I know we have many readers of this forum who aren't native English speakers. I encourage each of you to start a similar "dictionary challenge" in the forum of your native language. It would be great if all of the dictionaries on this site could be improved, not just the English ones!

I have a question about the mechanics of the vortaro, then. Does each language have its own Esperanto word list? Or is the Esperanto word list shared amongst all the languages?

If it's shared, then I would think we would want to use the Esperanto abbreviations for transitivity, since it wouldn't make sense to see English abbreviations when looking up the translations of, for example, German words. Whereas if English has its own Esperanto word list mapped to it, then using "intr" is probably OK.

On the other hand, from a sort of "purist" point of view, one could make the argument that the Esperanto word list should be entirely Esperanto, including any abbreviations. Even for beginners, the learning overhead for the two abbreviations would be pretty low. Personally, I don't favor one way over the other, but figure it's a question worth raising in the interests of doing things well.

Also, my own feeling is that periods (as in "tr.") clutter up the text without adding any real value, and so would suggest that we don't use them (subject to discussion, of course).

I agree that we ought to add the "to" in front of the English verbs.

In adding transitivity information I think following the Plena Vortaro de Esperanto using (tr) and (ntr) is good.

On those looking up an English word to get Esperanto translations, I would still hold to the PIV format. They are looking these words up to then delve into the world of Esperanto and so I would not think it to be too confusing for them, but would rather give them a consistency, especially if they are going back and forth between the dictionaries.

The next issue is looking up an English word with multiple Esperanto translations. Here I think we could easily keep the same format placing the (tr) and (ntr) after each translation. It will appear consistent across all translations wehrever they occur.

This last would also make the (tr)/(ntr) consistant across shared languages as well. I think it makes for less confusion.

And finally, I agree with RiotNrrd that we should not make use of the periods so (tr.) / (ntr.) becomes simply (tr) / (ntr).

Just my du stelojn de penso.

RiotNrrd:I have a question about the mechanics of the vortaro, then. Does each language have its own Esperanto word list? Or is the Esperanto word list shared amongst all the languages?

The Esperanto word list is shared among all languages.

I don't think this is what Doĉjo was suggesting, but I want to explain a couple of things about the dictionary and make sure everyone is clear on how this works.

I do *not* advise adding transitivity information to the core Esperanto words (the ones shared among all languages), at the very least, not without getting approval from the teamo.

In other words, we have the Esperanto-Nacilingva dictionary [for which the vortaro has a ton of Esperanto words programmed in and shared among all nacilingvoj]. And we have the Nacilingva-Esperanto dictionary [completely separate from the Eo-Na dictionary, not linked at all, separate word lists].

In the Na-Eo dictionary, the words are programmed in in English, and we provide Esperanto translations. In the Eo-Na dictionary, the words are programmed in in Esperanto (and shared among all nacilingvoj), and we type in English translations.

I would not feel comfortable touching the Esperanto words that are shared [Eo-Na dictionary], with the sole exception of adding words to the database. I don't want to mess with that formatting as a unilateral decision of our community.

We can add information to our definition that indicates transitivity of what was looked up. For example, if someone looks up "rompi" in the Esperanto-English dictionary, I don't want to change that base word that comes up to "rompi (tr)". Rather, I think the user should see "rompi", and the English translation should say something like "to break (tr)" or "to break [something]". In limited confusing cases, you could even write an annotated translation like "to break (note that the English word is both transitive and intransitive, but the Esperanto word is transitive only; to break [something])

Or else, we could keep our same notation, and just "hop" the transitivity notation from the base word to the definition.

Therefore it would appear in the lernu vortaro as:
rompi
(tr) to break

Whereas in the other direction we would have:
break
rompi (tr); rompiĝi (ntr); rompo

With exceptionally confusing words, it may also be good to add additional notation, keeping in mind that beginners use this site. That would be:

break
rompi (tr) [to break something]; rompiĝi (ntr) [to get broken]; rompo [a break]

erinja:
A second style suggestion - if we have an English word with multiple Esperanto translations, we will need to indicate transitivity of each one. I suggest that we indicate transitivity only once if the transitivities are hte same for all translations, and multiple times if different translations have different transitivities.

For example:

to mix: miksi (tr.); miksiĝi (intr.)

But:
to travel: vojaĝi; veturi (tr.)

Or do you think it should be repeated for each word regardless?

to travel: vojaĝi (tr.); veturi (tr.)

In my view, the second approach is better. In first part of the vojaĝi/veturi example, someone might assume that only veturi was the transitive verb. For beginners, this could lead to confusion. So, I suggest we should mark each verb separately, or give some stronger indication so that it is clear that all the verbs which follow are transitive (or intransitive as the case may be).

RiotNrrd:
Also, my own feeling is that periods (as in "tr.") clutter up the text without adding any real value, and so would suggest that we don't use them (subject to discussion, of course).

