My Free and Open Kindle Formatted Spanish to English Dictionary

Posted on January 7, 2010
Filed Under handhelds | 85 Comments

Over the holidays, I took upon myself a challenge. I’ve been fiddling around creating a Mobipocket format dictionary consisting of Spanish words and their English translations. I wanted to be able to set it as my primary dictionary on the Kindle and then use it for on-demand word translation as I gut through trying to read documents in Spanish. A few months back, I couldn’t find any unencrypted ones for sale although now apparently some do exist.

This seemed straightforward enough, so I did a little Ruby scripting (getting a crash course in Unicode characters in the process). I found these lists of Spanish word frequencies and wrote a script to parse them into one word per line. I then wrote a script to take lists of words from STDIN, check to see if they existed in the map and if not look them up from various online sources and add it, and then save it as a YAML file. It was most of a week including false starts and do-overs to finally run the whole list against online translating tools. From there, I created another script to take the YAML file and rewrite it as a (roughly) alphabetically sorted and tab delimited text file. With that done, I used these already available tools to take that file and create files suitable for Mobipocket Creator.

The upshot is that this Kindle formatted Spanish to English translation dictionary is available now to download, for free. In order to use it, place it on your Kindle via USB or emailling it to your device. Go to “Home->Menu->Settings”, then “Menu->Change Primary Dictionary.” From that point, moving the cursor over a word will work like the dictionary used to with definitions, but with English translations of Spanish words.

I offer this to the world, for free, no strings attached. In fact, because of the Creative Commons license on it (described below) you are free to take the files and do whatever you want with them as long as you comply. Be aware of the following caveats with this dictionary:

1: This is a machine generated translation from various online sources. There is no guarantee of correctness for any given term. I did find and scrub some bogus racist translations that have been put into some online repositories, and there may be other erroneous or malicious terms submitted that have ended up in this dictionary. I warrantee nothing and can pretty much say there are some translations or source words that can offend delicate sensibilities. Over time I might try to find ways to improve this file, continue to fill out the dictionary word list and maybe even improve the translations that are already there. Keep watching this blog for future revisions.

2: There are still formatting issues for the dictionary popup lookup. While you will see your term first in the list, it will not stop at the following term. Any feedback on how to engineer the source files to make this work correctly can be sent to dave@evilgeniuschronicles.org or left as a comment on this post.

3: This book is offered with a Creative Commons license: BY-NC-SA For the required attribution, please provide a link to http://www.evilgeniuschronicles.org

4: This is a word-by-word dictionary, so you won’t get a translation for idiomatic phrases. That’s a downside. An upside is that because this was done word by word from frequency lists, conjugated Spanish verbs get their own entry and each get translated individually.

I’m glad to get any feedback on this dictionary, particularly on point #2. If anyone can describe how to reformat the HTML input files to make the dictionary popups not run together, I’d be highly appreciative. Beyond that, roll and have fun with it and let me know how it works for you. If someone can point me to directions on how to turn these source files into the equivalent version for the Nook, I’d be happy to publish that as well, although I’ll need volunteers to help me test it.

For me, I’m off to take another crack at Don Quixote.

[Update 2011/12/01] The long asked for source files have been committed to this repository at github. I don’t blame you if you can’t make heads nor tails of that as it stands, I certainly couldn’t. At my next available opportunity, I will document the process and try to improve the scripts. No timetable is promised nor implied, mileage may vary, secure your own mask before helping others.

Also, if you want to say thank you for this I ask for nothing other than clicking the Amazon ad in the upper right corner of this blog before you make a purchase sometime. It costs you nothing and kicks a few affiliate percentage points back my way. Thank you.

Tags: ,
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    • Comments

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    85 Responses to “My Free and Open Kindle Formatted Spanish to English Dictionary”

      Comment Permalink
    1. PJ Cabrera on January 8th, 2010 2:15 am

      Wow, this is one heck of a geek DIY thing to do. You rock, dude.

      It doesn’t matter if I never get a Kindle, just the fact you did this and are giving it away earns you major props from me.

      And if I do ever get a Kindle, you’ll have my thanks as well. :-)

      2. Comment Permalink
    2. Free and open Kindle formatted Spanish to English dictionary | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home on January 8th, 2010 10:22 am

      [...] Evil Genius Chronicles has made this Creative Commons dictionary available. Here’s what the Evil Genius [...]

