Dictionary upgrade necessary?
I have noticed that the available dictionary on SpanishDict is lacking a few words that I know of. Namely "frufrú" (Spanish) and "peacemaker" (English). Has anyone else noticed missing words, and if so which ones? Is it time for a dictionary upgrade? Is it possible? I have been forced to use another site to look up words once in a while, and I would just as soon stay here on this site and use the dictionary available.
14 Answers
I was always curious if they lease the dictionary here or straight up bought it from some company or what... I was always curious about the audio for each word as well. What a pain if someone had to sit there and read the dictionary out loud into a mic 
From my understanding the dictionary is an on going process. There are many mistakes in it which get corrected by the site operators when found I have seen. These vary from missing words to wrong definitions to missing conjugations. It is a great dictionary but not the All Knowing and Powerful Oz. I am sure they would love to improve it so reporting errors would be optimal.
Out of curiousity I checked my decent paper dictionary here at home for "frufrú", and it didn't have that word either.... :(
I too mainly use the spanishdict dictionary as my main dictionary and would love to see it 'upgraded' or whatever. Alas, nothing is perfect though....
Heidita, with regards to doing this sort of search for the plural in a Spanish-English dictionary:
.. then I did the very same thing with Spanish......In the RAE, only for Spanish, plural forms are not listed
I am not home to check my hardcover dictionary "Spanish-English" section, but I have learned that the vast majority of Spanish nouns form their plurals in a regular manner. Perhaps more nouns do so than in English.
And because I do not have a large Spanish vocabulary, when I posted my original comment, I could not bring immediately to mind any example of a Spanish plural that so widely differs from its singular to include .... or check.
We have many such in English: "woman" changes to "women" for example, "tooth" to "teeth", "ox" to oxen", "leaf" to leaves"....
Again, I am not so fluent as to quickly be able to list nouns that exhibit such a phenomenon in Spanish. If there are none, that might explain why the same cross-referencing is not required for Spanish dictionaries. To be sure, if you can think of one, we should look up that strange plural in the RAE.
Beginners that have no idea that felicitaciones is the plural form of felicitacion.
Though this is true, Rena, one of the most helpful resources we have on this forum, I have not seen this on any other site, is the suggested word as you type in something.
As webdunce has pointed out, type in slowly, I guess this can be found out easily as, as soon as you write more than one letter, the scroll down menu of words shows.
No dictionary I know of gives you the plural form of the word. Not even WR, even though they do show the threads related to anything you are looking for.
Our dictionary was actually improved by even typing in a conjugated verb you will be given the infinitive.
I have had a few problems with the dictionary, but I don't know if they only happen on my computer.
One is that if I misspell a verb, the program helpfully suggests what verb I want. But then when I click on the correct spelling, it brings me to an empty page. This happened most recently with the verb buscar, but it's happened a lot, and only with verbs -- maybe it has to do with the code for providing the verb conjugation?
The other problem is that sometimes I can't get to words that have certain letters in them. Most recently I was trying to look up "soñar", and absolutely could not make the program understand I didn't want "sonar", even though I was typing the "ñ". It also wouldn't suggest soñar if I typed in sonar.
Nevertheless, I would say using the online dictionary removes about 95% of the time I used to spend looking up words, so its still fantastic.
So I thought I would add in any other words I discover missing as a way to help the administrators! (or annoy, depending on how dificult it is to ammend an online dictionary!) The newest one is "felicitaciones" (Spanish). Does anyone else have a contribution?
Whether or not we need an upgrade, I am not sure. Perhaps the addition of other dictionaries besides the Veláquez and Chambers Harrap.
Martini asked:
but is this a software problem?
and I am quite sure that there is a parsing problem. Check, for example, this entry from Velázquez
suculento [soo-coo-len'-to, tah]adjective
- Succulent (jugoso), juicy.
verb
- JUGOSO.
Velazquez® Spanish and English Dictionary. Copyright © 2007 by Velazquez® Press. All rights reserved
It is interesting that "pacificador" is in the dictionary here but not "peacemaker". I don't know about computers, but is this a software problem?
I like this kind of searches, so I looked, Janice:
But in fact, I believe that it is common practice for a good dictionary to provide word's plural form with a link to the singular in cases in which the plural is not formed in a regular way. For example, you should find a pointer to "child" from "children" in the English to Spanish half of a good dictionary.
One of the best dictionaries I know is the one on WR. I just made a search for children, and the singular is given, same with trees, the singular and the plural pop up.
However, then I did the very same thing with Spanish, look what happened
In the RAE, only for Spanish, plural forms are not listed.
