Merriam-Webster’s French-English Translation

It DOES work on Kindle Touch, but not PC / Android / Fire
Ok, so I spent over an hour on the phone with Amazon Tech support today trying to select this dictionary as the default dictionary on my first-ever Kindle, the Kindle Touch. I’m embarrassed to say – that it DOES NOT NEED to be selected as a default dictionary, at least not on the Touch! (but hey – the amazon support people apparently don’t know this, either!)My issue was that it was listed as a dictionary on the device, but nothing happened when I clicked on it to select it as my default dictionary: Of course not, as it was the only French dictionary I had installed on my Kindle Touch.Apparently on older Kindles, one can only select a single dictionary (I don’t know for sure, as I only have the Touch and Fire). So when reading about how other people selected a “default dictionary”, I thought my new Touch would operate the same way. It doesn’t. Nothing happens when you click on the dictionary listing, as it is the only one there. It is the default, *French* dictionary. There’s a different default English dictionary.The problem is with CONTENT: The book I was testing it on, was apparently not properly “flagged” as a French text. So when I would try to get a definition of a word, the English dictionary would not find it. Upon testing on a different French download, this dictionary works GREAT! So apparently there’s a language indicator with Kindle books, telling the device which dictionary to use.I did however, end up manually copying files to the dictionary directory. After fussing with it for a long time, I didn’t undo everything to see if it worked using only the Kindle whisper sync. So if the normal sync does not does not work for you, here’s what I did:If you peek with the USB connection, there should be these four files:EndActions.data.B002ROKQU6.ascMerriam-Webster-s-French-English-Translation-Dictionary-Kindle-Edition.mbp1Merriam-Webster-s-French-English-Translation-Dictionary-Kindle-Edition.mbsMerriam-Webster-s-French-English-Translation-Dictionary-Kindle-Edition.phlin *both* of these directories on the Kindle Touch:documentsdictionariesMerriam-Webster-s-French-English-Translation-Dictionary-Kindle-Edition.sdrdocumentsMerriam-Webster-s-French-English-Translation-Dictionary-Kindle-Edition.sdras well as the Kindle Content file (approx 3MB):Merriam-Webster-s-French-English-Translation-Dictionary-Kindle-Edition.azwin this directory:documentsdictionariesIf for some reason you don’t have the 3MB file, goto the amazon.com/myk site and select “download to my PC” for your content… save it locally on your PC, then copy it to the respective Kindle directory.Again, this is only my suggestion for the Kindle Touch, other people have apparently had other results with other versions of the Kindle.And as of mid-November, 2011 – the dictionaries are confirmed to no work on other Kindle devices.So as a French dictionary, I give this 5 big stars, as it is AMAZING to be able to learn French… to click on unknown or forgotten words, and not have to spend a couple of minutes thumbing through a dictionary. Instead, just highlight a word and voila! the English translation. Cool. :)Remember it is based on the Kindle content having the right settings (that the language is French!) The book I ended up using to verify operation is “Le comte de Monte-Cristo, Tome II (French Edition)[Kindle Edition] ASIN: B004UKDQA2 (Free!)Now, I only hope the Amazon developers will enable the French (and other language!) dictionaries to work on the Kindle Fire, Kindle for Android phone, Kindle for PC…

M-W French English Kindle edition not up to Oxford standard
OK, so I just plunked down $6.36 for a copy of Merriam Webster’s French-EnglishDictionary for the Kindle. It is a piece of junk. It only looks up short words and singularnouns. For instance, if a line reads ‘ne se sont jamais avises deson’, it will only find ne, se, de, jamais and son, because these wordshave only one form or ending in French. The translation is ‘were notever advised of their’. But ‘avises’ occurs in the dictionary (atlocation 18374) as the infinitive form ‘aviser’ – to advise orinform. SO THE WORD ‘AVISES’ IS INACCESSIBLE IN THIS DICTIONARY. Yousee, French is an inflected language, with different endings for words.Any dictionary that ignores this is useless on the Kindle.By way of contrast, Amazon’s excellent ‘New Oxford American Dictionary’does not have this problem. If I click on the line’occasionally reinforced this stereotype’, it finds the word’reinforce’ in the dictionary, even though it has the past-tense ending’d’ in the text.Do you follow me?I think the Merriam-Webster French-English Translation Dictionary needs to bere-published, this time with a decent index-lookup system to bring it up to par with Kindle’sOxford English-English dictionary.By the way, I’m still using a Kindle-1, but don’t tell me that’s the problem, because if it was, the Oxford English Dictionary wouldn’t deal with word endings, plurals and past tenses, BUT IT DOES. So try again Amazon, and get it right next time.

Excelente dicionário que, além de uma coleção de palavras e seus significados, contém uma boa parcela da gramática francesa. Muito bom.

Kindle paperwhiteには、仏仏辞書は付属していますが、仏和、仏英辞書がついてないので本書を購入。Merriam-Websterですから仏英ですが、わかりやすい記述で、例文も載っているので、フランス語を拾い読みしていくには十分です。Kindle paper whiteでは、読書中に単語を長押しすると(英語の)訳語が表示されるのは、Kindle付属の英和辞典などと同じです。読書中でないときはもちろん普通の辞書のように使えます。Kindleのホーム画面から辞書を開いて、虫眼鏡アイコンをタップして調べたい単語を入力すればOKです。キーボードは、「設定」でフランス語を追加しておきましょう。