Translator Application

[redblade8]

Instead of having to buy a translator, why not make an application that uses rockbox's .lng files to translate words/phrases? This would be very useful for people immigrating , or people going to other countries. I would like to see this application , it would prove to be very useful .

   Thankyou!
     

[Llorean]

Look at what's actually in the .lng files. They're not at all useful for translation of anything other than the exact phrases in the English version of Rockbox, and even then, only in the same context as Rockbox since many of them aren't literal translations.

[redblade8]

Ah...I see, thanks. A translator application would still be useful however. Think it could be done?

[Chronon]

Sure, but we already have a dictionary plugin that can take user supplied dictionaries:
http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/PluginDict#Sources_for_dictionary_files

Is there a different functionality that you want or possibly functionality added to this existing plugin?

[oayz]

Sure, but we already have a dictionary plugin that can take user supplied dictionaries:
http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/PluginDict#Sources_for_dictionary_files

Is there a different functionality that you want or possibly functionality added to this existing plugin?

Yes, actually dictionary can work as a translator, even multilanguage one - just replace "description" with the traslation. Both input and output languages should use the same font, most probably unicode.

To make it real good would be a feature to "say" translated word. It seems to be quite straight forward to implement. Just need a MP3 file and a time code for this particular word.

This could be also a phrase book, isn't it?

[redblade8]

'Is there a different functionality that you want or possibly functionality added to this existing plugin?'

So right now ( I have 3.6 ) the newer releases of rockbox have the dictionary plugin, and it can be used to translate words? Is it all built in so you can translate between any language? If all the languages to translate for the dictionary are not all built-in maybe they can? All I need right now is word - by -word translating , phrase translation could be helpful though.

- I agree with oayz, a function to 'say' a translated word--- don't want to mispronounce something so that it means something else. Dictionaries usually come with a pronunciation word so... that is also a possibility instead of saying a word. Like how sample would be ' sahm-puhl ' so you don't mispronounce the word. 

- Maybe the lrc player could be added to the wps screen, you could have something like subtitles, translating the song at the bottom of your screen. ( or just keep it in the subtitles in the original language of the song, or have it turned off for songs in your own language . ) This is a whole different thing from the dictionary though...but maybe the lrcplayer could use the dictionary to translate the songs and show subtitles , I am not sure how that would work.

[Chronon]

No.  It isn't built in, but you can convert existing dictionaries (i.e. word lists with corresponding entries) into the necessary format for the plugin and use the dictionary plugin with those.

You either need to have a text-to-speech engine (I tend to wonder how reliable this would be) or record audio clips for each entry.  Neither of these is included in the present plugin.

Your last paragraph would require two things:
1) Ability to run/display plugins inside of viewports
2) The ability for plugins to call other plugins

Neither of these things is possible right now.

[redblade8]

'You either need to have a text-to-speech engine (I tend to wonder how reliable this would be) or record audio clips for each entry.  Neither of these is included in the present plugin.'

- What about the text option? Beside the name of the word , you could have the pronunciation of it.
Like Sample - {Sahm Puhl} etc, for any word. It would take quite a bit of work to do however...

Ah...well, I will just hope for the day that rockbox has a built-in dictionary that can translate between any language, and  I will try to get the current dictionary plugin up and running to see if I can translate some things...

'convert existing dictionaries'

You mean compile? Hmm... I guess I am going to have to learn how to do this.


'Your last paragraph would require two things:
1) Ability to run/display plugins inside of viewports
2) The ability for plugins to call other plugins

Neither of these things is possible right now.'

It would be useful though, so I guess all I can do is hope for the best for now,  or... learn how to code myself and do it.

[evilnick]

'convert existing dictionaries'

You mean compile?

No. He means convert: http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/PluginDict#Creating_a_dictionary_file

Also from that page: "The input format for rdf2binary is very simple at this moment. It's one line per word, starting with the word, then a tab and then the description. The only thing you should be aware of when creating this files is that they must be in alphabetical order, and all words should be in lowercase."

So you could, by all means, add the pronounciation to all the words in a dictionary file, but you're right that it'd be a lot of work! Maybe there's some source of that information on the web in a free format?

[[Saint]]

Ah...well, I will just hope for the day that rockbox has a built-in dictionary that can translate between any language, and  I will try to get the current dictionary plugin up and running to see if I can translate some things...

Unless you're going to do the work yourself, I would not hold my breath waiting for this to happen if I were you.

The way the current implementation of Dict.rock works also, it is not actually possible to achieve this. You will need seperate disctionaries for each language you wish to translate between.
For example:

English - Afrikaans
English - German
English - Spanish

The "English" takes the place of the .index and the "<Insert other language here>" will be the .desc

It won't be possible to translate from English (or any other specific language) without having separate dictionaries for each language or combining all possible translations into one massive dictionary (in which case you wouldn't be able to tell it to translate a word in any given language, the best you could do is query a word and have the dictionary return all possible translations from all possible languages).

Not to mention the fact that it would be a massive task to make a dictionary that included all possible queries (the .index file) and translations (the .desc file) by hand, and it would need to be done by hand. It would also be incredibly large (_{<speculation>}possibly exceeding the limits of the plugin_{</speculation>}).
The WordNet Prologue 3.0 Dictionary works out to be ~23MB in total for English alone (.index and .desc files inclusive).

The other reason I would not hold my breath for this to happen is the fact that the license for the WordNet Prologue 3.0 (and lower) is not compatible with Rockboxes license, so it cannot be offered as a part of the build (it is far too large to ship with the Rockbox binary anyway).
If the license was indeed compatible, it would already be available on the Extras page.

Your best bet would be to painstakingly (and, it would be a truly massive and tedious task) create a dictionary by hand for your own use.



[St.]