      3. Comment Permalink
    3. pbcaracas on January 12th, 2010 8:09 am

      Tried it on my kindle. Works perfectly fine!! Many thanks! You’re a god!
      If ever you find it in you to do a French version it would be most appreciated.

      4. Comment Permalink
    4. dave on January 12th, 2010 1:09 pm

      Thanks for the kind words. I’m glad you found it useful. I doubt I’ll ever do a French one because I care about Spanish and not about French. Someone else could take this idea and run with it for that one though.

      5. Comment Permalink
    5. msw on January 16th, 2010 2:04 am

      This is very cool, and works great… thanks!

      6. Comment Permalink
    6. Kean Kaufmann on January 23rd, 2010 5:47 pm

      A labor of love!

      Re nook conversion — Calibre at http://calibre-ebook.com/ converts among all sorts of e-book formats, including Kindle-compatible .mobi and Nook-compatible .epub.

      7. Comment Permalink
    7. Kean Kaufmann on January 23rd, 2010 5:56 pm

      Oh, sorry for the crashingly obvious point-out; I was pointed to your site by a buddy, and I didn’t know you were already familiar with Calibre. I presume you already tried converting your mobi-formatted dict to epub? You needn’t publish either of these comments.

      8. Comment Permalink
    8. bruno on January 24th, 2010 12:23 pm

      Hi, thanks a lot for this enormous effort! But somehow, it does not worked for me. I followed precisely the instructions but there is no way Change Primary Dictionary appears to me. Am I missing something? thanks.

      9. Comment Permalink
    9. bruno on January 24th, 2010 1:44 pm

      Sorry, it’s working perfectly now. Maybe I’ve got a corrupted download at first. Thank you!

      10. Comment Permalink
    10. Jesse on June 27th, 2010 3:07 pm

      Hello. I have the same problem as bruno. The option ‘change primary dictionary’ just doesnt appear for me. Any ideas?

      11. Comment Permalink
    11. Asaf Hiefetz on July 29th, 2010 2:25 pm

      Thanks A lot

      I’m learning Spanish
      and it a great help
      with my kindle reading.
      It has more words than other dictionary.
      and also its a great help when i read
      with my iPaq

      Thanks Again
      Asaf (Israel)

      12. Comment Permalink
    12. Jordan Wilson on August 18th, 2010 4:53 am

      Wow this is an absolutely amazing piece of work! Thank you!

      Any chance of one coming for French?

      13. Comment Permalink
    13. Peter Albert on September 1st, 2010 3:45 pm

      I just got the new Kindle 3. I installed the Spanish dictionary by USB, but, like others, there is no “Change Primary Dictionary” command in any of the Settings pages. I know there is a trick I have not learned, and am eager to learn Spanish while reading.
      Thank you for your excellent work.
      Peter Albert

      14. Comment Permalink
    14. Peter Albert on September 1st, 2010 7:11 pm

      I get it. Once I am in settings I have to press “Menu” again to find “Change Primary Dictionary.” This is fantastic!

      15. Comment Permalink
    15. Len on September 17th, 2010 7:38 pm

      Thank you for this. I was able to install without difficulty especially with the help of those who have gone before.

      Is there any way to achieve same function on my Kindle app for the IPad? The settings menu is much more limited than on the Kindle. Also, I don’t know where or how to put the dictionary on the IPad.

      16. Comment Permalink
    16. Guillermo on September 20th, 2010 1:51 pm

      Thanks a lot¡¡¡¡¡¡

      17. Comment Permalink
    17. Manuel7 on September 24th, 2010 10:44 pm

      Hi!
      I speak spanish and i want to know if it’s too difficult to do a english to spanish dictionary from these?
      Can you test these? i think that a lot of people would appreciate it.

      Thanks for sharing.

      18. Comment Permalink
    18. David on September 30th, 2010 12:01 am

      Thank you.

      Your dictionary works great with the Kindle! Reading Spanish books on the Kindle is now a great way to improve your Spanish vocabulary.

      19. Comment Permalink
    19. Philippe on October 1st, 2010 12:35 am

      That’s a shame, your dictionary works better than the one I bought from Amazon. I’m happy though. :)

      Thank you !

