Why I built a dictionary app • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#111

Post by uhhyeahdude » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 9:06 AM UTC

rags2riches wrote: post #78

prawn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very stupid, but I check dictionary definitions in an incognito window because I'm horrified of someday people coming across my browser history and thinking "Wow, he didn't know the definition of that ?! What an idiot!" The idea of a dictionary that tracks my searches horrifies me in a silly way. Ha!

Looking up words is not stupid. Misusing words because you assume you know what they mean, that is stupid.

I suppose you could look at it that way. I certainly did, and it has taken me a very (stupid) long time come to a slightly different understanding. Not saying it is better necessarily. I just find it closer to true more of the time in my life.

Misusing words may or may not be stupid—without more information, including some nebulous stuff about intent and interpretation, I have no way of saying for sure in a given encounter.

What I would say instead is that many people seem to see “misuses words because [cocky/pretentious/know-it-all/careless]” as a heuristic for stupid. It isn’t a great heuristic, but knowing that people use it to rank you and choosing speech accordingly…isn’t stupid.

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#112

Post by bearmode » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 9:10 AM UTC

glacials wrote: post #28

kccqzy wrote: post #2

Actually, iOS already has built-in support for dictionary and thesaurus. In any native text input field, select a word and choose Define or Look Up. The choice of dictionary is customizable; I usually choose New Oxford American Dictionary and Oxford Dictionary of English (not to be confused with the venerable Oxford English Dictionary). They are high quality dictionaries. They are basically the same except that the p…

Not sure if I’m missing something about this method, but in many apps you can long-press the word directly to get the context menu with “Look Up”, without having to type the word into a note.

The use case here is to look up a word whilst reading a book, not to look up words that are already on your phone screen. If you see a word you don't recognise, you write it into a note and it gives you the definition instantly

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#113

Post by c120 » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 9:13 AM UTC

Some feedback: I'd welcome a way of de-selecting the English dictionary.

Currently trying to learn Spanish and having to select Spanish as the language for each word makes the app a pain to work with.

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#114

Post by uhhyeahdude » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 9:26 AM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #69

prawn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very stupid, but I check dictionary definitions in an incognito window because I'm horrified of someday people coming across my browser history and thinking "Wow, he didn't know the definition of that ?! What an idiot!" The idea of a dictionary that tracks my searches horrifies me in a silly way. Ha!

I look up everything in an incognito window! But for dictionary/thesaurus I usually use spotlight to access MacOS' built-in resources, which is faster.

Me too, it’s the most low-key killer feature of the OS imo. I use it automatically just to check my assumptions most most of the time; it’s just so easy and easily ingrained.

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#115

Post by graynk » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 9:32 AM UTC

olup wrote: post #104

Hey, a bit unrelated, but the blog looks great :-D May I as if it's a next.js public template (and, if yes, which one) or a private design you are using ?

It looks like it was taken from https://scribe.rip (an alternative frontend for Medium)

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#116

Post by jrimbault » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 9:41 AM UTC

prawn wrote: post #43

liquidise wrote: post #31

Well this is... eerie. I just released Stictionary[1] on Friday. It is an offline, ad free, dictionary that remembers words you look up. It gives a word of the day and provides (admittedly underfeatured atm) flashcards to review your word lists. It includes optional syncing to keep your word lists across devices. I've been holding off posting about it while i complete the website[2]. Love to see someone else had such…

It's very stupid, but I check dictionary definitions in an incognito window because I'm horrified of someday people coming across my browser history and thinking "Wow, he didn't know the definition of that ?! What an idiot!" The idea of a dictionary that tracks my searches horrifies me in a silly way. Ha!

I also do that but when I know I won't come back later for it. I use my history as shortcuts, so I avoid cluttering it with random word lookups.

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#117

Post by sammy2244 » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 10:13 AM UTC

No post body was provided.

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#118

Post by keyboard_smash » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 10:16 AM UTC

lbqjfw wrote: post #68

Congratulations! Cool app and nice writeup. Related: what do people use for bilingual (translation) dictionaries (i.e. X-English or English-X)? Most of the apps I have found for the languages I use are full of ads and not very usable. (Translation apps like Google Translate are much better and more usable, but there are some use-cases where a dictionary really is better).

For European languages (at least French and Spanish), WordReference is pretty good. For everything else, Wiktionary’s a really good resource!

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#119

Post by jobigoud » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 10:16 AM UTC

liquidise wrote: post #31

Well this is... eerie. I just released Stictionary[1] on Friday. It is an offline, ad free, dictionary that remembers words you look up. It gives a word of the day and provides (admittedly underfeatured atm) flashcards to review your word lists. It includes optional syncing to keep your word lists across devices. I've been holding off posting about it while i complete the website[2]. Love to see someone else had such…

> Great confirmation of the unmet need in the space.

Hmmm, I've been using a dictionary app for years that is offline, ad-free, remembers words you look up, and has a word of the day feature. Also has favorites and you can add personal notes on entries. It's also free. It's based on Wictionary. I use the ones for Spanish and Portuguese but I think they have versions for many languages. The name is fairly generic "Spanish Dictionary - Offline" by Livio.

Re: Why I built a dictionary app

#120

Post by GuB-42 » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 10:18 AM UTC

prawn wrote: post #43

liquidise wrote: post #31

Well this is... eerie. I just released Stictionary[1] on Friday. It is an offline, ad free, dictionary that remembers words you look up. It gives a word of the day and provides (admittedly underfeatured atm) flashcards to review your word lists. It includes optional syncing to keep your word lists across devices. I've been holding off posting about it while i complete the website[2]. Love to see someone else had such…

It's very stupid, but I check dictionary definitions in an incognito window because I'm horrified of someday people coming across my browser history and thinking "Wow, he didn't know the definition of that ?! What an idiot!" The idea of a dictionary that tracks my searches horrifies me in a silly way. Ha!

Somewhat related: https://xkcd.com/1053/