History of dict.cc | Deutsch |
Source of the translation database
The English/German vocabulary used by this dictionary stems from three main sources:- The German-English dictionary at TU-Chemnitz with the friendly permission of Frank Richter.
- The translation vocabulary of Mr Honey's Business English Dictionary compiled by Winfried Honig.
- The input of the dictionary users - the visitors of dict.cc. A big thank you to all the helpers!
News & History of the English/German dictionary
2024-09-26: Swedish-English has reached 30,000 translations today!
Congratulations to the contributors and thank you for your great work!
Congratulations to the contributors and thank you for your great work!
2024-07-09: Text samples at m.dict.cc now also available for Ukrainian!
2024-07-08: Computer-generated speech output now available for BG, BS, CS, EL, FI, HR, HU, SK, SQ and SR!
2024-06-30: Computer-generated speech output available for Ukrainian!
2024-05-14: New language pair: Ukrainian-German!
We are trying to build up a Ukrainian-German dictionary (Ukrainian-English later if it works out). To make it happen, we need your help!
If you speak both languages we would ask you to check or post new translations at https://deuk.contribute.dict.cc/. You don't need to be perfect in both languages, as every translation gets checked multiple times.
If you speak Ukrainian, but not German, we would like to invite you to create audio recordings of the Ukrainian terms we already have, report missing translations using the links on the "not found" pages or create/check inflection entries. In case of questions, feel free to write to Paul Hemetsberger (paul@dict.cc).
Every bit of help is highly appreciated! Please give it a try and tell your friends! Let's make this happen!
We are trying to build up a Ukrainian-German dictionary (Ukrainian-English later if it works out). To make it happen, we need your help!
If you speak both languages we would ask you to check or post new translations at https://deuk.contribute.dict.cc/. You don't need to be perfect in both languages, as every translation gets checked multiple times.
If you speak Ukrainian, but not German, we would like to invite you to create audio recordings of the Ukrainian terms we already have, report missing translations using the links on the "not found" pages or create/check inflection entries. In case of questions, feel free to write to Paul Hemetsberger (paul@dict.cc).
Every bit of help is highly appreciated! Please give it a try and tell your friends! Let's make this happen!
2024-01-24: Slovak-English has reached 100,000 translation entries today!
News 2023
2023-12-17: New feature: Read vocabulary list
That's another commonly requested functionality, recently most requested for the app. For the time being I just implemented it for the mobile website, so I can quickly improve it according to feedback and integrate it into the app later, when it's stable.
This tool reads out personal vocabulary lists word by word enabling users to learn vocabulary while doing other things - like driving, jogging or doing household chores. According to my tests audio output keeps working on smartphones even when the screen is turned off, but internet connectivity is still required to load the audio samples one by one while playing.
There are several settings to customize the experience, but to test it, simply click the "Start" button.
Feedback is very welcome, feel free to write me at paul@dict.cc!
Try it here! (tap play icon)
That's another commonly requested functionality, recently most requested for the app. For the time being I just implemented it for the mobile website, so I can quickly improve it according to feedback and integrate it into the app later, when it's stable.
This tool reads out personal vocabulary lists word by word enabling users to learn vocabulary while doing other things - like driving, jogging or doing household chores. According to my tests audio output keeps working on smartphones even when the screen is turned off, but internet connectivity is still required to load the audio samples one by one while playing.
There are several settings to customize the experience, but to test it, simply click the "Start" button.
Feedback is very welcome, feel free to write me at paul@dict.cc!
Try it here! (tap play icon)
2023-11-14: Romanian-English has just left beta stage!
Today the number of 30,000 translations was exceeded! Thanks and congratulations to the contributors!
Today the number of 30,000 translations was exceeded! Thanks and congratulations to the contributors!
2023-11-06: 21 years of dict.cc!
This year I added several new features that were requested a lot over the years, to the apps and to the website. For example the lockscreen widget for iPhone or the possibility to search all languages at the same time. Another such feature, for the vocabulary trainer section, is currently in the works.
Here are the statistics for 2023:
1,268,426 German-English translations, 2,210,325 translations in other language pairs
1,461,288 audio recordings, 1,461,288 inflection entries and 404,996 illustrating images
300,985 registered users, 37,802 of them contributors
And another interesting number: In total, the dict.cc website has answered 26,107,000,000 dictionary queries by now, including around 1.4 billion in the last year alone. Many thanks to the contributors making this possible!
This year I added several new features that were requested a lot over the years, to the apps and to the website. For example the lockscreen widget for iPhone or the possibility to search all languages at the same time. Another such feature, for the vocabulary trainer section, is currently in the works.
Here are the statistics for 2023:
1,268,426 German-English translations, 2,210,325 translations in other language pairs
1,461,288 audio recordings, 1,461,288 inflection entries and 404,996 illustrating images
300,985 registered users, 37,802 of them contributors
And another interesting number: In total, the dict.cc website has answered 26,107,000,000 dictionary queries by now, including around 1.4 billion in the last year alone. Many thanks to the contributors making this possible!
2023-09-08: DE/FR - 100k!
German-French has reached 100,000 entries today! This makes French the first language to reach this milestone in both language pairs! Congratulations to all of the contributors!
German-French has reached 100,000 entries today! This makes French the first language to reach this milestone in both language pairs! Congratulations to all of the contributors!
2023-08-08: Simultaneous search in all languages
This functionality was requested many times over the years. I'm unsure about the practical purpose of this when doing translation work, but I think it's definitely interesting for studying similarities between different languages or listening to how a given term sounds in different languages. Or maybe you heard or read a word and you're not even sure which language it was in. Just enter it and see what languages come up.
The search results are grouped by language families and the languages within the families are sorted by the amount of speakers. It's also possible to select only a few languages for comparison.
Try it out here: Translations in all languages on the same page
This functionality was requested many times over the years. I'm unsure about the practical purpose of this when doing translation work, but I think it's definitely interesting for studying similarities between different languages or listening to how a given term sounds in different languages. Or maybe you heard or read a word and you're not even sure which language it was in. Just enter it and see what languages come up.
The search results are grouped by language families and the languages within the families are sorted by the amount of speakers. It's also possible to select only a few languages for comparison.
Try it out here: Translations in all languages on the same page
2023-04-24: New feature: Text samples (experimental)
Sometimes it can be helpful to see a word or short phrase embedded in a full sentence to better understand its meaning or application in practice. So now I'm using a corpus of text from Wikipedia to show such example sentences. They are located below the translations block. Wikipedia has the advantage of being available for all dict.cc languages, but the disadvantage is that some example sentences are relatively complex. For the time being I have added the function to m.dict.cc only and maybe I will have to remove it again in case of problems. Any feedback is welcome, as always.
Sometimes it can be helpful to see a word or short phrase embedded in a full sentence to better understand its meaning or application in practice. So now I'm using a corpus of text from Wikipedia to show such example sentences. They are located below the translations block. Wikipedia has the advantage of being available for all dict.cc languages, but the disadvantage is that some example sentences are relatively complex. For the time being I have added the function to m.dict.cc only and maybe I will have to remove it again in case of problems. Any feedback is welcome, as always.
2023-01-19: New feature for contributors (Beta): Find missing entries from corresponding language pair!
Basically it's a list of entries from DE-XX not yet in EN-XX (or the other way round) that can be used to create new translation pairs using auto-matched suggestions via DE-EN. Many new dictionary entries with correct formatting/tagging can be added just by picking correct auto-created pairs.
This feature may still contain some useless entries or near duplicates for technical reasons, I hope to further improve that later. But in the meantime it's already really useful if you just pick the easy cases. Please still check the auto-generated suggestions for near duplicates and possible errors and pick only those with 100% matching meanings.
To try it, click "Missing" in the menu bar in the "Contribute!" section of any language pair except German-English.
Thanks to dict.cc contributor Puchenau for suggesting this (and sorry for changing it a little for technical reasons)!
Basically it's a list of entries from DE-XX not yet in EN-XX (or the other way round) that can be used to create new translation pairs using auto-matched suggestions via DE-EN. Many new dictionary entries with correct formatting/tagging can be added just by picking correct auto-created pairs.
This feature may still contain some useless entries or near duplicates for technical reasons, I hope to further improve that later. But in the meantime it's already really useful if you just pick the easy cases. Please still check the auto-generated suggestions for near duplicates and possible errors and pick only those with 100% matching meanings.
To try it, click "Missing" in the menu bar in the "Contribute!" section of any language pair except German-English.
Thanks to dict.cc contributor Puchenau for suggesting this (and sorry for changing it a little for technical reasons)!
News 2022
2022-11-16: EN/FR - 100k!
The first one of the English dictionaries reaches 100,000 entries! Congratulations to the French-English team!
The first one of the English dictionaries reaches 100,000 entries! Congratulations to the French-English team!
2022-11-06: 20 years of dict.cc! (and a new feature ...)
20 years - wow, that's a long time and reason enough to be a little proud. :-) Proud of 24,714,000,000 (almost 25 billion) answered translation lookups to date, 2 million currently active dict.cc app installations and above all, proud of the loyal community of contributors who make all this possible!
Even after 20 years, dict.cc is still a one-man business, and also my personal life project. I started dict.cc when I was 24, and now I'm 44 somehow. ;-) Almost half my life already, I wonder where the time went! And this project is not just a job, it's also meant to be my contribution to society, helping with easier access to education and helping to break down barriers between people who don't speak the same language.
When dict.cc started in 2002, there was no Facebook (2004), Twitter (2006) or TikTok (2016), and even Wikipedia (2001) was still in its infancy. The devices we now call smartphones didn't even exist back then. By Internet standards, the website is as old as Methuselah and unfortunately you can see that in the design, which is not sufficiently optimized for smartphones. That's why I'm currently working on expanding the new "responsive" website, which is currently mainly used as a mobile website, to also integrate the content-creating areas (Contribute/Forum) in order to eventually replace the old website. But that's going to take a while, because unfortunately, due to maintenance and support tasks, I only have limited time for programming.
Here are the current numbers for the stats:
1,249,364 translations in German-English, 2,058,377 in the other language pairs
1,407,386 audio recordings, 1,359,859 inflections and 387,746 illustrations
292,259 registered users, of which 37,190 are contributors
New Feature: Shuffle!
In IT projects you often see small special features for anniversaries, like little games or animations. I also came up with a playful little extra feature, inspired by funny posts you often see on social media. I'm unlocking the feature today, but it will also remain available in the long term. It's an anagram search engine. You can enter words, short phrases or even names and it shows you "hidden meanings" that appear when you shuffle the letters. The results can be shared as images on social media. This will also serve as a little bit of advertising for dict.cc while providing a playful approach to language. It would be nice if you could try this feature and send me your discoveries using the "suggest for gallery" feature.
Try it or see examples!
Finally, I would like to once again express my heartfelt thanks to all the contributors who helped dict.cc grow and thrive so wonderfully. Especially to those who have been doing so for years, with great commitment - regardless of whether it's vocabulary maintenance, voice recordings or illustrations. You are the backbone of dict.cc and I thank you for that!
Here's to the next 20 years!
Cheers, Paul
20 years - wow, that's a long time and reason enough to be a little proud. :-) Proud of 24,714,000,000 (almost 25 billion) answered translation lookups to date, 2 million currently active dict.cc app installations and above all, proud of the loyal community of contributors who make all this possible!
Even after 20 years, dict.cc is still a one-man business, and also my personal life project. I started dict.cc when I was 24, and now I'm 44 somehow. ;-) Almost half my life already, I wonder where the time went! And this project is not just a job, it's also meant to be my contribution to society, helping with easier access to education and helping to break down barriers between people who don't speak the same language.
When dict.cc started in 2002, there was no Facebook (2004), Twitter (2006) or TikTok (2016), and even Wikipedia (2001) was still in its infancy. The devices we now call smartphones didn't even exist back then. By Internet standards, the website is as old as Methuselah and unfortunately you can see that in the design, which is not sufficiently optimized for smartphones. That's why I'm currently working on expanding the new "responsive" website, which is currently mainly used as a mobile website, to also integrate the content-creating areas (Contribute/Forum) in order to eventually replace the old website. But that's going to take a while, because unfortunately, due to maintenance and support tasks, I only have limited time for programming.
