🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sat, 5 Aug 2000 00:02:17 +0100, "David Hammond"
<davidjhammond@lineone.net> wrote:

>I'm sorry, but what does this do, translate German to German?

Yes. "Duden" is a brand name, like "Merriam-Webster".  They actually
have shelf full of language reference books, including a picture
dictionary, etymological dictionary, style books, etc..

I think what Franz is looking for (as am I) is a simple standalone
software dictionary which explains the meaning of German words in
German.  In my case, I'd be happy with one that explained German words
in English, German, French, or Spanish, so long as it had an adequate
vocabulary and provision for adding words, preferably from a word
list.

Of course, there are quite a few of these floating around as shareware
and freeware, but none have the scope of a top line reference
dictionary like the printed  English Merriam-Webster or Oxford.  Since
Micro-Tac and Globalink got swallowed up by L&H a few years ago, all
of their commercial software dictionaries (Language Assistant,
Power-Translator, etc.) have been discontinued.,  They weren't that
hot anywqy, but  at least the last versions of Power Translator came
with a number of technical dictionaries included.

For people with easy and fast WEB access, free WEB translation sites
have filled the gap (and probably killed the market for standalone
software).  Babylon has put another nail in the coffin by providing
free English to whatever translation.

The most promising German dictionary software I've seen recently is a
freeware/shareware deal called "Quicksomething"  ("Quickdict" maybe? I
lost the reference in a system crash).   But the freeware program has
only 100,000 words, and must be reregistered every 6 months.  The
commercial version has 500,000 words, costs $40-$50(?) and isn't
available as shareware.


Trouble is, the 100,000 word version won't tell you anything. I've got
a Franklin  German-English electronic dictionary based on the Pocket
Collins. It claims 250,000 words, and is far too limited, possibly
because it counts the words coming and going (ie. it may really have
only 125,000 each of English and German words, the documentation
doesn't say.). I supplemented it with a Franklin German Thesaurus
which claims 300,000 words, consisting ONLY of lists synonyms and
related words (ie. no definitions, no antonyms, no explanations or
categories.), and even with this reference, I very often strike out
when trying to find a rarely used word, such as technical terminology
or hunting terms.    

For example, take the fairly common English verb "to gut" , as in
cleaning a fish, or field-dressing a game animal.,  The only English
synonym I could find was "eviscerate".  I tried both on the Franklin,
and got no verbs for "gut", and no entry at all for "eviscerate".

I had a recollection that the German word I was looking for was
"entweiden", so I looked for it and related words, such as "Geweide""
Eingeweide", "Darm", "Gedaerm"( for the noun "gut (s)") in the
Franklin Thesaurus and in a large German print thesaurus. But couldn't
find any terms for "gutting".  The Larousse French-German print
dictionary under "eventrer" gave me an ambiguous answer with "to slice
open the stomach"  or (hunting) to empty ("ausleeren").  I finally
found the word in the Cassell's German-Egnlish print dictionary under
"gut", as "ausweiden".

I then went back to the electronic Franklin German-English dictionary,
and "ausweiden" drew a blank, just as "eviscerate" had done. It was
listed in the Franklin thesaurus, but not linked to any of the nouns
for "gut(s)" I had looked up. I also found it in the German print
thesaurus, again not linked to any of the obvious words.


Not a very encouraging experience for someone needing quick and
comprehensive German reference help.   

Clearly, this is a perfect example of a word that would benefit hugely
from the cross-referencing abilities of a PC.

   
Unfortunately, WEB translators and mainframe machine translation
services seem to have killed the commercial market for top-notch
stand-alone dictionary  software.  I think the only way this will ever
become available is through some co-operative open-source effort using
a standard entry format so that many individuals can contribute to the
work and the vocabulary can be easily augmented. 

Does anyone here know of such a project in German or any of the other
major languages? 




>
>"Franz Steinhaeusler" <franz.steinhaeusler@utanet.at> wrote in message
>news:398b15e9.6844769@news.utanet.at...
>> hello,
>>
>> i'd like to find a german-german dictionary (like duden) software.
>>
>> (as equivalent to wordweb, which is excellent)
>>
Strange, I went to wordweb.com, and also to webword.com, and couldn't
find any links to German translation.  What's the URL you're referring
to?

Achim








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