this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
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F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy to browse, install, and keep track of updates on your device.

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Aard 2 - Offline dictionary app (f-droid.org)
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I started using it last year and I think others would benefit from knowing about it too.

Offline dictionaries(based on data from wikipedia, wiktionary etc.):
https://github.com/itkach/slob/wiki/Dictionaries

I use the Wordnet and SimpleWikipedia dictionaries along with the one for the Wiktionary in my native language.

Going on a tangent about the dictionaries(you can skip this if you're currently not interested on that):

They had a Malayalam dictionary, which was quite awesome for me, as I'm a Malayali. The dictionary is based on ml.wiktionary.org from 2021. Maybe there were not too many additions for the effort to make a new one.

The code for creating the dictionaries are also available in their github. I tried it out, but I'm on Opensuse Leap currently and installing couchdb seems tricky.

I also saw a python package, Pyglossary, which helps to convert dictionaries between opensource formats.

Wikipedia provides monthly dumps of zim files(used in Kiwix, another dictionary app. Not available in F-droid).
https://dumps.wikimedia.org/other/kiwix/zim/
I was able to use Pyglossary to convert those into slob files and use them.
So might be an easier way to get slob files, if slob files of Wiktionary or Wikipedia in your language are not available. Or if you want to update them. Data scraping is also avoided.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Something that I've wanted from a dictionary app for a while is the ability to add custom definitions for words that I may not have a dictionary for.

For example, I am told by a friend that the Finnish word "pimahtaa" means "to go ape shit". I don't plan on learning Finnish, so I don't need a whole Finnish dictionary.

Another less isolated example is how when I was learning Attic Greek, I wanted to build my own personal dictionary from the ground up, where the only words in it would be what I had learned and added myself, also allowing me to add new words.

It feels like a fairly simple problem to solve, but I'm not sure what to search for, I wonder if you have any advice, OP?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

I'm a big fan of this app as well. It is my favorite dictionary app at the moment. I'm using the English Wiktionary database. I've tried QuickDic and Poet Assistant, but I prefer Aard's UI.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

One of the best apps out there.

I use the english wordnrt and the greek wiktionary provided by their github page.

It's good for 4 uses:

  1. Translating words (whatever language to greek with wiktionary)

  2. Explaining words (english to english with wordnet or greek to greek wit wiktionary)

  3. Cheking the conjugation of various words (with wiktionary)

  4. Helping me with spelling for words I have hard time (using both wordnet and wiktionary)

The fact that it is online makes it much much faster than anything else. (In the past I would search them on ddgo and it would take time.)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The fact that it is online

Offline, right?

It is very cool.

The english wiktionary file is quite large. Are there other smaller versions?
Wordnet is pretty good, so asking just to know if there are other dictionaries.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Offline, right?

As long as you set Load remote content to never😅 (I think when this is turned on it loads stuff like images and such from wikipedia etc. which take unecessary cache space, so I leave it off).

About the english wiktionary, oi.. it's huge (for comparison, the greek one is ~200mb).

I don't know if there's a less complex version available anywhere.. Maybe try creating an issue on aard2 github page. They seem to be active in general (btw, they also run an ftp server where they store ~all the dictionaries you see on github of multiple verions.) Also take a look here on the other projects, maybe you'll find something useful (I'm taking a look at it now).

As an extra topic, have you managed to convert wordnet dictionaries to .slob from pyglossary? I have found some ancient tools on github, but never made it (possibly you need to code some stuff).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I haven't tried it with the wordnet dictionaries.

There seems to be an Wordnet2Slob github repo by the maintainer of Aard2.
https://github.com/itkach/wordnet2slob/

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I don't get it. Is this for translating words or an encyclopedic dictionary. I need a translating one.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Both. Wordnet does english to english (it provides description and really lots of synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, derived related forms), while wiktionaries can translate whatever language to the language of the wiktionary you've downloaded and it provides you description, congugation, synonyms etc.

You can even download the wikipedia dictionary separately which downloads all the articles of wikipedia of a specific lamguage locally to search them with the app.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Uhh, thanks a lot for that explanation. I'll try installing some wiktionaries then.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Maybe look at galnet too:

https://f-droid.org/packages/gal.sli.digalnet/

That one is totally offline and is a simple translation dictionary. I use it and Wiktionary on a browser tab regularly.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

How is this with Japanese because I'm currently learning it and would like to check this out

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

They have a Japanese wiktionary slob file. I don't know Japanese, so not sure what the actual content is, but it seems to have definitions of both Japanese and English words in Japanese.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I'd love to use it but I think it's too difficult to set up

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

The extra part is for making/updating slob files on our own.
You can directly download the app and pre-made dictionaries for it are available.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

What language do you want?

You have to download the dictionary (I'd suggest both wordnet and wiktionary, they have a page with links to each type of dictionary here), put them in a specific directory, open aard2 and add them to the list of dictionaries.