Here are the current numbers for the stats:
1,249,364 translations in German-English, 2,058,377 in the other language pairs
1,407,386 audio recordings, 1,359,859 inflections and 387,746 illustrations
292,259 registered users, of which 37,190 are contributors
New Feature: Shuffle!
In IT projects you often see small special features for anniversaries, like little games or animations. I also came up with a playful little extra feature, inspired by funny posts you often see on social media. I'm unlocking the feature today, but it will also remain available in the long term. It's an anagram search engine. You can enter words, short phrases or even names and it shows you "hidden meanings" that appear when you shuffle the letters. The results can be shared as images on social media. This will also serve as a little bit of advertising for dict.cc while providing a playful approach to language. It would be nice if you could try this feature and send me your discoveries using the "suggest for gallery" feature.
Try it or see examples!
Finally, I would like to once again express my heartfelt thanks to all the contributors who helped dict.cc grow and thrive so wonderfully. Especially to those who have been doing so for years, with great commitment - regardless of whether it's vocabulary maintenance, voice recordings or illustrations. You are the backbone of dict.cc and I thank you for that!
Here's to the next 20 years!
Cheers, Paul
2022-09-09: Readers of the "Apps" magazine made dict.cc their number 1 app for language learning in Germany!
2022-06-09: The "audio like" feature is now also available in the apps.
2022-06-03: 2 million translations in the "new" language pairs (3.24 million total)!
2022-01-28: Introducing a new feature for the mobile (responsive) website: Audio Likes
Clicking an audio button on a search results page plays a randomly selected audio recording. Additionally a pop-up window appears, enabling users to play specific recordings, for example a region-specific computer voice or a particular user recording.
Nothing new so far, but quite often I get requests like "I want to hear British (American, ...) English only", "I don't like the voice of user X", "I really like the voice of user Y, can the website use it all time?" and so on. So I came up with the idea of adding like/dislike buttons next to each name in the audio pop-up.
Likes/dislikes are personal settings stored in a cookie, they don't influence the dict.cc experience for other users. If the personal settings contain likes for certain voices, the random audio player will pick one of those. If there are dislikes, the algorithm will exclude them. Any combination of likes and dislikes is possible.
The like/dislike functionality is currently only available at m.dict.cc.
Clicking an audio button on a search results page plays a randomly selected audio recording. Additionally a pop-up window appears, enabling users to play specific recordings, for example a region-specific computer voice or a particular user recording.
Nothing new so far, but quite often I get requests like "I want to hear British (American, ...) English only", "I don't like the voice of user X", "I really like the voice of user Y, can the website use it all time?" and so on. So I came up with the idea of adding like/dislike buttons next to each name in the audio pop-up.
Likes/dislikes are personal settings stored in a cookie, they don't influence the dict.cc experience for other users. If the personal settings contain likes for certain voices, the random audio player will pick one of those. If there are dislikes, the algorithm will exclude them. Any combination of likes and dislikes is possible.
The like/dislike functionality is currently only available at m.dict.cc.
News 2021
2021-11-06: 19 years of dict.cc!
This year I reprogrammed the mobile website from scratch and added enough of the main end user functionality to be able to redirect smartphone users to the mobile version. Doing that has positive effects on search engine ratings, as search engines attach more and more importance to good usability on phones. That's why usage numbers started to rise again when I added this redirect.
Here are the annual statistic numbers:
1,232,549 German-English translations, 1,912,435 translations in other language pairs
1,361,666 audio recordings, 1,328,902 inflection entries and 373,183 illustrating images
283,063 registered users, 36,530 of them contributors
Thanks for all your contributions!
This year I reprogrammed the mobile website from scratch and added enough of the main end user functionality to be able to redirect smartphone users to the mobile version. Doing that has positive effects on search engine ratings, as search engines attach more and more importance to good usability on phones. That's why usage numbers started to rise again when I added this redirect.
Here are the annual statistic numbers:
1,232,549 German-English translations, 1,912,435 translations in other language pairs
1,361,666 audio recordings, 1,328,902 inflection entries and 373,183 illustrating images
283,063 registered users, 36,530 of them contributors
Thanks for all your contributions!
2021-10-21: Spanish-English hit the 30,000 translations mark today! Very nice! Congratulations and thank you!
2021-08-24: Czech-German has reached 30,000 translations! Congratulations to the contributors!
2021-08-06: New mobile website!
As of today a new version of the mobile dict.cc website is available. The most important changes are that the design doesn't try to imitate an app anymore and that it's now implemented as a so-called "responsive" website. That means the same page adapts to different screen sizes, including smartphones, tablets and desktop PCs. My plan is to gradually add all the existing features of the 19-year-old desktop website to this version until it can fully replace it.
Compared to the previous mobile website the new one already has a lot more functionality, for example a dark mode, the possibility to dynamically load additional translations, the tabular view and the illustrations on bigger screens, a menu for listening to multiple different audio recordings, and the vocabulary trainer including new tools for vocabulary list management. Many minor features are still missing, I will add them over time.
In case of errors or rendering problems on specific devices, please tell me by mail (paul@dict.cc). Include a screenshot and/or link if possible. Also, feel free to send me any suggestions for improvement or any other feedback you might have!
As of today a new version of the mobile dict.cc website is available. The most important changes are that the design doesn't try to imitate an app anymore and that it's now implemented as a so-called "responsive" website. That means the same page adapts to different screen sizes, including smartphones, tablets and desktop PCs. My plan is to gradually add all the existing features of the 19-year-old desktop website to this version until it can fully replace it.
Compared to the previous mobile website the new one already has a lot more functionality, for example a dark mode, the possibility to dynamically load additional translations, the tabular view and the illustrations on bigger screens, a menu for listening to multiple different audio recordings, and the vocabulary trainer including new tools for vocabulary list management. Many minor features are still missing, I will add them over time.
In case of errors or rendering problems on specific devices, please tell me by mail (paul@dict.cc). Include a screenshot and/or link if possible. Also, feel free to send me any suggestions for improvement or any other feedback you might have!
2021-03-18: Icelandic-English has reached 30,000 translations today! Congratulations and thanks for the great teamwork to all of the contributors!
2021-01-10: 3 MILLION TRANSLATIONS!
All language pairs combined, we reached the number of 3,000,000 translation entries today! A great job by all of the members of the dict.cc family!
All language pairs combined, we reached the number of 3,000,000 translation entries today! A great job by all of the members of the dict.cc family!
News 2020
2020-12-18: German-Romanian has recently passed the mark of 100,000 translation entries! And in addition to that, German-Romanian is now the language pair with the highest number of daily dictionary users after German-English! Many thanks to the very committed community of contributors!
2020-12-04: Dutch-English has reached 30,000 translations! Congratulations to the contributors!
2020-11-06: 18 years of dict.cc!
The eighteenth "birthday" of dict.cc takes place in 2020, a year with only one topic worldwide. We are all still fully immersed in the Corona crisis. This year the usage numbers of dict.cc and other online dictionaries have been noticeably lower than before. It seems like the restrictions in the economy are also noticeable in reduced use of dictionaries. But things will not stay that way and soon we'll be able to look back on the year and say: It's done, we survived it in good health, and things are looking much brighter again!
The content-related (and technical) development of dict.cc does not stop of course, home office or not, and here are the annual figures showing the progress we made:
1,219,593 German-English translations, 1,756,627 translations in other language pairs
1,302,333 audio recordings, 1,292,602 inflection entries and 352,987 illustrating images
275,012 registered users, 35,563 of them contributors
Thanks to every contributor!
The eighteenth "birthday" of dict.cc takes place in 2020, a year with only one topic worldwide. We are all still fully immersed in the Corona crisis. This year the usage numbers of dict.cc and other online dictionaries have been noticeably lower than before. It seems like the restrictions in the economy are also noticeable in reduced use of dictionaries. But things will not stay that way and soon we'll be able to look back on the year and say: It's done, we survived it in good health, and things are looking much brighter again!
The content-related (and technical) development of dict.cc does not stop of course, home office or not, and here are the annual figures showing the progress we made:
1,219,593 German-English translations, 1,756,627 translations in other language pairs
1,302,333 audio recordings, 1,292,602 inflection entries and 352,987 illustrating images
275,012 registered users, 35,563 of them contributors
Thanks to every contributor!
2020-10-18: For reasons of clarity, animal and plant species (as well as fungi, biological families, orders, breeds, ...) are now tagged with the new subject "T" (taxonomic terms).
These entries are grouped further down the search results pages (except for exact search term matches). Longer entries are trimmed down to enable browsing through the alphabetical listing more quickly. Placing the mouse cursor over a term displays it completely. In this group there is no further separation related to the number of words, so entries that include alternative spellings (such as "alpine alumroot / alum-root / alum root") can be found at the expected positions in the alphabetical list.
These entries are grouped further down the search results pages (except for exact search term matches). Longer entries are trimmed down to enable browsing through the alphabetical listing more quickly. Placing the mouse cursor over a term displays it completely. In this group there is no further separation related to the number of words, so entries that include alternative spellings (such as "alpine alumroot / alum-root / alum root") can be found at the expected positions in the alphabetical list.
2020-09-11: Polish-English has just left beta stage!
Today the number of 30,000 translations was exceeded! Thanks and congratulations to the contributors!
Today the number of 30,000 translations was exceeded! Thanks and congratulations to the contributors!
2020-08-11: Keyboard handling improved for the mobile dict.cc website when used on a PC/Mac. Just type your keyword, regardless of where the cursor is. Pressing the Tab key (followed by Enter) selects from the suggestions in most browsers.
2020-07-07: The new vocabulary trainer (only web, not yet in the app) now displays a message if there are several possible answers. The message can be clicked to show the translations currently not being asked for. The trainer now also accepts any of the other answers and moves the corresponding card to the next box, but it will keep asking for the missing answer. To get help finding out which term is asked for, it's still possible to press the space bar for the next correct character.
2020-06-29: The mobile website now offers audio buttons for both languages, saving the additional click on terms for re-translation.
2020-03-30: The new vocabulary trainer is now officially released! The old version stays available for the time being and can be used via the "v1" or "old" links and menu items.
2020-01-31: I'm currently reprogramming the vocabulary trainer. The new version can already be tested at https://my.dict.cc/ by clicking "[v2]". Advice: Click "quick guide" on your first visit! The old version stays the main one for the time being, but it will be replaced in the foreseeable future.
2020-01-17: 300,000 verified keyword illustration images!
News 2019
2019-12-20: Login/Registration simplified: Now only an e-mail address is required for registration. The user name is optional (generated randomly if omitted). Logging in is possible using either the user name or the e-mail address, so a user name is not needed for people who just use the vocabulary trainer or the app.
2019-12-19: German-Russian has reached 100,000 translation entries today!
2019-11-12: Search suggestions now also show all longer phrases and example sentences if the keyword consists of multiple words. Examples: "verstehe bahnhof", "tell and show", "lass mich erklären", "cut paste"
2019-11-06: 17 years of dict.cc!
After a phase of slight decreases usage statistics for the PC website now show a new trend upwards. I think the relation between smartphone and PC use in general is now stabilizing after a long shifting phase towards mobile usage. As the dict.cc app works offline the additional smartphone use is not visible in the online usage numbers, but a newly implemented possibility of using the app online to save storage space may also contribute to the increase showing lately.
What else happened in the last year?
After Android also the iPhone and iPad apps were re-programmed from scratch. In addition to the online mode also the dark theme (a dark version of the app screens) was an important improvement, it was requested a lot and now seems to be used more than I ever thought it would be.
I've also added several new things to the website, for example inflections in the search suggestions, "like" buttons in the forum and a new system for computer-generated audio. The new technology sounds more natural and covers a lot more languages than before.