      20. Comment Permalink
    20. Reading Spanish novels with Kindle 3 « Third Language Blog on October 7th, 2010 12:23 pm

      [...] I read recently that a school in Kansas had given all of the students Kindle readers instead of the usual course books. There were several advantages for the students: they didn’t have to drag heavy textbooks around with them, all the course books had been downloaded onto a device weighing a few ounces. Just like a real book they could highlight sections and make notes in the margins. I thought "how interesting" but didn’t feel inclined to invest £150 in an electronic reader. Until I found this… Dave Slusher has created a free Spanish to English dictionary for the Kindle, you can get it here [...]

      21. Comment Permalink
    21. My Kindle Spanish to English Dictionary in the Wild | Evil Genius Chronicles on October 7th, 2010 10:26 pm

      [...] this year, I made available to the internet for free the Kindle formatted dictionary that does Spanish to English translation. I know that people continue to use it and that post still gets comments after nine months. Today [...]

      22. Comment Permalink
    22. Diego Caro on October 14th, 2010 6:41 pm

      Hi, I made a english to spanish dictionary. You can download from http://code.google.com/p/dict4kindle/
      (alpha preview version!)

      23. Comment Permalink
    23. pete tridish on October 25th, 2010 12:32 pm

      i am considering getting a kindle, and this might be the thing that makes me decide to get one- been studying spanish by reading books, it would be great to be able to use this. is there a way to keep a running list of all the words you needed looked up in a book so you could go back and review them later?

      thanks,
      petri

      24. Comment Permalink
    24. Eduardo Katalbas on October 31st, 2010 5:35 pm

      You just don’t know how much you made reading Spanish books in Kindle a lot easier. Amazon owes you a lot! :)

      25. Comment Permalink
    25. Limor Fried on Open Source Hardware | Evil Genius Chronicles on October 31st, 2010 8:34 pm

      [...] it is that you are as strong as what you can give away. I could possibly have looked at making my Spanish to English Kindle dictionary a salable product but I’m happier to give it away. Limor gives away really strong designs and [...]

      26. Comment Permalink
    26. Louis A. Poulin on November 14th, 2010 10:30 am

      I installed it on my Kindle in 5 minutes, and it works perfectly. It makes reading Spanish books so much more pleasant.

      Thank you so much for making this application available to the rest of us.

      27. Comment Permalink
    27. boug on December 2nd, 2010 10:56 pm

      thanks for hard work!

      28. Comment Permalink
    28. Ned on December 3rd, 2010 8:54 am

      I’m a beginner and reading two books on my kindle: “A first Spanish Reader…” by Erwin W. Roessler and “An elementary Spanish Reader” by E.S. Harrison. I have been using the Miriam-Webster Spanish to English dictionary as my primary dictionary with these books. Now after downloading yours and using it for just a brief time, I find it really good, straight forward and helpful. Many thanks for all your work.

      29. Comment Permalink
    29. Jen on December 10th, 2010 5:19 am

      Thanks you! This is exactly what I was looking for to help me maintain my Spanish while living in a country that speaks Arabic and getting no practice except in the summer! :)

      30. Comment Permalink
    30. Mateo on December 18th, 2010 1:22 am

      Muchas Graces!

      I am traveling in Spain this month and find this diccionario extremely useful! Thank you very much for your efforts!

      31. Comment Permalink
    31. Bidule on January 9th, 2011 1:09 pm

      Thanks a lot, a great tool as far as I could see rapidly, working perfectly. I’ll use it extensively for the next 3 months, so I’ll give you a ore complete feedback when I’m back and I’ve tackled Borges, Garcia Marquez and a few others.
      Thanks again!

      32. Comment Permalink
    32. Animesh on January 10th, 2011 2:40 am

      Que bueno!
      Muchas, muchas gracias hombre! Encontraba algunos en Amazon pero buscaba algo gratis, y gracias a ti, ya lo tengo!

      33. Comment Permalink
    33. Elmar Schraml on January 11th, 2011 3:37 pm

      Thank you so much, just installed it, and works great!

      Are you aware of similar kindle dictionaries for other languages?

