Greetings all,

In response to numerous requests, I've added a simple regular expression search function to the ESPDIC (Esperanto-English Dictionary)project.

The search tool can be accessed either from my main Esperanto page or using the following (low-overhead) link

ESPDIC Search

It's still very much a BETA (in fact, it's my very first PHP program), but I plan to update it with additional features over time.

Update : the search tool now support the "cx, sx, etc" input method: you can type either ŝanĝi or sxangxi.

Amike,

Paul

If you want low overhead on your main site you may want to look into reducing the file size on that 2.2meg image you have on the right hand side.

Thanks for ESPDIC though. I'm thinking of using it as the default single-word translator tool for the Esperanto bot on Freenode.

Thank you, Paul. The search feature is very useful.

tommjames:I'm thinking of using it as the default single-word translator tool for the Esperanto bot on Freenode.

Nice idea. It's great that Paul lets everyone download and use his dictionary.

I hope the Lernu team also makes the Lernu dictionary freely downloadable at some point. Yes, it can be linked to at the moment, but it would be great to be able to download it for use in e-readers etc... It's an open project depending on volunteers (such as me), so I think it should be freely downloadable.

Paul, your dictionary has a huge number of entries! In the notes, you mention that one other person has helped you edit it (at least to a certain extent), but it seems that you have done most of the work yourself so far - that's a massive task! I'm saying this from my experience of editing the Lernu dictionary - it's a long, slow process... Every time I pick up a dictionary to compare it with the Lernu entries, I find a whole load of words that need adding/editing. How long were you working on your dictionary before you first published it in 2011?

tommjames:If you want low overhead on your main site you may want to look into reducing the file size on that 2.2meg image you have on the right hand side.

[laughs] Just brought it down to 140K.

Chainy:Paul, your dictionary has a huge number of entries! In the notes, you mention that one other person has helped you edit it (at least to a certain extent), but it seems that you have done most of the work yourself so far - that's a massive task! I'm saying this from my experience of editing the Lernu dictionary - it's a long, slow process... Every time I pick up a dictionary to compare it with the Lernu entries, I find a whole load of words that need adding/editing. How long were you working on your dictionary before you first published it in 2011?

I was compiling words in notebooks when I started studying Esperanto back around 1985, but they didn't exist in electronic format until about 2008 or so. As you mention, the biggest challenge in compiling a dictionary is the editing : the very first once-through (at about 25,000 words) was somewhat painful. I've written some tools (in Perl) that are intended to catch the more serious formatting errors, duplicates, etc. but I still find typos to this day. Michael Everson (who released a print version of ESPDIC) also gave the dictionary a once-through and caught several hundred typos, etc. as well, so I'm sure there are plenty left if anyone wants to give it a try

Ultimately I'd like to get the dictionary up to 60,000+ entries. One of the ways I'm (very slowly) doing this is by checking ESPDIC against the PIV (Plena Ilustrita Vortaro). According to my tools, there are over 20,000 (!!!) entries in PIV that are not in ESDPIC, although many of these are things like proper/place names and the names of plants/animals. If I could knock out 50 a day (not likely to happen), this would be done in about a year. I'm also planning to cross-check ESPDIC against Wells, Butler, etc. at some point.

But the real core of ESPDIC is my own reading in Esperanto : any time I see a word or (especially a) phrase that's new to me, I write it down and add in into ESPDIC. It doesn't yield huge numbers of entries at this point (maybe a few hundred per release), but it's much more enjoyable than simply typing in vocabulary. I should probably note that I *never* add my own coinages/constructions into ESPDIC : I only enter words that I see/hear/read other people using. At some point I'll likely write a script to "Google" every entry in the dictionary and flag for manual review anything that gets less than, say, 1000 hits.

Although I own (literally) hundreds of paper dictionaries, I think incrementally edited electronic dictionaries offer huge advantages over their printed cousins, and ESPDIC is my attempt to contribute to the electronic dictionary community.

Sorry for the dissertation ... it's a subject near and dear to me

Amike,
Paul

pdenisowski:If I could knock out 50 a day (not likely to happen)...

Yes, that would be pretty good going! Sometimes I can add/edit words quite quickly in the Lernu dictionary as they seem pretty straightforward. But often I find myself checking in Vortaro.net, ReVo, Kondratjev, Wikipedia, Tekstaro etc just to check that a certain entry is really correct. This slows things down a lot.

I generally use Wells as a base, but often it gives no clear indication as to how a word should be used, and I don't just copy from it without consideration. And of course, the Lernu dictionary often already has entries for words that don't match exactly those found in Wells etc, so I end up investigating these words, too.

One word leads to another, one question to another, and before I know it I find I've only actually added a few new words, having spent most of the time reading round.

Chainy:I generally use Wells as a base, but often it gives no clear indication as to how a word should be used

I actually have both the old Wells and new Wells (my review at Esperanto-USA) and I think it's the most user-friendly Eo-En-Eo dictionary out there. Butler is more complete (in my opinion), but harder to use and long out of print.

One area that I'm really trying to emphasize with ESPDIC (especially because it is lacking in Wells) is usage and common phrases. For example, if you search ESPDIC for kelka you get :

antaŭ kelkaj jaroj : several years ago
antaŭ kelkaj tagoj : a few days ago, some days ago
de post kelkaj semajnon : for the past several weeks
dum kelka tempo : for some (period of) time, for a while
dum kelkaj horoj : for several hours
en kelkaj maloftaj okazoj : on rare occasions
kelka : a little, some
kelkafoje : a few times
kelkaj : a few, any, some, several
kelkaj homoj : some people
kelkatage : for a few days
kelkatempa : temporary
kelkatempe : for a (short) time, temporarily

Whereas the new Wells only has kelk/a : some; ~aj some, a few; tridek~jara thirty something (years old). It may have other examples elsewhere with "kelka" but they're not all collected in one place (much easier to do electronically, I grant).

Knowing common expressions and how to use words in context is, in my opinion, an important step in learning a language, and I'm hoping to facilitate this with ESPDIC.

Amike,

Paul

Thank you for this. It might prove to be helpful for me usage wise (or usage-wise or usagewise?)

I like simplicity.

Quick update : I merged in some entries I was working on and managed to cross the 60,000 entry threshold today.

http://www.denisowski.org/Esperanto/ESPDIC/espdic_...

Amike,

Paul