E-Dictionaries

SangHyun · Tourist Joined: Sep 08, 2004 Posts: 20 Location: London

So you think dictionaries should be placed on a desk, with their tome-like size emitting an aura of authority and knowledge? Such a notion is fast disappearing, especially for a growing number of high school and college students in Korea.

Students find it onerous and frustrating to carry heavy dictionaries around. So they are opting for a much lighter, more convenient alternative: electronic dictionaries, or e-dictionaries.

As recently as 2000, the market for e-dictionaries was fairly small at about 80,000 units. At the time, talk was rampant that personal digital assistants would bring the demise of such devices based on simple memory technology. But the domestic PDA market never took off.

As a result, the e-dictionary market not only defied the gloomy forecasts; it surpassed the most optimistic growth projections with a huge sales boom that hasn't stopped. In 2002, major manufacturers and importers sold about 500,000 e-dictionaries. Sales advanced to 600,000 units in 2003, and this year the forecast is for sales of a whopping 1.2 million units or more.

Why the heady growth? Simply put, e-dictionaries are handy for those who want to study English and other foreign languages while on the move. Rapid advances in memory and multimedia technologies also have contributed to make top-of-the-line models almost irresistible.

Take the SD-S85, the flagship model of Sharp Korea, a major e-dictionary maker that controls roughly 70 percent of the domestic market. It contains a total of 16 dictionaries including Korean, English-Korean, Korean-English, Japanese-Korean, Korean-Japanese and other language-study materials.

The SD-S85 is simple to use. It comes with a thick manual, which turns out to be unnecessary since major functions are intuitive and it takes less than five minutes to figure out how to navigate the various dictionaries.

One may wonder: does this e-dictionary help Korean users study English and Japanese? The basic contents, such as the English-Korean and Korean-English dictionaries are largely satisfactory. Even though its black-and-white screen may look dull to some tech-savvy users, there is no problem looking up words in the dictionary and browsing quickly through their definitions and some sample sentences.

One of the interesting functions is "jump," a feature that allows users to choose from words appearing on the screen and search their definitions. This is similar to the hypertext function of Web pages, where various links guide online users to new destinations.

The product has a multimedia version, with which users can check the exact pronunciation of entries, but many college students, business people, and others who are on the go prefer the slimmer and lighter models that are equipped with only essential dictionary functions.

By contrast, high school students tend to go more for multimedia features. Aonepro Tech Co., competing with Sharp Korea in the e-dictionary market, recently rolled out its A703 model, armed with a touch-screen panel, voice recorder, MP3 player and other add-ons.

Casio, a latecomer, is fast increasing its share by launching a lineup of high-powered, specialized e-dictionaries. It entered the domestic market in February last year and is pushing its market share to around 25 percent.

Its products are packed with features for one specific language, rather than trying to cover all the bases.

Reigncom, Korea's major maker of MP3 players, also has jumped into the fray, heating up the already hot competition. It introduced a hybrid MP3 player and e-dictionary.

Most of the popular e-dictionaries are priced at between 250,000 won and 300,000 won.

Deathninja50 · Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2004 12:50 am Post subject:

haha do you work for the e-dictionary company or something?

alfaphlex · Beginner Joined: Dec 15, 2004 Posts: 1

What I would like to know... would buying a korean-english e-dictionary help me learn korean better?

I'm aware that there are english-korean translators in the US, but they lack so much in comparison to the asian counterparts.

US translators
4 lines of text
1 dictionary
multiple languages (limiting the strength of each)
few features
expensive

Asian translators
20+ lines of text
8+ dictionaries
1 target language (concentrating on one and not stretching itself thin)
lots of features
less expensive

I'm aware that some of these korean translators only translate to english and not vice versa, but can someone direct me to one that I can use the same way I would use an english product to learn korean.

btw, I can read and pronounce Hangul, just that my vocab isn't so great yet, if that helps answer my question.

maximmm · Beginner Joined: Dec 30, 2004 Posts: 6

i have the newest sharp dictionary... it's not bad but not that great
can't tell you the model number as it's in my bag and... i am lazy:)
it's not bad because it does have some decent features, but at the same time, for English speaker, it's not that great as it features English word pronunciation but not Korean. It can also be somewhat confusing when searching for a definition of a Korean word.... many different English meanings pop up and it's not easy to filter them out
It's also not good because I have seen better quality dictionaries for other languages. I've used Canon wordtank for japanese/english and i found that dictionary by far better when it comes to learning Japanese
It was better because the example sentances were so much better and longer and there were more of them.
Still.... it seems to me though, that number of Korean/English dictionaires is still limited and dictionary makers have yet to learn how to make a decent dictionary. More importantly, you will find it difficult to find a dictionary specifically made for English speaker who's learning Korean. Most are the opposite, and as such, can make little sense for English speaker. Still... having a dictionary can be useful... it can save you a lot of time when trying to explain yourself at a store, bank and so on, just type in an English word and show the translation to the Korean who is having problems understanding your sign language:) (this can be useful when teaching Korean students as well)
Btw, the dictionary which I have has.... Korean to Korean, English to Korean, Korean to English, English to English, Japanese-Korean, Chinese symbols-Korean and some other things like toeic, common English, power English and some other dictionaries.
It also has other features... memo, calendar, alarm, games and other things. It cost me 250 Dollars in Pusan.

janossyd · Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2004 11:33 pm Post subject:

Do you know any e-dictionary for smartphones???

tkitano · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 6:20 pm Post subject:

I know this is an old topic but does any one know any good sites to get one of these? I want one with great features as well as learning tools if possible but i know nothing about how to buy on so I never have...
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cuteBoA13 · Korean Citizen Joined: Oct 19, 2005 Posts: 1713

e-dictionaries are cooler than those in the book form because its much more convenient to use...

keelsoo · Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 5:32 am Post subject:

Let me take this discussion in a slightly different direction. I have the thick, paper dictionary KE/EK that is somewhat portable. Also, I have e-dictionary for my PDA (edu$dic by Diotek). All that is good, but, I would really like an e-dictionary for my laptop computer (WinXP).

Any recommendations?

cuteBoA13 · Korean Citizen Joined: Oct 19, 2005 Posts: 1713

keelsoo · Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 12:47 pm Post subject:

민주 - thanks. Nice to meet you. I posted to the Introduce Myself and Photos section. Let me know if you run into a PC-based e-dictionary. I am interested.

topher · Tourist Joined: Oct 31, 2005 Posts: 10 Location: Seoul

keelsoo · Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 7:24 am Post subject:

Topher:

Thanks, I'll give that a try. At first glance, it looks geared towards Koreans learning English rather than my situation.

-길수

monique_19 · Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2005 3:49 am Post subject:

try This SitE ToO..^^;
http://www.hanbooks.com/eldi.html
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