      34. Comment Permalink
    34. Pat on January 23rd, 2011 1:06 am

      Please somebody have a way to change the dictionary from English to Spanish in the kindle app for iPad ? I bought a meridian Spanish – English but the kindle app doesn’t allow me to changed. Somebody knows?

      35. Comment Permalink
    35. Another evil genius on January 23rd, 2011 5:26 am

      If you publish something with a Creative License you should also publish the Kindle/Mobi source files. Otherwise nobody will be able to modify it or improve on it.
      For example, I could easily add an inflections index to it, that would improve the value of the dictionary, because it would show the definition of a base verb if you highlighted an irregular inflected verb and the definition of a singular noun if highlighted a plural noun etc.
      But without the source files this is impossible.

      36. Comment Permalink
    36. dave on January 23rd, 2011 2:41 pm

      Sorry I’m not giving this away for free to the world in a way that is acceptable to you, anonymous dickhead.

      37. Comment Permalink
    37. Marc on January 23rd, 2011 6:32 pm

      I noticed that the Spanish frequency list has only 225,000 words. Do you plan on expanding on this soon? Ha ha

      38. Comment Permalink
    38. Another evil genius on January 24th, 2011 11:09 am

      I don’t think that insulting others who could actually contribute to your dictionary and make it better is a good idea and not exactly a sign of genius.
      Also I don’t think that you fully understand the CC licensing concept.

      39. Comment Permalink
    39. dave on January 24th, 2011 12:59 pm

      I called you a dickhead because it really bugs me that you showed up to criticize using none@nowhere.com . Criticizing is a privilege for those willing to stand behind their words. I’m told my reaction to you makes me sound like the dickhead, so let me expand.

      1. Source code has been provided to half a dozen people so far who asked for it politely. Telling me how I’m giving this away incorrectly is not the way to achieve that.
      2. If the source code and source files were in publicly releasable form, I would have already released them. It will take a fair amount of time to get all that in a form I’m proud to release. Of the many irons I have in the fire, this is one of the lowest priorities. All the people I gave the source to had to acknowledge it wasn’t warranteed or good and that it would take a lot of them for them to work with it.
      3. You are flat out incorrect in your assertions about Creative Commons licensing, so in telling me I don’t understand it the onus is on you to be correct and you are not. I read the full legal code of the CC BY-NC-SA license from top to bottom and no mention of a requirement for source. For most of these works they specify, that isn’t even a defined quality. When Cory Doctorow releases books with a CC license, he is under no compulsion to release the origination Scrivener or Word file or whatever. So, telling me how wrong I am and how I don’t understand something when you are in fact incorrect bums me out.
      4. You want something from me, I want nothing from you. Common sense dictates that bumming me out is an ineffective way to get me to dump my precious resources into a task for you.
      5. The positive upside of this is that you are causing me to amend my comment policy to address anonymity. If you ain’t a whistleblower in fear of your job or a dissident in fear of your life, I am no longer accepting pushback from the anonymous. I am letting it hang out here so the minimum ante into this game is standing behind what you say.
      6. Assembling and publishing all of this remains on my list. At this time, if I had 1-3 days of effort to put into something, it wouldn’t be this. There are other projects I care more about and that are more timely. It will happen one day, I cannot predict when nor make promises.

      So there you go. You are factually incorrect and telling me I’m wrong anonymously I find an act of rudeness. Forgive me for reacting strongly to it.

      40. Comment Permalink
    40. David S on January 28th, 2011 2:29 pm

      Thank you very much for your efforts. I’m learning Spanish and needed this!

      41. Comment Permalink
    41. Intruder on February 2nd, 2011 6:30 am

      Hi! you are my hero, that is just what I want to do…I have a Ukrainian English.mobi dictionary installed, but it does not do lookups when I scroll over the word. I have encoded the book as ukrainian with html coding, but it still does not link to the dictionary. Could you please help?
      thanks!

      42. Comment Permalink
    42. Dory on February 5th, 2011 8:40 pm

      Done. Very easily too. Thanks so much!!!

      43. Comment Permalink
    43. Pekka on February 8th, 2011 5:38 am

      Hi!
      I have problems trying to download this great dictionary to my computer. My download always stops at 33%. Is it only me? Any idea of the solution to this problem?

      Some guy has made version 0.1a of this dictionary and I could not download that either. I have no problems with any other files.

      Can anyone help me?