La palabra árboles no está en el Diccionario.
But in fact, I believe that it is common practice for a good dictionary to provide word's plural form with a link to the singular in cases in which the plural is not formed in a regular way.
I agree with you on this; however, there is nothing out of the ordinary in the way that the plural of "felicitación" is formed. It is formed in the same way that other similar nouns ending in "-ción" are formed; viz. add an -es and drop the accent.
canción --> canciones
ignición --> igniciones
felicitación --> felicitaciones
inhibición --> inhibiciones
Obviously, if a person is unfamiliar with the way that a particular dictionary lists it's entries, it will be difficult to make the best use of it, but this rule (of not listing the plurals under a separate heading) is generally common to most dictionaries, and it should not be odd to find this same consistency within the SpanishDict dictionary. On the other hand, there's no doubt that it would be helpful for the user to be sent to the appropriate entry if the plural form of the noun was entered into the search bar.
Out of curiousity I checked my decent paper dictionary here at home for "frufrú", and it didn't have that word either.
I think that it is probably impractical to expect a dictionary to have anywhere near a complete listing of onomatopoeias considering that a decent, inexpensive dictionary generally has around 2000 pages (give or take a couple of hundred pages) and a more complete dictionary of onomatopoeias will have over 400 pages of its own. This would mean an increase of about 20-25% in the number of pages required for a more "complete" dictionary. Personally, I would be more interested in seeing the same space and time necessary to implement these ideas being put towards entries of actual words.
Izanoni1 wrote:
It should not be considered odd in the least to expect to find the entry for a noun listed under the singular rather than plural form of the noun (felicitación vs felicitaciones)
and Heidita added:
No dictionary I know of gives you the plural form of the word.
But in fact, I believe that it is common practice for a good dictionary to provide word's plural form with a link to the singular in cases in which the plural is not formed in a regular way. For example, you should find a pointer to "child" from "children" in the English to Spanish half of a good dictionary.
The beginning pages of hard-cover books usually explain all of this under some sort of title such as "Structure of the Entries" and "How to Use this Dictionary", etc.. A hardcover will also provide the legend for the various abreviations used (colloq, fam, vi, etc.)
Like Izanoni said...
peace-maker is listed, but it is hyphenated as such.
In SpanishDict's dictionary, type slowly in the search bar and suggestions pop up and change as you type. If you type "peace," you will see "peace-maker" in the suggestions list. Type "felici" and you will see "felicitación." The suggestions list can sometimes help you detect a word you wouldn't otherwise because maybe the dictionary lists only the singular or hyphenates it or whatever.
Now, I have seen a few words pop up in the suggestions list, click on them, and then be brought to a blank entry containing only the word itself. That definitely seems a problem.
Thanks everyone! I wanted to clarify that I posted this thread not because I was having difficulty navigating the dictionary available on this sight. I am well aware that there is a scrolldown "cheat" list that pops up as you type a word.
I posted this thread to point out the weaknesses in the dictionary as it is a learning tool, and as such beginners will be bound to use it. Beginners that have no idea that felicitaciones is the plural form of felicitacion. Beginners that will not think to hyphenate a word that, as martinj pointed out, should not be hyphenated. Beginners that will not know what the corresponding translation to felicitaciones in English is, thereby being "disabled" so to speak to use the dictionary "backwards" (like I did) and type in congratulations. Remember what it was like at the beginning? This is what I am concerned about: as well as the other discepancies that can be caught that are currently in the dictionary here.
I have noticed that the available dictionary on SpanishDict is lacking a few words that I know of. Namely "frufrú" (Spanish) and "peacemaker" (English).
frufrú is listed by the RAE as an onomatopoeia. On this account, it should not be odd to find this entry lacking in the dictionary as most dictionaries. For example, here is a list of onomatopoeias, most of which you probably would not find listed in the dictionary
peace-maker is listed, but it is hyphenated as such.
The newest one is "felicitaciones"
felicitación is listed. It should not be considered odd in the least to expect to find the entry for a noun listed under the singular rather than plural form of the noun (felicitación vs felicitaciones)
Thanks for all of the input everyone! I wonder if there is a way to have a three dictionary system like the three engine translator? Curiously, cheeseisyummy, my Spanish/English dictionary does have the word frufrú in it as well as all of the other words that are missing in this dictionary at SpanishDict. However not all dictionaries are created equal and I prefer this online one because of ease of use as well as the example sentences. If anyone else has suggestions to make this one better or perhaps know of missing words, let me know!