But the most important improvements, the translation entries and other contents, are still done by the contributing users of dict.cc, most importantly by a small group of highly esteemed and trusted people. Thank you! dict.cc wouldn't exist without you!
Here are the current content statistics:
1,203,341 German-English translations, 1,655,485 translations in other language pairs
1,217,806 audio recordings, 1,249,020 inflection entries and 325,157 illustrating images
264,752 registered users, 34,468 of them contributors
After a phase of slight decreases usage statistics for the PC website now show a new trend upwards. I think the relation between smartphone and PC use in general is now stabilizing after a long shifting phase towards mobile usage. As the dict.cc app works offline the additional smartphone use is not visible in the online usage numbers, but a newly implemented possibility of using the app online to save storage space may also contribute to the increase showing lately.
What else happened in the last year?
After Android also the iPhone and iPad apps were re-programmed from scratch. In addition to the online mode also the dark theme (a dark version of the app screens) was an important improvement, it was requested a lot and now seems to be used more than I ever thought it would be.
I've also added several new things to the website, for example inflections in the search suggestions, "like" buttons in the forum and a new system for computer-generated audio. The new technology sounds more natural and covers a lot more languages than before.
But the most important improvements, the translation entries and other contents, are still done by the contributing users of dict.cc, most importantly by a small group of highly esteemed and trusted people. Thank you! dict.cc wouldn't exist without you!
Here are the current content statistics:
1,203,341 German-English translations, 1,655,485 translations in other language pairs
1,217,806 audio recordings, 1,249,020 inflection entries and 325,157 illustrating images
264,752 registered users, 34,468 of them contributors
2019-10-16: The way illustrations (example: ear) are displayed has changed slightly. If there is more than one image per keyword, the images don't rotate anymore. Instead, one random image is displayed and the others are visible on mouseover. Reasons: The image rotation was often considered distracting or perceived as advertising and the images couldn't be viewed at one's own pace.
2019-09-10: New feature (still experimental): Search suggestions now also integrate inflection entries if available, so if you enter an inflected word, like a plural noun or a verb in past tense, you will also see the basic form in the suggestion window. If this feature proves successful it might also be added to the apps.
2019-07-09: New forum feature: "like" and "dislike" buttons for each posting, similar to what is known from social networking platforms and other forums.
2019-06-10: The lists of pending translations are now sorted by date of last posting (input, update, comment or vote), not only by input date anymore.
2019-05-27: The dict.cc apps for Android and iOS now also support online use as of version 10. That means you can either download the language packs for offline use as before, or you can save time and storage space by using the app online.
2019-04-03: One more thing about the audio samples, but not the computer-generated ones: There is one contributor who managed to reach the incredible amount of 200,000 voice recordings today! All of them recorded by himself and directly online with dict.cc - and of the highest possible quality! Very well done - thank you very much, Halmafelix!
On this occasion let's not forget about the achievements of other speakers: Two contributors, doug-e3b and Artists have reached the amazing amount of over 100,000 recordings and many others have managed to contribute thousands or even tens of thousands of audio recordings. A big thank you to all of you!
On this occasion let's not forget about the achievements of other speakers: Two contributors, doug-e3b and Artists have reached the amazing amount of over 100,000 recordings and many others have managed to contribute thousands or even tens of thousands of audio recordings. A big thank you to all of you!
2019-03-26: New computer-generated speech system available for German and English as well. German gets a female and a male voice, English now features four different accents: British, American, Australian and Indian.
2019-03-12: New computer-generated speech system now also available for Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian and Turkish. Additionally I've replaced the existing computer voices for French, Italian and Spanish. If everything goes well, I will eventually also replace German and English.
2019-03-08: Unfortunately I'm forced to also display the GDPR note to be able to continue running dict.cc based on ad revenue and without a paywall.
2019-03-05: I'm testing a new system for computer-generated speech (Amazon Polly) to add speech samples to several more languages. Give it a try with Swedish, Icelandic and Russian!
2019-03-04: Also the iOS apps have been reprogrammed from scratch and are now available in the App Store, or as updates. Appearance and functionality have changed only slightly, but the inner workings use a new, more stable basis for future enhancements. There is already a lot in the pipeline.
News 2018
2018-11-06: 16 years of dict.cc!
Still the usage trend is towards mobile use (apps and mobile website) and away from the desktop website, I can also see this in the support requests I get by e-mail. In the last year I reprogrammed the Android app from scratch, releasing lots of alpha, beta and bugfix versions, so now the Android app is pretty stable. Reprogramming the iPhone version of the app is still in the works.
Even though the app rewrites are not finished yet I added another new feature to the desktop website this year, the translation wish list. It seems to be working quite well and has led to a lot of useful new translation entries already.
Another important topic this year was the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). I have been told that I should also add the well-known cookie message that pops up everywhere on the web nowadays. But I refuse to do that because I find these popups really annoying. Every time I'm on a new website I have to find and click the close button before I can use the site. If data privacy is really important for you, you will delete your cookies regularly, but as the "closed" status of the message can only be stored using cookies, these messages will keep reappearing, making things even worse. Apart from that, I don't know about any regulation that explicitly demands the use of these messages. So before I change dict.cc for the worse, I rather take the legal risk of not displaying this popup message.
Again, the yearly statistics snapshot:
1,177,901 German-English translations, 1,567,830 translations in other language pairs
1,133,643 audio recordings, 1,156,857 inflection entries, 283,044 illustrating images
254,694 registered users, 33,380 of them contributors
Thanks to all contributors for their never-ending work and efforts!
Still the usage trend is towards mobile use (apps and mobile website) and away from the desktop website, I can also see this in the support requests I get by e-mail. In the last year I reprogrammed the Android app from scratch, releasing lots of alpha, beta and bugfix versions, so now the Android app is pretty stable. Reprogramming the iPhone version of the app is still in the works.
Even though the app rewrites are not finished yet I added another new feature to the desktop website this year, the translation wish list. It seems to be working quite well and has led to a lot of useful new translation entries already.
Another important topic this year was the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). I have been told that I should also add the well-known cookie message that pops up everywhere on the web nowadays. But I refuse to do that because I find these popups really annoying. Every time I'm on a new website I have to find and click the close button before I can use the site. If data privacy is really important for you, you will delete your cookies regularly, but as the "closed" status of the message can only be stored using cookies, these messages will keep reappearing, making things even worse. Apart from that, I don't know about any regulation that explicitly demands the use of these messages. So before I change dict.cc for the worse, I rather take the legal risk of not displaying this popup message.
Again, the yearly statistics snapshot:
1,177,901 German-English translations, 1,567,830 translations in other language pairs
1,133,643 audio recordings, 1,156,857 inflection entries, 283,044 illustrating images
254,694 registered users, 33,380 of them contributors
Thanks to all contributors for their never-ending work and efforts!
2018-08-26: Changing language pairs now also possible using search suggestions. Just type in a token like "hu" or "desv" and pick the first suggestion.
Choosing from the suggestion list should also work using the tab key on the keyboard now.
Choosing from the suggestion list should also work using the tab key on the keyboard now.
2018-08-24: The suggestions that appear when typing in a search keyword now tolerate typos.
If a word was typed in correctly and completely, so it can be searched for just by pressing the enter key, it will be printed in bold letters within the suggestions window.
If a word was typed in correctly and completely, so it can be searched for just by pressing the enter key, it will be printed in bold letters within the suggestions window.
2018-08-01: The audio wish list is now available for all languages.
2018-07-19: New feature: Report missing translation
Even though it has always been possible to suggest new translations, there has never been a possibility to just report an unknown missing term. I'm receiving a lot of such reports lately, so I implemented a translation wish list, similar to the audio wish list that appears to be working well.
The "New Entries" page in the Contribute section will indicate new translation requests as they come in. Missing translations can be reported on the "not found" pages (dictionary search results), via FAQ, and (soon) also from the smartphone apps.
Even though it has always been possible to suggest new translations, there has never been a possibility to just report an unknown missing term. I'm receiving a lot of such reports lately, so I implemented a translation wish list, similar to the audio wish list that appears to be working well.
The "New Entries" page in the Contribute section will indicate new translation requests as they come in. Missing translations can be reported on the "not found" pages (dictionary search results), via FAQ, and (soon) also from the smartphone apps.
2018-06-22: After a long testing phase and a step-by-step launch, the rewritten Android app is now publicly available for all devices running Android 6 or later. According to Google's statistics the update is already running on almost 500,000 devices. The crash rate went down by 97% and the average rating for the latest version is 4.9 out of 5 stars. Good things come to those who wait. ;-)
2018-04-30: Second public beta version of the new dict.cc app now online! There are some minor improvements, but so far no serious problems have shown up. The minimum Android version has been raised to 6, because on Android 5 the older app version is a bit faster.
2018-04-04: Beta testers for new dict.cc app wanted!
I had to completely rewrite the dict.cc app for Android because of technical problems (crashes) on Android 7 and up. It's ready to use now, but before release I need some people to beta-test it and tell me if everything works on their device.
If you have a smartphone or tablet running Android 5, 6, 7 or 8, you would do me a big favor by giving it a try and telling me if it works for you!
The beta test can be started here: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/cc.dict.dictcc
Thanks in advance!
I had to completely rewrite the dict.cc app for Android because of technical problems (crashes) on Android 7 and up. It's ready to use now, but before release I need some people to beta-test it and tell me if everything works on their device.
If you have a smartphone or tablet running Android 5, 6, 7 or 8, you would do me a big favor by giving it a try and telling me if it works for you!
The beta test can be started here: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/cc.dict.dictcc
Thanks in advance!
News 2017
2017-12-30: 1,500,000 translation entries in the "new" language pairs!
2017-12-01: German-Finnish has reached 30,000 translations
and is ending the beta stage right in time for the Christmas season! Congratulations to the contributors!
2017-11-06: 15 years of dict.cc!
Still most of the technical innovations happen in the mobile world, on smartphones, tablets and other "smart" devices. New Android and iOS versions are being published constantly and new devices appear, meaning the dict.cc app has to be adapted continuously. Unfortunately the programming environment I've been using so far does not seem to keep up with all of the developments, leading to technical issues with recent Android versions. That's why I've been busy reprogramming the app from scratch in a new development environment. Most probably it will take me several more months of programming until I can start releasing this new app.
In the desktop online world the trend is towards more security and encryption. Browsers started to show warnings whenever data is transmitted without encryption, even if the data only consists of a search keyword for translation. That's why I needed to update dict.cc to use only secure transmission, which obviously had an impact on the self-compiled traffic statistics. It seems as if bot traffic (automated page request traffic) has receded greatly. That might not look so good in the stats, but basically it's a good thing as it improves server stability.
Here, again, is the yearly snapshot of the numbers to document the development of the contents of dict.cc: 1,149,830 German-English translations, 1,482,531 translations in all other language pairs combined, that makes an addition of 137,542 translation pairs in only one year! That's really an amazing accomplishment! And that's not even taking into account the tremendous amount of corrected and improved existing entries, or the now 1,068,521 audio recordings, the 1,072,700 inflection entries and the 234,520 illustrating images. Both audio recordings and inflections hit the 1 million mark this year!
The team that made this possible consists of 244,443 registered users, more specifically of 32,025 contributors, and especially of the small core team of really motivated, hardworking and devoted top contributors, the heart and soul of dict.cc. That's your success! Thank you!
Still most of the technical innovations happen in the mobile world, on smartphones, tablets and other "smart" devices. New Android and iOS versions are being published constantly and new devices appear, meaning the dict.cc app has to be adapted continuously. Unfortunately the programming environment I've been using so far does not seem to keep up with all of the developments, leading to technical issues with recent Android versions. That's why I've been busy reprogramming the app from scratch in a new development environment. Most probably it will take me several more months of programming until I can start releasing this new app.