      44. Comment Permalink
    44. dave on February 8th, 2011 11:45 am

      Intruder, did you set the book as your primary dictionary from the settings page? There is a special setting when creating the .mobi file to make it recognizable as a dictionary and thus available in that menu. It has to be unencrypted and a dictionary to do the rollover lookups.

      Pekka, the file itself is hosted at Libsyn. Unfortunately I can’t help you with download problems. Clear cache and restart browser? I dunno.

      45. Comment Permalink
    45. Catarina on February 9th, 2011 3:36 pm

      Love you, Dave! Thanks a lot.

      46. Comment Permalink
    46. LG on February 14th, 2011 4:57 pm

      I installed this on a Kindle 1, but it doesn’t seem to work. Installation was fine, it’s listed as the default, but I look up Spanish words, and nothing comes up. Even when I look up words I know are in the dictionary. Any ideas?

      47. Comment Permalink
    47. Carol Peters on February 16th, 2011 10:52 am

      Is there any way to make this the primary dictionary in the Kindle application on the iPad?

      Thanks…

      48. Comment Permalink
    48. Huy on February 17th, 2011 6:40 pm

      Awesome, Dave.
      Great job. Thanks for all the hard work!

      49. Comment Permalink
    49. Sandra on February 21st, 2011 2:46 am

      OK, can someone help a tech idiot here. Twice now I have downloaded the dictionary to my computer, but I can’t seeem to transfer it to my Kindle3 :( I’ve been told open the C drive & the F drive & then drag it onto my Kindle, but somehow those don’t appear to be options for me. SOS, I have 2 books to read in Spanish that require frequent use of a dictionary (& I have more than a basic knowledge of the language). I’m frustrated cuz there’s got to be something here I’m missing – I know this isn’t rocket science. Thanks!

      50. Comment Permalink
    50. Sandra on February 21st, 2011 3:42 am

      OK, I made it finally made it work. Thank you un monton this is totally cool!

      51. Comment Permalink
    51. Woody on February 24th, 2011 12:06 pm

      This is awesome work – seems to work just fine to me. Thank you very much. No more reaching for the Spanish-English dictionary. Winner!

      52. Comment Permalink
    52. Carla Hines on February 28th, 2011 1:08 pm

      What a wonderful amazing tool this is! I’m moving to Mexico soon and am studying Spanish.
      I just bought a new Kindle and this program dispelled any doubts about it’s usefulness to me.
      Thank you so much!

      53. Comment Permalink
    53. JP Montano on March 10th, 2011 5:18 pm

      Thank you so much, I just installed it and it seems to work great.

      54. Comment Permalink
    54. Robert on March 29th, 2011 7:51 am

      Thanks Dave for this interesting article. I now realize it is possible to create my own dictionary… as I am looking for a Finnish to English dictionary to help me learn Finnish. Would it be possible to document your steps or see your source code? I was wondering if you used the tab delimited format you mentioned before using the tools on the stardict-lingea site, as they seemed to mention a Lingea source format, and that is were I got a bit confused :-)

      Thanks again,
      Robert

      55. Comment Permalink
    55. Luke on April 11th, 2011 12:18 pm

      A few people were asking about the same thing in French… well you can buy one from amazon here… http://www.amazon.co.uk/Merriam-Websters-French-English-Translation-Dictionary-Kindle/dp/B002ROKQU6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A3TVV12T0I6NSM&s=digital-text&qid=1302542269&sr=1-1
      Not as good as getting it free, but it’s cheap.

      56. Comment Permalink
    56. Cliff on April 13th, 2011 2:16 am

      I’ve been using the dictionary for almost a year now and it rocks. Thanks. I was just checking if you had fixed the weird bug where it’ll display the next words but no biggie. I don’t usually comment, but when I see anonymous dickheads I feel obligated to give you the appreciation you deserve

      57. Comment Permalink
    57. Shantall on May 8th, 2011 8:27 pm

      I just wanted to say thank you! I’ve been looking all over for something like this, and I really appreciate it!! You’re awesome!

      58. Comment Permalink
    58. Wojtek on May 15th, 2011 4:52 am

      Thanks!

      59. Comment Permalink
    59. stephan TOTH on June 4th, 2011 6:54 am

      Hello dave, thank you for this great work.
      I’m trying to create a portuguese dictionary for my kindle 3.

