Creating your own dictionary entries

[archie78]

Hey guys,

just purchased this software and I have to say I have a new found zeal for study. This is amazing work, well done and thank you!

So, I am a big fan of remembering the name of Chinese dishes I eat, and am wondering if there is a function that allows me to create my own entries and save them into the phone for later review, particularly in the flashcard section?

There seems to be something that alludes to this in your hot to guides, but it was not clear and the menu options in my iPod were not as described in the manual when I attempted to have a little play around with this function to see if it is what I was after.

Cheers.

 

[YoshiCookie]

Yes. You can create your own entries. I think it's a little confusing (or it was for me), but you just have to go to "Flashcards."

Then, there is an option "New Flash Card." Then you can create an entry (you have to supply simpl/trad chars., pinyin, definition) under the User Dictionary (it should ask you first if you want to create a user dictionary).

The name for the user dictionary, by default, is USR.

You can also view a flashcard, and then click "convert to custom entry" in order to make a new card as well.

How about you post some of those dishes! I want to learn more about food, too!

 

[mikelove]

Yes, the user dictionary feature isn't very well documented yet.

The official way to create a user dictionary entry would be this:

1) If you haven't already created a user dictionary database, do so - see http://www.pleco.com/ipmanual/dict.html#usercreate for instructions on that.

2) In the main dictionary screen, keep tapping on the button at the bottom left corner of the screen to switch dictionaries until you get to "USR."

3) An extra "pencil" icon should appear on the bottom of the screen in that dictionary; tap on that "pencil" icon to create a new user dictionary entry.

 

[Bill in Dalian]

Pleco has been really useful here in China. I'm also trying to create helpful dictionaries for my everyday usage. Restaurant, butcher, at work, I created a few custom entries on my iPaq but decided for the volume of words i want to add that importing would be the best method. I exported my custom dictionary to ensure the format was correct and added a few more words. When I import it back in the new words do not show up. This is the text I created...

ground beef 馅牛肉 xian4niu2​rou4
red pepper flake 辣椒粉 la4jiao1fen3
send text message 打发新 da3fan5xin1
to go 打包 ⁱda3bao1*
well done (meat) 全熟 quan shou / well done (meat)
Angstrom 埃 ai1​/ unit of length equal to 10^-10 meters
caution tape 警示带 jing3shi4dai4
bottled water 矿水 kuang4​shui3
meat fat , fat 肥 fei2

Once I figure out to get it to work correctly I have a bunch more to add.
Any clues to what I am doing wrong? Is there a way to delete the custom dictionaries or the entries in them? I want to do housekeeping as I try to get this thing to work as i create new "test" dictionaries.

 

[Bill in Dalian]

I'm not sure what I did right but after a couple more tries the import worked. Also found that I can undo the previous Import using the UNDO button in the import screen. This allowed me to remove the previous import words that did not work until I finally got the file to work.

 

[mikelove]

Glad to hear it! Format-wise, what you posted would make sense in an English-Chinese dictionary, but you'd want to put the English part last (so it would be characters<tab>Pinyin<tab>English) for a Chinese-English one; there isn't yet full-text search support in user dictionaries, so you can't currently search for Chinese words in an E-C user dictionary or English words in a C-E one.