In the desktop online world the trend is towards more security and encryption. Browsers started to show warnings whenever data is transmitted without encryption, even if the data only consists of a search keyword for translation. That's why I needed to update dict.cc to use only secure transmission, which obviously had an impact on the self-compiled traffic statistics. It seems as if bot traffic (automated page request traffic) has receded greatly. That might not look so good in the stats, but basically it's a good thing as it improves server stability.
Here, again, is the yearly snapshot of the numbers to document the development of the contents of dict.cc: 1,149,830 German-English translations, 1,482,531 translations in all other language pairs combined, that makes an addition of 137,542 translation pairs in only one year! That's really an amazing accomplishment! And that's not even taking into account the tremendous amount of corrected and improved existing entries, or the now 1,068,521 audio recordings, the 1,072,700 inflection entries and the 234,520 illustrating images. Both audio recordings and inflections hit the 1 million mark this year!
The team that made this possible consists of 244,443 registered users, more specifically of 32,025 contributors, and especially of the small core team of really motivated, hardworking and devoted top contributors, the heart and soul of dict.cc. That's your success! Thank you!
2017-09-21: Secure transmission (https) - part 2: dict.cc changed to a general https-secured transmission today. The link for switching back to the unsecured transmission has been removed.
2017-09-11: German-Norwegian has reached 30,000 translations! Congratulations to the contributors!
2017-08-28: Secure transmission (https): Now it's possible to reach not only the search results pages, but every section of the regular dict.cc website via https. If there is no padlock sign in the address bar of your browser, you can click the link "https", located directly under the dict.cc search field. This will toggle between secure and regular version. Please tell me (paul@dict.cc) if this change results in any kind of problem for you.
2017-06-17: The mobile website also shows inflections now.
2017-06-16: 200,000 verified keyword illustration images!
2017-04-14: German-Icelandic has reached 100,000 translation entries today!
2017-03-17: 1,000,000 audio recordings!
2017-02-01: 1,000,000 inflection entries!
News 2016
2016-11-06: 14 years of dict.cc!
For several years dictionary usage has been shifting steadily towards mobile devices (smartphones and tablets), which is why, in addition to maintenance and support, I'm mostly concerned with app development lately. But as it turns out, apps alone are not enough anymore, also mobile web usage is increasing at high rates. That's why this year I developed a new mobile website, m.dict.cc, which is gaining popularity quite nicely. During the week it ususally answers more than 1 million search requests per day.
Here are the current statistics:
1,114,827 German-English translations, 1,379,992 translations in all other language pairs combined,
964,642 audio recordings, 972,709 inflection entries, 176,509 illustrating images,
still 15 servers, 231,584 registered users and - last but not least - 30,374 contributors. Some of them have been with dict.cc for many years already and can look back on a lot of progress over time, just like me. A very special "thank you" to you, guys! You are the backbone of dict.cc!
For several years dictionary usage has been shifting steadily towards mobile devices (smartphones and tablets), which is why, in addition to maintenance and support, I'm mostly concerned with app development lately. But as it turns out, apps alone are not enough anymore, also mobile web usage is increasing at high rates. That's why this year I developed a new mobile website, m.dict.cc, which is gaining popularity quite nicely. During the week it ususally answers more than 1 million search requests per day.
Here are the current statistics:
1,114,827 German-English translations, 1,379,992 translations in all other language pairs combined,
964,642 audio recordings, 972,709 inflection entries, 176,509 illustrating images,
still 15 servers, 231,584 registered users and - last but not least - 30,374 contributors. Some of them have been with dict.cc for many years already and can look back on a lot of progress over time, just like me. A very special "thank you" to you, guys! You are the backbone of dict.cc!
2016-09-15: Forum notification extended: Now it's possible to get notified by e-mail when a new question is posted in the forum of a specific language pair. This feature can be found on the first page of the forum, above the most current question, in the box to the right. To avoid spamming subscribers with multiple postings a link contained in the notification mail has to be clicked to receive further notifications.
2016-08-31: New voice recording feature
Because the Google Chrome browser stopped supporting Java, it became necessary to implement a new voice recording tool. Unfortunately not all browsers support the technology needed, so currently it's only available in Chrome. To give it a try, just open the regular audio recording page using the Chrome browser.
One advantage of the new feature is that possible mouse clicks from pressing the record button are cut off automatically.
If the new tool turns out to be better than the existing Java version, I will also release it for Firefox.
Because the Google Chrome browser stopped supporting Java, it became necessary to implement a new voice recording tool. Unfortunately not all browsers support the technology needed, so currently it's only available in Chrome. To give it a try, just open the regular audio recording page using the Chrome browser.
One advantage of the new feature is that possible mouse clicks from pressing the record button are cut off automatically.
If the new tool turns out to be better than the existing Java version, I will also release it for Firefox.
2016-08-14: German-Swedish is the first new language pair to reach 100,000 entries!
2016-07-07: At m.dict.cc there is a new mobile website in the style of the app. Give it a try! If it doesn't work on your specific device or if there are any bugs or problems, please notify me at paul@dict.cc!
2016-05-18: Also Croatian-German leaves the beta phase!
Today, shortly before midnight, the exact number of 30,000 translations was reached!
Thanks and congratulations to the contributors!
Today, shortly before midnight, the exact number of 30,000 translations was reached!
Thanks and congratulations to the contributors!
2016-04-01: Bulgarian-German leaves beta phase!
No April Fools' joke: The milestone of 30,000 translations has been reached today! Thanks to all of the contributors!
No April Fools' joke: The milestone of 30,000 translations has been reached today! Thanks to all of the contributors!
News 2015
2015-12-26: French-English is out of Beta!
As a little Christmas present also French-English has reached the mark of 30,000 entries today! Thanks to all contributors!
As a little Christmas present also French-English has reached the mark of 30,000 entries today! Thanks to all contributors!
2015-11-19: 900,000 inflections!
2015-11-07: 1.25 million translations in the new language pairs! And also today: 900,000 voice recordings!
2015-11-06: New feature and 13 years of dict.cc!
Today I finished developing and testing a new feature that should be useful for choosing the most suitable translation and that shows how words are used in context. To try it, please search for any keyword and click the [i] button next to a term. In addition to the existing menu there will be a window showing example sentences for the term.
I use the text corpora of the Wikipedia sites in the various languages for these usage examples. This makes it highly probable to have example sentences even for rare terms. I guess it will take some time for most users to discover this new feature as it's hidden behind the [i] buttons, but that's okay, it's just additional information that's not needed every time.
If you discover paragraphs that contain strange characters or other problems, please click "more" at the end of the paragraph and then use "report problem".
At this point I'd like to say thank you to the community of contributors, once again, as you still keep dict.cc alive and fill it with translations, inflections, voice recordings, and - since last year - also with pictures! As of today there are 119,856 images assigned to dict.cc keywords!
More numbers for the records:
28,518 registered contributors (out of 215,078 registered users), 1,086,591 German-English translations, 1,249,827 translation entries in all other language pairs combined. In addition to that 896,420 inflections and 899,710 audio recordings have been submitted and checked by the community.
By the way: dict.cc's Android apps were installed 2.2 Million times already. I don't have the numbers for iPhone/iPad, but they should be at the same level more or less.
Today I finished developing and testing a new feature that should be useful for choosing the most suitable translation and that shows how words are used in context. To try it, please search for any keyword and click the [i] button next to a term. In addition to the existing menu there will be a window showing example sentences for the term.
I use the text corpora of the Wikipedia sites in the various languages for these usage examples. This makes it highly probable to have example sentences even for rare terms. I guess it will take some time for most users to discover this new feature as it's hidden behind the [i] buttons, but that's okay, it's just additional information that's not needed every time.
If you discover paragraphs that contain strange characters or other problems, please click "more" at the end of the paragraph and then use "report problem".
At this point I'd like to say thank you to the community of contributors, once again, as you still keep dict.cc alive and fill it with translations, inflections, voice recordings, and - since last year - also with pictures! As of today there are 119,856 images assigned to dict.cc keywords!
More numbers for the records:
28,518 registered contributors (out of 215,078 registered users), 1,086,591 German-English translations, 1,249,827 translation entries in all other language pairs combined. In addition to that 896,420 inflections and 899,710 audio recordings have been submitted and checked by the community.
By the way: dict.cc's Android apps were installed 2.2 Million times already. I don't have the numbers for iPhone/iPad, but they should be at the same level more or less.
2015-09-05: 100,000 Images!
Since adding the possibility to choose images to illustrate keywords (just over a year ago), more than 100,000 images were selected and verified!
Examples: Promenadenmischung, kneten, happy, allemagne, muskola, pingüino pequeño
I wouldn't have expected this amount in just one year!
Thanks to the tireless image researchers and verifiers! :)
Since adding the possibility to choose images to illustrate keywords (just over a year ago), more than 100,000 images were selected and verified!
Examples: Promenadenmischung, kneten, happy, allemagne, muskola, pingüino pequeño
I wouldn't have expected this amount in just one year!
Thanks to the tireless image researchers and verifiers! :)
2015-06-03: Spanish-German out of Beta!
Now it would be nice if Spanish could further improve its position relative to other dict.cc languages. ;-)
Thanks to the contributors!
Now it would be nice if Spanish could further improve its position relative to other dict.cc languages. ;-)
Thanks to the contributors!
News 2014
2014-11-06: 12 years of dict.cc!
During the last year dict.cc was able to become the most widely used online dictionary for translations in the German-speaking world, and usage trends keep going up. I'm still working hard to achieve the same for our smartphone apps. We're not there yet, but we're already doing quite well in that area, too. Unfortunately it's still going to take a lot of time and work, basically because devices and operating systems evolve so fast that it's hard to keep up.
A new feature for the online dictionary went live this year: Graphic illustrations for dictionary pages. By now already 46,311 images have been assigned to keywords.
To keep up with rising server requirements (more dictionary lookups, bigger vocabularies and additional server tasks due to apps and new features) I added three more servers this year and replaced a few of the older ones, so dict.cc now runs on 15 machines in parallel.
And now some statistical data, for the record:
26,483 registered contributors (out of 197,017 registered users), 1,048,085 German-English translations, 1,135,107 translation entries in all other language pairs combined. In addition to that 781,542 inflections and 849,831 audio recordings have been submitted and checked by the community.
My thanks go out to all of the contributors! You know the efforts that are hidden behind these numbers, and your work is what makes dict.cc special! :)
During the last year dict.cc was able to become the most widely used online dictionary for translations in the German-speaking world, and usage trends keep going up. I'm still working hard to achieve the same for our smartphone apps. We're not there yet, but we're already doing quite well in that area, too. Unfortunately it's still going to take a lot of time and work, basically because devices and operating systems evolve so fast that it's hard to keep up.
A new feature for the online dictionary went live this year: Graphic illustrations for dictionary pages. By now already 46,311 images have been assigned to keywords.
To keep up with rising server requirements (more dictionary lookups, bigger vocabularies and additional server tasks due to apps and new features) I added three more servers this year and replaced a few of the older ones, so dict.cc now runs on 15 machines in parallel.
And now some statistical data, for the record:
26,483 registered contributors (out of 197,017 registered users), 1,048,085 German-English translations, 1,135,107 translation entries in all other language pairs combined. In addition to that 781,542 inflections and 849,831 audio recordings have been submitted and checked by the community.
My thanks go out to all of the contributors! You know the efforts that are hidden behind these numbers, and your work is what makes dict.cc special! :)
2014-09-20: Slovak-German also leaves beta phase!
More than 30,000 translations are available as of today! Thanks to the contributors!
More than 30,000 translations are available as of today! Thanks to the contributors!
2014-07-07: Shutterstock: Graphic illustrations for dictionary pages!
See some example pages: schuhe, bike, niesen, weinen, soccer
The intention of this is to support language learning by providing something visual to remember. I kept the images small to avoid bothering the users that don't need this. However, if you still find this annoying, just move your mouse over an image, then click the last menu item to disable the feature altogether.
To make sure the images are relevant and helpful, they aren't assigned automatically. In good dict.cc tradition I developed an assignment tool I then used to assign around 1000 images. This tool can now be used by anyone interested - just move your mouse cursor over the spot where the image would appear. I'm looking forward to your feedback and hope to see lots of new image assignments soon!