This discussion makes me think of a deeper problem. As a college professor, I constantly see how poorly my students understand even basic grammatical concepts. I'm sure the vast majority of the population (and probably a significant portion of lernu users) wouldn't know the difference between an intransitive and a transitive verb. So for many users, having those abbreviations would themselves be a confusion. What the heck are those tr. things that keep popping up?

I suggest a "How to use the Lernu dictionary" tutorial page be developed. It could be linked under (or right above) the dictionary, and it could include brief explanations of any possible points of confusion. For example, it could explain what various abbreviations mean with a couple of examples for clarification.

On the tutorial page, it might also be good to have a

"Cant find the translation for the word you're looking for?" button that would send an email to the team. That way general users could submit requests for words that need to be translated.

If other people think this idea of a dictionary tutorial is a good one, we can also discuss what other things should be included.

erinja::
If you have translation rights, when you log in to lernu, you should now see a link to "Adminejo" next to "My lernu!" on the top menu bar. Click on that and choose "Vortaroj" from the menu that drops down.

Just a quick note in case anyone else has the same problem I did. Lernu is set to log me in automatically (or keep me logged in I'm not sure which). But in any case, I did not see the Adminejo link until I logged out and manually logged back in. It might have been a fluke, but I thought I'd mention it in case anyone else has this problem. It seems easy enough to fix.

erinja:There are two hundred-some untranslated words in the "meza vortaro". And the "tuta vortaro" has a ton of untranslated words.

There are less than 10 words still untranslated in the meza vortaro now. Progress!

Some of the remaining ones are a bit strange:

[LISTO]
teumante - maybe if I knew what the heck teumi meant.
montokalva - if I'm not mistaken, Montokalva is the name of a fictional location in Piron's novel Ili kaptis Elzan. The word doesn't make much sense literally, although monto kalva (two words) refers to a mountain without vegetation cover.
ŝipkuro - some sort of idiom for veturi ŝipe ?
monforte - I think this is an error in the dictionary. The Eo-Italiano dictionary gives monforte as violentemente, but obviously violentemente should be perforte.[/list]

trojo:

[LISTO]
teumante - maybe if I knew what the heck teumi meant.
montokalva - if I'm not mistaken, Montokalva is the name of a fictional location in Piron's novel Ili kaptis Elzan. The word doesn't make much sense literally, although monto kalva (two words) refers to a mountain without vegetation cover.
ŝipkuro - some sort of idiom for veturi ŝipe ?
monforte - I think this is an error in the dictionary. The Eo-Italiano dictionary gives monforte as violentemente, but obviously violentemente should be perforte.[/list]

teumi is to spend time drinking tea. So "teumante" would be "while drinking tea".

monforte appears to be an Italian family name, or part of the name of a town in Italy

montokalva - I would translate that exactly as you state, the name of a fictional location in a book, and with a literal place name meaning of "bald mountain" (I think most people can guess that that would be a mountain without vegetation cover)

I would translate "ŝipkuro" as the running of a ship (running in the sense of fast movement from one place to another, which is among the definitions of "kuri" found in the reta vortaro)

BTW try googling words you are unsure of. "teumante" comes up a lot online. It's often mentioned together with "kafumante", so that makes it a little easier to guess the meaning through context.

Regarding monforte, I would be just as happy to leave that translation behind, I think.

All of the remaining words have translations in Italian already. I don't speak Italian, but sometimes I can recognize words that are cognate with words in Esperanto or Spanish (which I speak a little of). Maybe someone who speaks a little of the Italiano can help us out.

teumi is to spend time drinking tea. So "teumante" would be "while drinking tea".

Translated.

monforte appears to be an Italian family name, or part of the name of a town in Italy

Hmm. Is the Eo-It definition for this in error then?

montokalva - I would translate that exactly as you state, the name of a fictional location in a book, and with a literal place name meaning of "bald mountain" (I think most people can guess that that would be a mountain without vegetation cover)

Ok, just wanted to make sure. I translated it and also capitalized it (so now it's Montokalva in the dictionary).

Strange that it would be considered a mid-level word.

I would translate "ŝipkuro" as the running of a ship (running in the sense of fast movement from one place to another, which is among the definitions of "kuri" found in the reta vortaro)

The Italian vortaro gives this as "regata" which is Italian for "regatta", a (competetive) ship-race, according to Wikipedia. Shouldn't the Esperanto term be "ŝipvetkuro" then?

BTW try googling words you are unsure of. "teumante" comes up a lot online. It's often mentioned together with "kafumante", so that makes it a little easier to guess the meaning through context.

Oops. I had tried googling "teumi" and "teumo" and got a whole lot of nothing.

Oh yeah, another resource for this effort is the Esperanto Wikipedia. Its language usage generally isn't as polished as (for example) Reta Vortaro's, but it goes more into depth sometimes and covers some specialized and technical stuff that other resources might not.