Apple products that they tend to alternate the 1-1.5 (more like 1.2) products with the true 2.0s. My brother and I ran into this when we bought our first iPhone and iMacs (respectively). I waited for the Core Duo 24-inch iMac and have a machine that will fulfill my desktop needs for at least the next couple years. He waited until a bit before the 3GS and ended up upgrading anyways. These may be different product lines but to a certain extent the principle does hold true. Basically, not all upgrades are the same, some truly expand the envelope and others just rectify the problems encountered in version 1.0. I would be especially hesitant to pick up an iPad2 simply because it is the second offering in an entirely new product line. In this case, it is always best to wait for the third one out simply because the second model is usually a bug fix/minor hardware upgrade. The trick is to wait until you can get stable, error-free (relatively;)) model with a good mix of features, power, and expandability. If you expect to use your iPad for more than just language learning then I would recommend biting the bullet until the next model comes out (and the iTouch/iPhone works great too). You will likely get a significant feature/hardware upgrade along with your bug fix. From my experience the iPad 1 and 2 do provide a good range of options for language learning but the iPad3's accompanying price discount for older models can make these a slam dunk against options like the Kindle. Of course, this post and my previous one only apply if you are set on getting an iPad. If you aren't sold on it, then definitely look at what's out there and weigh your immediate need versus the cost, continuity, and features available. Edited by Leftcoaster on 19 April 2011 at 7:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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