Today I'm excited to introduce a new experimental feature in cooperation with See some example pages: schuhe, bike, niesen, weinen, soccer
The intention of this is to support language learning by providing something visual to remember. I kept the images small to avoid bothering the users that don't need this. However, if you still find this annoying, just move your mouse over an image, then click the last menu item to disable the feature altogether.
To make sure the images are relevant and helpful, they aren't assigned automatically. In good dict.cc tradition I developed an assignment tool I then used to assign around 1000 images. This tool can now be used by anyone interested - just move your mouse cursor over the spot where the image would appear. I'm looking forward to your feedback and hope to see lots of new image assignments soon!
2014-05-25: Slovak-English leaves beta phase!
The milestone of 30,000 translations has been reached today! Thanks to all of the contributors!
The milestone of 30,000 translations has been reached today! Thanks to all of the contributors!
2014-03-02: 800,000 voice recordings!
2014-01-31: First month with more than 200 million pageviews!
2014-01-14: First day with more than 8 million pageviews!
2014-01-13: The Android app "dict.cc" is installed on over one million devices by now!
News 2013
2013-12-29: 700,000 inflections!
2013-12-02: Now there are more entries in the new language pairs than there are in German-English!
2013-11-18: More than 1 million entries in the new language pairs! :)
Many thanks to all of the contributors! Danke! Thank you! Takk! Grazie! Спасибо! Köszönöm! Mulțumesc! Merci ! Obrigado! Tack! Benigne! Bedankt! ¡Gracias! Благодаря! Ďakujem! Děkuji! Teşekkürler! Hvala! Dziękuję! Tak! Takk! Ευχαριστώ! Хвала! Hvala! Dankon! Kiitos! Faleminderit!
Many thanks to all of the contributors! Danke! Thank you! Takk! Grazie! Спасибо! Köszönöm! Mulțumesc! Merci ! Obrigado! Tack! Benigne! Bedankt! ¡Gracias! Благодаря! Ďakujem! Děkuji! Teşekkürler! Hvala! Dziękuję! Tak! Takk! Ευχαριστώ! Хвала! Hvala! Dankon! Kiitos! Faleminderit!
2013-11-06: dict.cc is 11!
Once again I'm looking back at a fascinating year, especially shaped by the development of the smartphone and tablet world. Currently I do a lot of work in this section, updating the iPhone/iPad app for iOS7 and adding features to the vocabulary trainer of the "plus" version of the app. As soon as this is done I will incorporate the new trainer features into the Android version.
Also the usage numbers of the regular web version of dict.cc keep developing positively, even if not as fast as in the first years. According to the statistics at alexa.com there's a neck-and-neck race going on between the usage numbers of dict.cc (Global Rank 670) and the best-known online dictionary in the German-speaking world, LEO (Global Rank 669).
The other major thing that keeps me busy and engaged is the development of the community of contributors to dict.cc. Controversies, cases of illness and even the passing of contributors, but also business connections, romantic relationships and most of all friendships developed and happened within the community and the feedback mails I receive range from harsh criticism to exuberant praise. That makes dict.cc not only a matter of technology, but first and foremost a matter of emotion for me. My thanks at this point go out to all those who contributed to dict.cc and especially to those who have been working on improving dict.cc for years, with much blood, sweat and tears, and who make sure that dict.cc not only works, but feels alive and spirited. The guys I'm talking about know who I mean. Thank you!
Here are some statistics for comparison with previous years:
24,207 registered contributors worked on 1,002,806 English-German translations and on 993,763 translations within the other language pairs (176,482 registered users in total). 742,642 audio recordings and 675,304 inflection entries have been posted so far. 12 server machines handle up to 7.5 million page views daily, as well as numerous vocabulary downloads within the apps. 1 administrator (me) handles the servers and another 1 (Muhamed) cares about the ongoing linguistic questions and tasks.
Once again I'm looking back at a fascinating year, especially shaped by the development of the smartphone and tablet world. Currently I do a lot of work in this section, updating the iPhone/iPad app for iOS7 and adding features to the vocabulary trainer of the "plus" version of the app. As soon as this is done I will incorporate the new trainer features into the Android version.
Also the usage numbers of the regular web version of dict.cc keep developing positively, even if not as fast as in the first years. According to the statistics at alexa.com there's a neck-and-neck race going on between the usage numbers of dict.cc (Global Rank 670) and the best-known online dictionary in the German-speaking world, LEO (Global Rank 669).
The other major thing that keeps me busy and engaged is the development of the community of contributors to dict.cc. Controversies, cases of illness and even the passing of contributors, but also business connections, romantic relationships and most of all friendships developed and happened within the community and the feedback mails I receive range from harsh criticism to exuberant praise. That makes dict.cc not only a matter of technology, but first and foremost a matter of emotion for me. My thanks at this point go out to all those who contributed to dict.cc and especially to those who have been working on improving dict.cc for years, with much blood, sweat and tears, and who make sure that dict.cc not only works, but feels alive and spirited. The guys I'm talking about know who I mean. Thank you!
Here are some statistics for comparison with previous years:
24,207 registered contributors worked on 1,002,806 English-German translations and on 993,763 translations within the other language pairs (176,482 registered users in total). 742,642 audio recordings and 675,304 inflection entries have been posted so far. 12 server machines handle up to 7.5 million page views daily, as well as numerous vocabulary downloads within the apps. 1 administrator (me) handles the servers and another 1 (Muhamed) cares about the ongoing linguistic questions and tasks.
2013-10-21:
__ .-'''-. ___ ...-' |`. .---..---. ' _ \ .'/ \ | | | __ __ ___ .--.| || |.--. / /` '. \ _..._ / / \ .... | | | |/ `.' `. |__|| || ||__|. | \ ' .' '. | | | -| | | | .-. .-. '.--.| || |.--.| ' | '. .-. .| | | | | | | | | | | || || || || |\ \ / / | ' ' ||/`. .' ...' `--' | | | | | || || || || | `. ` ..' / | | | | `.| | | |`. | | | | | || || || || | '-...-'` | | | | ||___| ` --------\ | | | | | | || || || || | | | | | |/___/ `---------' |__| |__| |__||__|| || ||__| | | | | .'.--. '---''---' | | | | | | | | | | | \_\ / '--' '--' `''--' __ __ __ _ ______ _ _ _ _ _ _ /_ | | \/ (_) | ____(_) | | (_) (_) | | (_) | | | \ / |_ ___ | |__ _ _ __ | |_ _ __ __ _ __ _ ___ | |__ ___ _ | | | |\/| | |/ _ \ | __| | | '_ \| __| '__/ _` |/ _` |/ _ \ | '_ \ / _ \ | | | | | | | | (_) | | |____| | | | | |_| | | (_| | (_| | __/ | |_) | __/ | |_|_|_| |_|_|\___(_) |______|_|_| |_|\__|_|__\__,_|\__, |\___| |_.__/ \___|_| _ | __ \ | | | | | ____| __/ | | (_) | | | | | | | | ___ _ _| |_ ___ ___| |__ ______| |__ _ |___/__ _| |_ ___ ___| |__ | | | | | |/ _ \ | | | __/ __|/ __| '_ \______| __| | '_ \ / _` | | / __|/ __| '_ \| | | |__| | __/ |_| | |_\__ \ (__| | | | | |____| | | | (_| | | \__ \ (__| | | |_| |_____/ \___|\__,_|\__|___/\___|_| |_| |______|_| |_|\__, |_|_|___/\___|_| |_(_) __/ | |___/
2013-06-09: Hungarian-English is out of Beta!
The first language combination with English has reached the mark of 30,000 entries! Thanks to all contributors!
The first language combination with English has reached the mark of 30,000 entries! Thanks to all contributors!
2013-05-26: Latin-German out of Beta!
Well, that was fast! Thanks to everyone! I wonder how long it will take for the first language combination with English to reach the 30k mark. That would most probably be Hungarian! :)
Well, that was fast! Thanks to everyone! I wonder how long it will take for the first language combination with English to reach the 30k mark. That would most probably be Hungarian! :)
2013-05-24: Dutch-German also leaves beta stage!
Yesterday morning the 30,000-entry threshold was exceed! Thanks and congratulations to the contributors!
Yesterday morning the 30,000-entry threshold was exceed! Thanks and congratulations to the contributors!
2013-05-10: 700,000 voice recordings!
2013-05-04: More than 900,000 entries in the new language pairs!
2013-04-24: To increase awareness for the various dictionaries and to make switching between them easier, we're now linking all language pairs directly from the home page of dict.cc, using a tag cloud format. The font size stands for the size the vobulary has reached so far.
If you prefer the previous display of the recently verified translations, just click the link "New Translations" contained in the second blue bar to switch back. A combined view (Dictionaries + Translations) is also available.
If you prefer the previous display of the recently verified translations, just click the link "New Translations" contained in the second blue bar to switch back. A combined view (Dictionaries + Translations) is also available.
2013-04-18: Next language pair to leave beta: Swedish-German!
The milestone of 30,000 translations has been reached! Thanks to all of the contributors!
The milestone of 30,000 translations has been reached! Thanks to all of the contributors!
2013-02-06: 600,000 inflections!
News 2012
2012-11-06: 10 YEARS OF DICT.CC!
It's been 10 years to the day, that the first version of dict.cc went online. It had no forum, no user registration facility, vocabulary trainer or smartphone app, just a search feature powered by a database of around 120,000 German-English entries (courtesy of TU Chemnitz / Frank Richter).
Over the years this vocabulary grew to an amazing 945,000 entries and will inevitably exceed the million mark in the foreseeable future. This was only made possible by the real heros at dict.cc, the 21,330 registered (and many more unregistered) contributors! I know many of the most committed people well enough by now to know how much energy and emotion they keep investing in dict.cc. Some of them started contributing to dict.cc at the very beginning ten years ago and are still here, contributing diligently!
I can't thank you enough for all your efforts - and also for your willingness to compromise in many heated debates we had regarding the rules and guidelines of dict.cc!
In addition to German-English we also boast 50 more language combinations that were introduced in the last few years and started completely from scratch. They already consist of almost 800,000 entries altogether. I'd like to express my sincere thanks to Muhamed who supports me with words and deeds and his extraordinarily profound linguistic skills. I think without him this task would not have been possible at all. Many thanks for your continuing support, Muhi!
Following the introduction of the computer-generated voice output another development was the possibility for contributors to add their own voice recordings. After some initial problems this has proved another great success. Spam recordings stay within reasonable limits and dict.cc can now access a library of almost 650,000 audio samples from native speakers in various languages. The most committed audio contributors managed to upload thousands of recordings, some of them did tens of thousands or are even nearing an incredible one hundred thousand audios in top quality!
Then there is the inflection feature, introduced around three years ago. Even though inflections are placed unobtrusively above the translations in the search results lists, they are of great value to a lot of users, as many of them tell me. Inflections are also collected and reviewed by the community and have grown into a remarkable amount of 575,000 entries in the meantime.
The latest addition to dict.cc, which is sure to play an ever-increasing role in the future, are the apps for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, as well as Android smartphones and tablets and possible future platforms. They were published step by step over the course of this year and are now installed on around 1.5 million devices.
Due to the offline functionality of the apps they have to deal with major chunks of data, which is why I'm still very busy with technical issues on several devices. I'm working on that as hard as I can and am confident that the apps become stable enough soon, so that I'll be able to fully refocus on the core aspects of dict.cc again.
Two other things that have changed over the years are the legal structure and the popularity of dict.cc. Starting as a self-financed and largely unknown hobby project, it has grown into an individual enterprise and eventually into a limited liability company (GmbH) placed within the top 50 rankings of all websites in the German-speaking world and within the top 800 worldwide, so we are well-positioned for the future.
Looking forward to the next ten years! :)
Cheers, Paul
It's been 10 years to the day, that the first version of dict.cc went online. It had no forum, no user registration facility, vocabulary trainer or smartphone app, just a search feature powered by a database of around 120,000 German-English entries (courtesy of TU Chemnitz / Frank Richter).
