Two Rare Searches

[mikelove]

We're finishing up the last few bits of the big search engine / dictionary organization overhaul now (the last major cross-platform piece of 2.3) and there are two search engine features that we haven't done much work on yet and are still trying to decide whether or not to continue fully supporting:

1) English wildcard search - a feature so rare most people don't even know it exists, but you can actually use the @ and $ wildcard characters in non-fulltext English-Chinese searches just as in Chinese-English ones. I'm not sure why we bothered to add it, though - probably much more useful for people learning English - and it presents enough problems for merged multi-dict search that we're wondering whether or not we should keep it.

2) Chinese fulltext search - we know this one does see some use, but does anybody actually use this to look for words in 21cn/Guifan/etc definitions, or are you just using it to find more example sentences? Would a separate command to search for examples containing a particular word work equally well for you?

 

[scykei]

I use both pretty frequently. Sometimes, it feels more intuitive when searching English words in Chinese to English dictionaries since the word is displayed on the header with the closest definition following it.

And yeah, the Chinese fulltext search finds a lot more example sentences. However, it doesn't always function as expected. Most of the time, the searches that turn out aren't actually example sentences but other stuff in the dictionaries. So yes, the function is usually only good for finding sentences and a feature that specifically searches for that would be helpful.

 

[mikelove]

I use both pretty frequently. Sometimes, it feels more intuitive when searching English words in Chinese to English dictionaries since the word is displayed on the header with the closest definition following it.

Sorry, how does this relate to wildcards in English searches? We're keeping full-text English searches - certainly wouldn't get rid of that - so it's just the use of wildcards when looking up English words that we're considering dropping.

And yeah, the Chinese fulltext search finds a lot more example sentences. However, it doesn't always function as expected. Most of the time, the searches that turn out aren't actually example sentences but other stuff in the dictionaries. So yes, the function is usually only good for finding sentences and a feature that specifically searches for that would be helpful.

That had been our thinking, yeah - it's easy enough to limit the index to just example sentences so we're just trying to make sure there isn't a large group of people out there using it to search definitions. Though the best way to find that out may be to change it and see if anybody complaints

 

[gato]

Although I don't personally use it that much, I suppose the Chinese full text search could be useful for finding synonyms and related words in the C-C dictionaries. I would keep it unless you absolutely have to get rid of it.

As a test, I just did a fulltext search for "代替" in the Guifan dictionary and got some interesting results, including some related chengyu.

 

[scykei]

I use both pretty frequently. Sometimes, it feels more intuitive when searching English words in Chinese to English dictionaries since the word is displayed on the header with the closest definition following it.

Sorry, how does this relate to wildcards in English searches? We're keeping full-text English searches - certainly wouldn't get rid of that - so it's just the use of wildcards when looking up English words that we're considering dropping.

Oh, in that case, go ahead. I can think of uses but they are rare. I have used this feature before but it might be a little weird.

The thing is, the 21st Century dictionary has so many scientific words in its database. Sometimes, I can use the wildcard to find for things like $oxide, $phobia, $theory or other stuff like that and it will come out with the Chinese terms that I would probably never encounter in my whole life since I'm not studying science in that language.

 

[ACardiganAndAFrown]

I know I'm not exactly the majority....certainly the requests I have had in the past have proven to be so....

But I frequently use the Chinese full search for a bunch of different purposes:
My English is getting worse and worse after studying Chinese
AND
Some English/Chinese definitions aren't enough to fully wrap my mind around some Chinese words
SO
using the Chinese full search I can have a bunch of English words that fit the Chinese words or (as was already said) some example sentences where "such word" is used.

I, personally, questioned/requested the implementation of one character full search...but I don't think that was really gonna fly with ya'lls...

The English I dont really care about but the Chinese full search is 必不可少的.

 

[mikelove]

Although I don't personally use it that much, I suppose the Chinese full text search could be useful for finding synonyms and related words in the C-C dictionaries. I would keep it unless you absolutely have to get rid of it.

As a test, I just did a fulltext search for "代替" in the Guifan dictionary and got some interesting results, including some related chengyu.

Synonyms are a good use for it, particularly given that the Chinese really don't have a direct equivalent to an English thesaurus.

The thing is, the 21st Century dictionary has so many scientific words in its database. Sometimes, I can use the wildcard to find for things like $oxide, $phobia, $theory or other stuff like that and it will come out with the Chinese terms that I would probably never encounter in my whole life since I'm not studying science in that language.

Heh, hadn't thought of that one - probably more of a job for an English-English dictionary, though.

My English is getting worse and worse after studying Chinese
AND
Some English/Chinese definitions aren't enough to fully wrap my mind around some Chinese words
SO
using the Chinese full search I can have a bunch of English words that fit the Chinese words or (as was already said) some example sentences where "such word" is used.

So you find it useful to look for instances of Chinese words in definitions of other Chinese words (and not just examples)?

I, personally, questioned/requested the implementation of one character full search...but I don't think that was really gonna fly with ya'lls...

That one's actually on our to-do list, mainly because we're getting so much deeper into monolingual dictionaries that you actually stand a decent chance of getting some results for an obscure character; before now the basic problem had been that any character uncommon enough to be worth looking up by itself was so uncommon that you never saw it outside of example sentences for that character.

 

[Alexis]

Synonyms are a good use for it, particularly given that the Chinese really don't have a direct equivalent to an English thesaurus.

A bit off topic, but "Using Chinese Synonyms" (Cambridge) actually comes quite close to a thesaurus (Good explanations, lots of example sentences, but no antonyms. Going for depth rather than breadth, it focuses on usage of words that are most likely to give learners difficulty).

 

[scykei]

The thing is, the 21st Century dictionary has so many scientific words in its database. Sometimes, I can use the wildcard to find for things like $oxide, $phobia, $theory or other stuff like that and it will come out with the Chinese terms that I would probably never encounter in my whole life since I'm not studying science in that language.

Heh, hadn't thought of that one - probably more of a job for an English-English dictionary, though.

But English-English dictionaries don't cover the terms in Chinese!

 

[mikelove]

A bit off topic, but "Using Chinese Synonyms" (Cambridge) actually comes quite close to a thesaurus (Good explanations, lots of example sentences, but no antonyms. Going for depth rather than breadth, it focuses on usage of words that are most likely to give learners difficulty).

We're actually looking at a combination of a 分类词典 and a 同义词词典 as another possible substitute; the former can point to you lots of similar words and the latter helps explain how specific words differ. But this looks like an interesting title too, and from a publisher we've never actually dealt with before.

But English-English dictionaries don't cover the terms in Chinese!

True...