      I have followed your explanation and tried to create a test dictionary with 3 words, but i end up with an empty dictionary.

      Would it be possible to have a sample with a few words just to have a model to follow and make sure i do things properly ?

      If you have time for that i would very appreciate your help

      Thank you, Muito Obrigado

      Stéphan TOTH

      60. Comment Permalink
    60. Janette on June 16th, 2011 5:26 pm

      Cheers Dave,

      Your generosity and excellent product have just made my day! Can’t wait to read Allende, Marquez and Zafon in Spanish. Muchisimas gracias!

      61. Comment Permalink
    61. Duncan on June 30th, 2011 12:05 pm

      LEGEND…that is all.

      62. Comment Permalink
    62. Sam on July 6th, 2011 12:29 pm

      Works great. You are the greatest person ever!

      63. Comment Permalink
    63. Selucha on July 19th, 2011 1:59 pm

      This is so great, you are my favorite person today!

      64. Comment Permalink
    64. Ellen Storm on August 3rd, 2011 7:58 pm

      Thank you so much! You just made learning Spanish quicker and easier and then you gave it away. This is the way the world should work. Thanks.

      65. Comment Permalink
    65. Alain Houde on August 26th, 2011 4:05 pm

      Great stuff, it works very well so far. I am studying spanish as well and was looking for one. I would be interested also in a Spanish to French dictionary. If I find lexicons already available and open source, I would be possibly interested in your scripts to help convert faster the files.

      A big clap of hands to you, thanks again.

      66. Comment Permalink
    66. val on August 26th, 2011 4:44 pm

      Works perf. Selucha said it well, “You are my favorite person today!” Muchos gracias!

      67. Comment Permalink
    67. Hanna on August 29th, 2011 5:29 pm

      thanks so so much! i’m brushing up on my spanish this summer in preparation for my position as a volunteer translator in a free clinic at my university. about to start reading la casa de los espíritus!

      68. Comment Permalink
    68. William on August 30th, 2011 6:10 pm

      Can this work on the nook? Sorry I’m a rank beginner in this ebook stuff. Ive been waiting for this technology. Thank you for your work.

      69. Comment Permalink
    69. Louise on September 7th, 2011 3:58 pm

      Just found this, fantastic thanks. I’m also just about to start reading la casa de los espiritus. Thanks so much!

      70. Comment Permalink
    70. dave on September 7th, 2011 8:52 pm

      William, sorry. The Nook doesn’t know how to read the .mobi formatted file. I have no idea how one creates the same sort of dictionary for the Nook.

      71. Comment Permalink
    71. dave on September 7th, 2011 9:04 pm

      Sorry, haven’t been replying to the comments. Most of 2011 has been lost to new baby. To answer the frequent questions:

      1. I don’t know how to do anything on the Kindle for iPad. I assume it isn’t possible until someone tells me different.

      2. I will never release another dictionary in any other language unless I develop an interest in learning that language. Until the baby is older or unless I find myself fleeing the USA, that ain’t happening.

      3. I still have never assembled the source code into something worth releasing. It is on my list but far from the top. Baby.

      4. If the download doesn’t work, you have problems getting it on the Kindle, don’t see the option to make it the primary dictionary or aren’t seeing the translation, sorry my friends but you are on your own. It is possible to make it work, so have patience and read the Kindle docs if necessary. This is free to the world but I can’t be Kindle/download support to the world.

      Thanks to everyone for the kind comments. It was a whim to publish this and I’m glad people are finding value in it.

      72. Comment Permalink
    72. Patrick on September 20th, 2011 7:03 am

      Blessings on thee. I’m learning spanish at uni, and thus, have a number of books en espanol on my kindle.
      I WAS reading them in PDF with the English version open in Kindle for PC, but for the kindle itself, that’s not so easy.

      73. Comment Permalink
    73. Aviva on September 30th, 2011 1:30 pm

      This is an amazing addition to the Kindle reading experience! And for people who have trouble setting this dictionary as the primary dictionary, try loading it onto Kindle by USB and putting it in the “Documents” folder.