Over the years this vocabulary grew to an amazing 945,000 entries and will inevitably exceed the million mark in the foreseeable future. This was only made possible by the real heros at dict.cc, the 21,330 registered (and many more unregistered) contributors! I know many of the most committed people well enough by now to know how much energy and emotion they keep investing in dict.cc. Some of them started contributing to dict.cc at the very beginning ten years ago and are still here, contributing diligently!
I can't thank you enough for all your efforts - and also for your willingness to compromise in many heated debates we had regarding the rules and guidelines of dict.cc!
In addition to German-English we also boast 50 more language combinations that were introduced in the last few years and started completely from scratch. They already consist of almost 800,000 entries altogether. I'd like to express my sincere thanks to Muhamed who supports me with words and deeds and his extraordinarily profound linguistic skills. I think without him this task would not have been possible at all. Many thanks for your continuing support, Muhi!
Following the introduction of the computer-generated voice output another development was the possibility for contributors to add their own voice recordings. After some initial problems this has proved another great success. Spam recordings stay within reasonable limits and dict.cc can now access a library of almost 650,000 audio samples from native speakers in various languages. The most committed audio contributors managed to upload thousands of recordings, some of them did tens of thousands or are even nearing an incredible one hundred thousand audios in top quality!
Then there is the inflection feature, introduced around three years ago. Even though inflections are placed unobtrusively above the translations in the search results lists, they are of great value to a lot of users, as many of them tell me. Inflections are also collected and reviewed by the community and have grown into a remarkable amount of 575,000 entries in the meantime.
The latest addition to dict.cc, which is sure to play an ever-increasing role in the future, are the apps for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, as well as Android smartphones and tablets and possible future platforms. They were published step by step over the course of this year and are now installed on around 1.5 million devices.
Due to the offline functionality of the apps they have to deal with major chunks of data, which is why I'm still very busy with technical issues on several devices. I'm working on that as hard as I can and am confident that the apps become stable enough soon, so that I'll be able to fully refocus on the core aspects of dict.cc again.
Two other things that have changed over the years are the legal structure and the popularity of dict.cc. Starting as a self-financed and largely unknown hobby project, it has grown into an individual enterprise and eventually into a limited liability company (GmbH) placed within the top 50 rankings of all websites in the German-speaking world and within the top 800 worldwide, so we are well-positioned for the future.
Looking forward to the next ten years! :)
Cheers, Paul
2012-10-31: Icelandic-German is now number one of all new languages at dict.cc, with 60,000 entries! Congratulations guys! You are truly amazing! :)
2012-10-23: Currently the Android app "dict.cc plus" is "App of the Week" in the Androidpit store and available for half the regular price.
2012-10-19: "dict.cc plus" ranked #1 of all free apps in the German AppStore! And in Austria!
Promotion: Free only today, EUR 2.99 otherwise (but there's an ad-supported version that will stay free of charge)
Promotion: Free only today, EUR 2.99 otherwise (but there's an ad-supported version that will stay free of charge)
2012-10-10: Romanian-German dictionary leaving beta stage!
The seventh language pair to leave beta has gained a lot of ground lately. With more than 36.000 entries it already outnumbered Portuguese! Many thanks for your contributions!
The seventh language pair to leave beta has gained a lot of ground lately. With more than 36.000 entries it already outnumbered Portuguese! Many thanks for your contributions!
2012-10-01: dict.cc is now a limited liability company (GmbH)!
Everything else stays the same, the admin team still consists of Muhamed (linguistic questions regarding all new languages) and Paul (general manager and responsible for technology, support and everything else).
Everything else stays the same, the admin team still consists of Muhamed (linguistic questions regarding all new languages) and Paul (general manager and responsible for technology, support and everything else).
2012-09-03: Free app for iPhone and iPad relaunched!
Due to the amount of around 1 million existing installations it's a very exiting task to update the existing app using completely new software code. There may be a lot of feedback mails, so please bear with me if it takes me longer to answer in the next few days.
New features: Vocabulary can be updated within the app (free of charge), additional languages, speech output, back button, the app now searches both language directions in parallel, the search field stays visible all the time, iPad support.
Because of the expenses necessary for app development and support and for the maintenance of the servers for vocabulary and audio downloads I had to introduce ad banners. I'd ask for your understanding! If the ads are too annoying, please consider buying "dict.cc plus"!
Note: The first start of the app my take 20 seconds, because the database has to be installed first.
Due to the amount of around 1 million existing installations it's a very exiting task to update the existing app using completely new software code. There may be a lot of feedback mails, so please bear with me if it takes me longer to answer in the next few days.
New features: Vocabulary can be updated within the app (free of charge), additional languages, speech output, back button, the app now searches both language directions in parallel, the search field stays visible all the time, iPad support.
Because of the expenses necessary for app development and support and for the maintenance of the servers for vocabulary and audio downloads I had to introduce ad banners. I'd ask for your understanding! If the ads are too annoying, please consider buying "dict.cc plus"!
Note: The first start of the app my take 20 seconds, because the database has to be installed first.
2012-08-16: The Android app "dict.cc plus" is now also available at AndroidPIT.de!
2012-08-11: The free version of the dict.cc app for Android now also features speech output!
2012-07-16: Say hello to dict.cc+ 2.0! The smartphone app now includes speech output!
Available now for iPhone/iPad and Android!
Available now for iPhone/iPad and Android!
2012-07-04: The dict.cc app for Android has been mentioned in several reviews (in German language). Here is a good one by allessparen.de featuring a step-by-step tutorial.
Others include: Chip.de, kidsaway.de: Reise-Apps für Familien, appgefahren.de, n-droid.de, apps-android.info, PC Welt: Smartphones ohne Internetverbindung nutzen, giga.de, online-sprachen-lernen.com
Others include: Chip.de, kidsaway.de: Reise-Apps für Familien, appgefahren.de, n-droid.de, apps-android.info, PC Welt: Smartphones ohne Internetverbindung nutzen, giga.de, online-sprachen-lernen.com
2012-05-29: German-English vocabulary reaches 900,000 entries!
2012-05-16: 600,000 voice recordings!
2012-05-05: "dict.cc plus" app for iPhone and iPad released!
Compared to the current Android app a few additional improvements have been made, and the German-English vocabulary is already contained in the app download. The app has been approved by Apple last night and it may take up to 24 hours for it to be visible in the App Stores worldwide.
» iTunes preview "dict.cc plus"
Apple supplies me with 50 promo codes (free downloads), which I exclusively give out to dict.cc contributors. Send me a short e-mail if you want one!
Compared to the current Android app a few additional improvements have been made, and the German-English vocabulary is already contained in the app download. The app has been approved by Apple last night and it may take up to 24 hours for it to be visible in the App Stores worldwide.
» iTunes preview "dict.cc plus"
Apple supplies me with 50 promo codes (free downloads), which I exclusively give out to dict.cc contributors. Send me a short e-mail if you want one!
2012-04-30: The Android app "dict.cc+" was tested by "PC Welt" magazine, rated "very good"!
2012-04-28: More than 700,000 entries in the new language pairs!
2012-04-24: Compact search results page revised: Sorting by word frequency, frequency shown on mouse-over, subject now displayed at the end of the line
2012-04-12: The dict.cc Android app has been installed on 100,000 devices as of today!
2012-03-21: Contribute system changed: If you delete your own translation input before others could vote or comment on it, it will be deleted irrevocably and removed from your contribution history.
2012-03-02: dict.cc Desktop Integration
Here is a new possibility to easily access dict.cc: Axonic GmbH created a special version of their free software tool "click.to", which is available for both Windows and Mac OS X.
Here is how it works:
After installation you'll see several small (configurable) buttons appear next to your mouse cursor when adding text to the clipboard by pressing Ctrl-C (or using the mouse). One of them opens the highlighted term in dict.cc, others search for it with Google or Wikipedia or open another program, like mail or a text editor with the text already entered. I use this tool myself and I find it very useful.
» Download now!
Here is a new possibility to easily access dict.cc: Axonic GmbH created a special version of their free software tool "click.to", which is available for both Windows and Mac OS X.
Here is how it works:
After installation you'll see several small (configurable) buttons appear next to your mouse cursor when adding text to the clipboard by pressing Ctrl-C (or using the mouse). One of them opens the highlighted term in dict.cc, others search for it with Google or Wikipedia or open another program, like mail or a text editor with the text already entered. I use this tool myself and I find it very useful.
» Download now!
2012-03-01: 500,000 inflections!
2012-02-29: "dict.cc plus" app released!
Due to popular demand I released an additional version of the dict.cc app for Android, called dict.cc plus. This app is ad-free and contains two additional features (recent searches, quiz game). Get it here!
Due to popular demand I released an additional version of the dict.cc app for Android, called dict.cc plus. This app is ad-free and contains two additional features (recent searches, quiz game). Get it here!
2012-02-13: The Android app is now running on over 10,000 devices, and the feedback is quite good. The app has already been mentioned in a number of reviews, however not all articles are 100% correct about all the details. Some examples (written in German): Nexustalk, Opensmartpad, Mydealz, Stereopoly, Kiwipalme, Data-Bla, Smartdroid
2012-02-01: Android app version 1.0 released!
As of now the app is available on the Android Market. A few improvements are still underway and most probably some error corrections will also become necessary. Stay tuned for more!
As of now the app is available on the Android Market. A few improvements are still underway and most probably some error corrections will also become necessary. Stay tuned for more!
2012-01-27: Android app release candidate
The current version should fix all major problems reported so far. Thanks to all previous testers! Please also try this version and use the Info page within the app to tell me if it works for you! If no new major problems appear, I will release this version on the Android Market.
» Download Beta 6 (Release Candidate)
The current version should fix all major problems reported so far. Thanks to all previous testers! Please also try this version and use the Info page within the app to tell me if it works for you! If no new major problems appear, I will release this version on the Android Market.
» Download Beta 6 (Release Candidate)
2012-01-12: Small change in the rendering of the "Voting Accuracy" in the Hall of Fame (classification by levels instead of percentage). The technical system has not been changed. » see discussion
2012-01-04: New version of the Android app: bug fixes, vocabulary now stored on SD card
» Download Beta 5
» Download Beta 5
News 2011
2011-12-23: Forum search improvements: Filter by category, search in both title and text.
2011-12-20: Android App Beta version released!
Unfortunately it took me very long to get the Android app done. It's not completely finished yet, but at least it's in a stage where it can be called Beta. To create it, I used a framework called Titanium, which allows me to use the same programming code to create both the Android app and the upcoming iPhone/iPad app, so this version will be there faster.
App features:
- Find words as you type, no need to select a search direction first.
- Tap a word for the translations, tap a translation to retranslate.
- All language pairs from www.dict.cc are supported.
- The vocabulary can be downloaded and updated within the app.
- The app and all vocabulary downloads are free thanks to in-app ads.
- There will be a second app soon, with more features and without ads, but for a small fee.
- Split-screen view when used on tablets.
Please download and test the app and use the error reporting feature from the info page to report any problems. Please also give me feedback if it works nicely. Due to the multitude of different Android devices (screen size, processor power, storage size) it's impossible to test all of them, so I need your feedback to solve any issues before submitting the app to the Android Market.
» Download Android App Beta
Unfortunately it took me very long to get the Android app done. It's not completely finished yet, but at least it's in a stage where it can be called Beta. To create it, I used a framework called Titanium, which allows me to use the same programming code to create both the Android app and the upcoming iPhone/iPad app, so this version will be there faster.
App features:
- Find words as you type, no need to select a search direction first.
- Tap a word for the translations, tap a translation to retranslate.
- All language pairs from www.dict.cc are supported.
- The vocabulary can be downloaded and updated within the app.
- The app and all vocabulary downloads are free thanks to in-app ads.
- There will be a second app soon, with more features and without ads, but for a small fee.
- Split-screen view when used on tablets.
Please download and test the app and use the error reporting feature from the info page to report any problems. Please also give me feedback if it works nicely. Due to the multitude of different Android devices (screen size, processor power, storage size) it's impossible to test all of them, so I need your feedback to solve any issues before submitting the app to the Android Market.
» Download Android App Beta
2011-12-08: Russian-German dictionary leaving beta stage!
It's already the sixth language pair at dict.cc, and the first one containing the Cyrillic alphabet, to reach this milestone. Congratulations and many thanks to all of the contributors!
It's already the sixth language pair at dict.cc, and the first one containing the Cyrillic alphabet, to reach this milestone. Congratulations and many thanks to all of the contributors!
2011-12-01: More than 600,000 entries in the new language pairs!
Yet again 100,000 translations were added in almost exactly half a year. I don't have the slightest idea how this comes to pass so many times in a row - but I'm really happy about it! ;-)
On another note, the number of 160 million page views per month was exceeded in November!
Yet again 100,000 translations were added in almost exactly half a year. I don't have the slightest idea how this comes to pass so many times in a row - but I'm really happy about it! ;-)
On another note, the number of 160 million page views per month was exceeded in November!
2011-11-10: Italian-German is the first of the new language pairs to hit the amount of 50,000 entries! Congratulations to the Italian-German team!
2011-11-09: First day with more than 7 million pageviews!
2011-11-07: Hungarian-German dictionary leaving beta stage!
This language pair gained a lot of momentum lately, thanks to great new and long-term contributors!
Thank you for 30,000 translations at a verification rate of 97%!
This language pair gained a lot of momentum lately, thanks to great new and long-term contributors!
Thank you for 30,000 translations at a verification rate of 97%!
2011-11-06: Happy Birthday: dict.cc is 9!
It's hard to believe how time flies! Nine years ago I started dict.cc as a hobby project and it still feels as if only two or three years went by. The first build-up phase with lots of technical additions is over now. Meanwhile my work day mainly consists of maintenance, support and occasional small enhancements and bugfixes. Fortunately there still is some time left to work on new sub-projects. Currently I'm primarily working on a dictionary app for Android smartphones and a new app for iPhone and iPad. It will still take me some time to finish this, but the most difficult technical problems (due to the database size) are solved by now. Several website improvements are already waiting to be done after completion of the apps project.
Some statistics once again: Good days generate between 6 and 6.5 million page requests (150 million a month), delivered by 12 servers. 17,925 of 123,860 registered users have already contributed to the vocabularies, voice recordings or in the translation forum. There are 860,155 German-English translation pairs and 584,609 entries in the other language pairs, summing up to 1,444,764 translation entries. 523,186 audio recordings have been uploaded and there are 458.846 inflection entries.
I just compared these numbers to that of the previous year and I must say, I'm deeply impressed once again by the performance of dict.cc's community! My dear contributors - you are simply amazing! Such gains in quantity, but even more in quality - done by volunteering contributors and on such a high standard - are unheard-of in the whole world of online dictionaries! Thank you very much, and keep up the good work!
It's hard to believe how time flies! Nine years ago I started dict.cc as a hobby project and it still feels as if only two or three years went by. The first build-up phase with lots of technical additions is over now. Meanwhile my work day mainly consists of maintenance, support and occasional small enhancements and bugfixes. Fortunately there still is some time left to work on new sub-projects. Currently I'm primarily working on a dictionary app for Android smartphones and a new app for iPhone and iPad. It will still take me some time to finish this, but the most difficult technical problems (due to the database size) are solved by now. Several website improvements are already waiting to be done after completion of the apps project.
Some statistics once again: Good days generate between 6 and 6.5 million page requests (150 million a month), delivered by 12 servers. 17,925 of 123,860 registered users have already contributed to the vocabularies, voice recordings or in the translation forum. There are 860,155 German-English translation pairs and 584,609 entries in the other language pairs, summing up to 1,444,764 translation entries. 523,186 audio recordings have been uploaded and there are 458.846 inflection entries.
I just compared these numbers to that of the previous year and I must say, I'm deeply impressed once again by the performance of dict.cc's community! My dear contributors - you are simply amazing! Such gains in quantity, but even more in quality - done by volunteering contributors and on such a high standard - are unheard-of in the whole world of online dictionaries! Thank you very much, and keep up the good work!
2011-10-25: Server upgrades and expansion to 12 machines.
2011-10-02: Problem with ad banners: I received two complaints about the ads recently, it seems as if the banners overlap with the search field sometimes. This is not done on purpose - neither the advertising clients nor I want this to happen! It's a technical problem and I'm currently working on solving it. If this happens to you, too, please send a screenshot to paul@dict.cc!
2011-09-11: Language course videos removed - too many errors.
2011-09-10: 500,000 voice recordings!
2011-08-18: Language course videos: As of today there's a new tab labeled "video" on the homepage of dict.cc. Clicking it brings up German lessons for the languages English, French, Italian and Spanish (different languages via the respective language pair homepages of dict.cc). The contents are delivered by our advertising partner AdScale, so a short video ad may appear before a lesson starts. I find the idea interesting, so I'm giving this a shot. Looking forward to your feedback!
2011-07-14: Contribute/Inflections: There's a new filter setting to view deleted entries (Status: deleted).
2011-07-01: touch.dict.cc BETA:
Now there's a new mobile website for users of current touch-based smartphones and tablets like iPhone, iPad, Android or Windows phones and similar devices. The site offers keyword suggestions, audio output and a guessing game like that on the regular homepage. The touch site is currently still in beta stage and doesn't yet support all features on all devices. If your device doesn't work well with the new site, you can still use the "small" mobile site pocket.dict.cc.
Now there's a new mobile website for users of current touch-based smartphones and tablets like iPhone, iPad, Android or Windows phones and similar devices. The site offers keyword suggestions, audio output and a guessing game like that on the regular homepage. The touch site is currently still in beta stage and doesn't yet support all features on all devices. If your device doesn't work well with the new site, you can still use the "small" mobile site pocket.dict.cc.
2011-06-29: Shortcut for speech output: When entering a keyword you'll note new speaker symbols embedded in the suggestions. Clicking one of them opens up the search results page and instantly starts playing the audio file for the first entry listed there.
2011-06-22: Inflection wishlist: I've compiled a self-updating internal list of words that lack inflection entries. These terms are now suggested within the inflections form if you click an "add" button at the bottom of the inflections page. For added comfort commonly used words like "a", "to" or "more" are also displayed there. Just click the words to build the inflection entry. For the separator symbol "|" just hit the space bar three times in a row.
2011-06-15: 400,000 inflections!
2011-06-01: When adding missing translations using the search results pages (top right) possibly matching terms are now being suggested automatically. Example: Search for "tyv" in German-Danish and click "Add to ... English-Danish". This will take you to an input form already displaying several matching English terms to choose from. These are generated by combining the existing DA-DE and DE-EN vocabularies.
2011-05-21: More than 500,000 entries in the new language pairs!
It's amazing: In exactly half a year, to the day, 100,000 translations were added - which is almost exactly the same time it took the 100,000 before!
It's amazing: In exactly half a year, to the day, 100,000 translations were added - which is almost exactly the same time it took the 100,000 before!
2011-05-20: Added a facility to post missing translations in other language pairs to the feature mentioned below.
2011-05-18: Search results pages now show the language pairs that also include translations for the keyword.
2011-05-11: Currently I'm experimenting with paid contributors via the oDesk.com platform to support those language pairs and features of dict.cc that don't run smoothly yet. These users have nicknames ending in "-odesk" and they don't appear in the hall of fame.
In the long run I'd like to have qualified native speakers for all language pairs, so I can ask them when linguistic questions arise. I think this is necessary until the language communities are big enough to be stable in themselves. If you have questions or suggestions regarding that, please just send me an e-mail (paul@dict.cc).
In the long run I'd like to have qualified native speakers for all language pairs, so I can ask them when linguistic questions arise. I think this is necessary until the language communities are big enough to be stable in themselves. If you have questions or suggestions regarding that, please just send me an e-mail (paul@dict.cc).
2011-04-27: Hall of Fame: Calculation of total score changed a second and last time to better depict real efforts of contributors (Inputs x VP x 2 and Votes x VP x 3, more information in the Hall of Fame, to the right of the page). I'm sorry for ranking down several contributors! This is my last try to make the HoF score work out. If it doesn't, I'll remove the total ranking altogether.
2011-04-19: 400,000 voice recordings!
2011-04-15: Contribute: Entry history pages slightly reworked.
2011-04-11: Next language pair to leave beta: French-German!
It took a while for French to reach this milestone, but nonetheless, it has finally reached 30,000 translations!
Thanks to all of the contributors!
It took a while for French to reach this milestone, but nonetheless, it has finally reached 30,000 translations!
Thanks to all of the contributors!
2011-04-04: Contribute: Re-Opens within the 3-day waiting period are now only displayed to previous voters.
2011-03-22: New home page part: Top Contributors Weekly!
To add another incentive to contribute to the vocabularies, the top contributors are now displayed and linked on the home pages of the different language pairs. The user names are linked to the respective profile pages where users can give more information about themselves and the products or services they offer.
Additionally an external link (if provided) is displayed directly on the home page. However, to avoid spam, a so-called "voting power" of at least 3 is necessary for the link to appear. Click the link below the list for more information.
By default the 7-day rankings are used to give new contributors quick results, but the all-time lists are also available via the menu bar. The language pair list that used to occupy this spot can still be reached using the menu bar.
My idea with this feature is to get even more language professionals to contribute to dict.cc by giving something of value back, in a very direct way. They can now spend unused time between translation projects in exchange for free online advertising. With 5 to 6 million page views daily and very high Google rankings this should pay off for both sides.
To add another incentive to contribute to the vocabularies, the top contributors are now displayed and linked on the home pages of the different language pairs. The user names are linked to the respective profile pages where users can give more information about themselves and the products or services they offer.
Additionally an external link (if provided) is displayed directly on the home page. However, to avoid spam, a so-called "voting power" of at least 3 is necessary for the link to appear. Click the link below the list for more information.
By default the 7-day rankings are used to give new contributors quick results, but the all-time lists are also available via the menu bar. The language pair list that used to occupy this spot can still be reached using the menu bar.
My idea with this feature is to get even more language professionals to contribute to dict.cc by giving something of value back, in a very direct way. They can now spend unused time between translation projects in exchange for free online advertising. With 5 to 6 million page views daily and very high Google rankings this should pay off for both sides.
2011-03-10: New forum category: DICT for Dictionary entry - suggest or discuss dict.cc entries here.
2011-02-16: New at Contribute / Tools (right of page): View skipped entries or reset skip list
2011-02-10: Contribute: Additional filters: German term, English term, both languages, word class
2011-02-06: Firefox add-on "Dict.cc Translation" available in a new version! I highly recommend the "Quick Translation" feature: You just have to press and hold a specific key (like "alt") and click a word to see the translations displayed next to your mouse cursor or in a new window. Check the options window after installation! Many thanks again to Roughael!
2011-02-04: Dictionary file for Pocketbook devices available at the download page (paragraph 12).
2011-01-31: Third new language pair leaves beta phase: Icelandic-German!
This is a language pair I'm especially proud of - considering the low amount of (native) speakers compared to other languages this is a very impressive accomplishment! Thanks to the Icelandic-German team for 30,000 entries with a verification rate of 99.99%!
This is a language pair I'm especially proud of - considering the low amount of (native) speakers compared to other languages this is a very impressive accomplishment! Thanks to the Icelandic-German team for 30,000 entries with a verification rate of 99.99%!
2011-01-26: Firefox context menu: This extension adds an option to the context menu of Firefox which enables you to look up unknown words on websites by right-clicking them. Thanks to Roughael!
2011-01-13: Hall of Fame: Calculation of total score changed to better depict real efforts of contributors when adding and checking inflections and translations (inflections x VP instead of inflections x VP x 2, more information in the Hall of Fame, to the right of the page).