      74. Comment Permalink
    74. Nigel on October 12th, 2011 5:33 am

      Excellent stuff Dave! I accidentally deleted my Mirriam Webster Spanish-English Dictionary, and after reinstalling it (I still had it in my Calibre library) I decided to see if there was a free one on-line. I found your link, and have just downloaded it, and uploaded it to my Kindle using Calibre (for those of you having trouble I’d recommend that free download – it probably took two minutes in total). It seems to be at least as good as the one I bought from Amazon, and for those having trouble making it the default dictionary, you have to press menu button, settings, and then menu button again. Thanks for putting in the effort Dave, and enjoy your time with the little one, they grow up all too quickly.

      75. Comment Permalink
    75. David Piepgrass on October 14th, 2011 10:23 am

      As a software developer I’d be happy to help develop this dictionary further by writing routines to auto-compute verb conjugations based on what I learned from writing the Spanish Quick Reference – http://qism.blogspot.com/2011/01/spanish-quick-reference-v2.html – and also to correct some of the entries. Unfortunately, I know nothing whatsoever about Kindle dictionaries (or any other standard dictionary format) … so, well, that could be a problem.

      76. Comment Permalink
    76. Kop on October 31st, 2011 1:16 pm

      AWESOME! Works great! Thanks!

      77. Comment Permalink
    77. Brad on November 22nd, 2011 6:10 pm

      Dave, this is really awesome. However, as an early adopter of the Kindle Touch… I learned today that Amazon totally screwed up dictionary/language stuff on the Touch, and that neither your dictionary nor any of the paid ones are working for most books. Could you send me the source files so I can hack on it a bit and see if I can trick the Touch into using it?

      78. Comment Permalink
    78. pete on November 24th, 2011 3:33 pm

      hey, congrats, this is really cool. Is there any way to expand the dictionary’s vocabulary? Will there be any upgrades in the foreseeable future? Thx again, great job.

      79. Comment Permalink
    79. ché camilo on November 29th, 2011 11:53 am

      great! first useful resource i found looking for public domain multilang dicts for kindle. Thumbs up (and flattr´ed’).

      80. Comment Permalink
    80. Kindle Spanish to English Dictionary Source Files - Evil Genius Chronicles | Evil Genius Chronicles on December 1st, 2011 11:40 pm

      [...] Tweet For approaching two years, people have been asking for the source files to my free Kindle Spanish to English dictionary. I have been stalling because those files are a non-understandable mess and I didn’t have the [...]

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    81. Herbrick on January 2nd, 2012 6:36 pm

      First thanks so much for all your effort. I downloaded the file and put it in my basic kindle dictionary folder. However Kindle has decided that it is an English to Spanish dictionary so comes up as a choice for english dictionarys only. for some reason it was not put alongside my default spanish dictionary. Help appreciated

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    82. tom hardy on January 3rd, 2012 4:05 pm

      Brilliant, thanks very much.

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    83. Paul Walsh on January 13th, 2012 5:14 am

      Hi all,

      I’m having the same problem as Herbrick above, which is to say that it is listing itself as an English dictionary on my Kindle 4. This is obviously no use, and frustrating to boot in a ‘so near yet so far’ kinda way. If any learns how to get around this (I even tried changing the metadata but that didn’t help), please let me know. In the meantime I’m using this dictionary http://blog.mikeasoft.com/2011/01/05/free-as-in-gpl2-translation-dictionaries-for-the-kindle/, which is far inferior as if there is ANY variation on a word then it is not included. That is, if the verb is in any form except the infinitive it won’t show up, and if adjectives/nouns are in plural form that won’t be any good either.

      Anyway, something for those who are having the same problems I am to use between stations.

      Paul.

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    84. Paul Walsh on January 13th, 2012 5:21 am

      Oh, wait a minute, I just found that for some godforsaken, rootin’ tootin’ reason, if you download the modified version at the website below, it crops up in your Spanish language dictionaries. Que bueno! I hope this saves people the hours I have spent trying to sort this out!

      http://semilang.net/blog/spanish-dictionary-for-kindle

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    85. Moraven on January 13th, 2012 12:59 pm

      Hi!

      Tried your dictionary, but have some trouble.
      My kindle detects it only as a english dictionary and not as a spanish as it should.
      So i can translate english books to spanish but i need it to translate spanish books to english.
      Hope someone can say me what’s my fault.

      Greetings,

      Mo

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