2011-01-12: At twogermantweets you can get two German-English translations twittered each day.
2011-01-11: More than 100,000 registered users!
News 2010
2010-12-29: Buildup tool extended: bigger vocabulary, possibility to filter by word class, other minor improvements
2010-12-09: A nice idea: "polishtweets" twitters a few English-Polish translations each day for language learning purposes. They include a link to dict.cc for more translations. If someone wants to do the same for other languages, feel free to use the downloadable vocabulary data!
2010-12-02: 1000 Facebook "likes" :-)
2010-12-01: This November was the first month to exceed 150 million page views! This means an increase by 50% in just 13 months! Even I wouldn't have thought this to be possible on such a high level. Hats off - and thanks to everyone involved!
2010-11-29: 300,000 inflections!
2010-11-24: First day with more than 6 million pageviews!
2010-11-23: Ad-free version of dict.cc available!
I've been receiving complaints about ad banners on dict.cc for years. Of course I know that ads can be quite annoying, but still dict.cc has to be funded somehow.
Now I hope to have found a solution for users willing to give something back in return for an ad-free dictionary. Just pay a small fee by SMS and enter the mobile phone number as an activation code to use all of dict.cc's services (dictionary, speech output, vocabulary trainer, forum) without ads, instantly. The whole process can be completed in under three minutes and the ads are removed for a whole year (EUR 10,-) or a month (EUR 1,-).
Needless to say, registered users actively contributing to dict.cc's vocabularies will continue to see the ad-free version of dict.cc as always.
» more information about the ad-free version of dict.cc
I've been receiving complaints about ad banners on dict.cc for years. Of course I know that ads can be quite annoying, but still dict.cc has to be funded somehow.
Now I hope to have found a solution for users willing to give something back in return for an ad-free dictionary. Just pay a small fee by SMS and enter the mobile phone number as an activation code to use all of dict.cc's services (dictionary, speech output, vocabulary trainer, forum) without ads, instantly. The whole process can be completed in under three minutes and the ads are removed for a whole year (EUR 10,-) or a month (EUR 1,-).
Needless to say, registered users actively contributing to dict.cc's vocabularies will continue to see the ad-free version of dict.cc as always.
» more information about the ad-free version of dict.cc
2010-11-21: All new language pairs combined, there are more than 400,000 translations on dict.cc as of today!
It took only 6 months for the community to add 100,000 entries!
It took only 6 months for the community to add 100,000 entries!
2010-11-13: German-English vocabulary reaches 800,000 entries!
2010-11-09: Missing features for the maintenance of inflections added: "Comment-Only" (click +C first), "Revoke Vote" (click History first)
2010-11-06: Happy Birthday: dict.cc is 8!
Slowly but surely dict.cc is growing up. Things are developing just fine, the vocabularies grow continually and the number of users keeps on rising. dict.cc already receives 5.5 million page requests on good days (130 million in total last month). These are still answered by a pool of 11 servers which are gradually replaced by new and faster hardware (which means that dict.cc currently develops as fast as computer hardware in general does :)).
Some other statistics: 799,194 German-English translation pairs and 391,932 translation pairs in the new languages sum up to a total of over a million translations! Additionally there are 333,873 voice recordings and 286,232 inflections. 13,867 of 94,865 registered users have already contributed to the vocabularies, voice recordings or in the translation forum.
Thanks to all the contributors, especially these ones - it's great to have you around to fill dict.cc with life!
Update 2010-11-09: Many thanks to Hiroko for the wonderful birthday card!
Slowly but surely dict.cc is growing up. Things are developing just fine, the vocabularies grow continually and the number of users keeps on rising. dict.cc already receives 5.5 million page requests on good days (130 million in total last month). These are still answered by a pool of 11 servers which are gradually replaced by new and faster hardware (which means that dict.cc currently develops as fast as computer hardware in general does :)).
Some other statistics: 799,194 German-English translation pairs and 391,932 translation pairs in the new languages sum up to a total of over a million translations! Additionally there are 333,873 voice recordings and 286,232 inflections. 13,867 of 94,865 registered users have already contributed to the vocabularies, voice recordings or in the translation forum.
Thanks to all the contributors, especially these ones - it's great to have you around to fill dict.cc with life!
Update 2010-11-09: Many thanks to Hiroko for the wonderful birthday card!
2010-10-28: Second new language leaves beta phase!
Today Portuguese-German exceeded the amount of 30,000 translation pairs, at a verification rate of 98%! Quality and quantity of the vocabulary make it possible to remove the beta label today.
Congratulations and many thanks to the Portuguese-German team!
Today Portuguese-German exceeded the amount of 30,000 translation pairs, at a verification rate of 98%! Quality and quantity of the vocabulary make it possible to remove the beta label today.
Congratulations and many thanks to the Portuguese-German team!
2010-10-11: Some Updates:
User/Contributions: Votes Pending: Comment-only votes are displayed only if they relate to the current verification round.
New: "UPDATED!" is displayed if the original posting was changed within the current verfication round.
New: "NEW VOTE" is displayed if a differing vote was cast after one's own vote.
Votes Reopened: Now only unrevised entries are displayed here, the others can be found at "votes pending".
Reopening limit: I've introduced a limit of 70 reopens per user, language pair and week. This should alleviate the problem of bulk reopens that has been causing frustration for years. Should it become necessary to change larger amounts of entries, please discuss this in the forum first. I can suspend the limit temporarily if the change is agreed upon.
The voice recording section now also displays abbreviations. They can be included in the recording if they are used in verbal (spoken) communication (as in "ASAP", but not in "poss.").
Update 2010-10-13: There's another enhancement, this time concerning the comment field on review form pages. A new link "guidelines" opens a window for adding references to specific guidelines. Detail pages for each guideline can be used to quote specific text sections just by highlighting them.
User/Contributions: Votes Pending: Comment-only votes are displayed only if they relate to the current verification round.
New: "UPDATED!" is displayed if the original posting was changed within the current verfication round.
New: "NEW VOTE" is displayed if a differing vote was cast after one's own vote.
Votes Reopened: Now only unrevised entries are displayed here, the others can be found at "votes pending".
Reopening limit: I've introduced a limit of 70 reopens per user, language pair and week. This should alleviate the problem of bulk reopens that has been causing frustration for years. Should it become necessary to change larger amounts of entries, please discuss this in the forum first. I can suspend the limit temporarily if the change is agreed upon.
The voice recording section now also displays abbreviations. They can be included in the recording if they are used in verbal (spoken) communication (as in "ASAP", but not in "poss.").
Update 2010-10-13: There's another enhancement, this time concerning the comment field on review form pages. A new link "guidelines" opens a window for adding references to specific guidelines. Detail pages for each guideline can be used to quote specific text sections just by highlighting them.
2010-10-06: User profiles / contact information: New settings available to fine-tune the visibility of contact information. The contact form can now be made visible to top contributors (contributors with the highest voting power) only. Another new option displays a "do no disturb" message but still allows enabling the contact form in urgent cases (as discussed in the forum).
Additionally it's now possible to enter the Skype name in the contact information section. In case you don't know Skype: It can be downloaded at skype.com and used to make free phone calls over the internet. For the Skype name, as well as for your e-mail address, it's now possible to define who can see the information (everybody, only registered users, only top contributors or nobody).
Additionally it's now possible to enter the Skype name in the contact information section. In case you don't know Skype: It can be downloaded at skype.com and used to make free phone calls over the internet. For the Skype name, as well as for your e-mail address, it's now possible to define who can see the information (everybody, only registered users, only top contributors or nobody).
2010-10-04: Another new language released: Finnish!
Once again, some basic vocabulary is already available to clarify the formatting rules for the most important word classes.
Once again, some basic vocabulary is already available to clarify the formatting rules for the most important word classes.
2010-10-01: Changes on the home page
To further increase public visibility of the new languages and to simplify selecting a different language, the language list will now be displayed to the right of the home page, instead of the skyscraper advertising slot.
The home page ad slot moves towards the middle of the page, changes to the rectangle format and replaces the guessing game. The game, however, is still available by clicking on the "Game" tab.
Additionally I've added another tab named "Comments" which can be used to comment on dict.cc via Facebook account or even anonymously.
To further increase public visibility of the new languages and to simplify selecting a different language, the language list will now be displayed to the right of the home page, instead of the skyscraper advertising slot.
The home page ad slot moves towards the middle of the page, changes to the rectangle format and replaces the guessing game. The game, however, is still available by clicking on the "Game" tab.
Additionally I've added another tab named "Comments" which can be used to comment on dict.cc via Facebook account or even anonymously.
2010-09-28: Use the shareware program "LingoClick" (successor of "Slicktionary" supporting all languages) to access dict.cc from any Windows application. Just hold down the shift key and right-click the word to look it up.
2010-09-27: First day with more than 5 million pageviews!
2010-09-15: Fields of Expertise: As of today users can (optionally) state their fields of expertise on their profile pages.
The fields can be selected via the My Account page. If you're logged in, additional links on the profile pages will become visible, displayed only for those subjects where there are new translations you haven't already seen or reviewed. I'm also thinking about adding the possibility to search for registered users with competence in specific fields. If you're afraid of receiving unwanted messages due to that, either leave the subjects field blank or set your contact form preferences to display your form only to registered users.
Update 2010-09-16: "Fields of expertise" renamed to "Fields of knowledge and interest" for a broader interpretation.
Update 2010-09-20: The subject list now also links to a list of users interested in the given fields.
The fields can be selected via the My Account page. If you're logged in, additional links on the profile pages will become visible, displayed only for those subjects where there are new translations you haven't already seen or reviewed. I'm also thinking about adding the possibility to search for registered users with competence in specific fields. If you're afraid of receiving unwanted messages due to that, either leave the subjects field blank or set your contact form preferences to display your form only to registered users.
Update 2010-09-16: "Fields of expertise" renamed to "Fields of knowledge and interest" for a broader interpretation.
Update 2010-09-20: The subject list now also links to a list of users interested in the given fields.
2010-09-14: Another new language released: Greek!
Once again, we start with basic vocabulary entered by Muhamed, so the formatting rules for the most important word classed are already defined.
Once again, we start with basic vocabulary entered by Muhamed, so the formatting rules for the most important word classed are already defined.
2010-09-01: New language released: Serbian!
For an easier start, we try a different strategy this time. We don't start with zero entries, but use basic vocabulary added by Muhamed using the buildup tool. This way new participants can compare similar entries in case of uncertainties.
There's another specialty with Serbian: The search results pages can be displayed in either Cyrillic or Latin script. The translations themselves are entered in Cyrillic only.
For an easier start, we try a different strategy this time. We don't start with zero entries, but use basic vocabulary added by Muhamed using the buildup tool. This way new participants can compare similar entries in case of uncertainties.
There's another specialty with Serbian: The search results pages can be displayed in either Cyrillic or Latin script. The translations themselves are entered in Cyrillic only.
2010-08-31: Server upgrades: The keyword suggestion feature causes additional server load and autumn regularly brings increased access rates, so I upgraded two load balancers and one dictionary server to new hardware. If you experienced minor service interruptions due to these changes, I apologize for the inconvenience. I'll replace two addtional dictionary servers within the next days, but this shouldn't lead to any interruptions.
2010-08-23: Test runs for the keyword suggestions feature: Changing the default setting to "on" resulted in a few minor delays today, due to high server loads. By now everything runs stable again. If no other issues turn up I'll leave the settings this way.
2010-08-17: New Feature: Keyword Suggestions (Beta)
You might already know this from Google, Wikipedia or other sites with search capabilities: If you start typing a word in the search field, several suggestions appear. You can click one or use the cursor keys to choose.
Because this causes additional server load this feature is currently turned off by default, at least for a short trial period. You can enable it by clicking the "Options" link, located directly below the search field on the home page of dict.cc. Please give it a try and tell me in case of problems!
You might already know this from Google, Wikipedia or other sites with search capabilities: If you start typing a word in the search field, several suggestions appear. You can click one or use the cursor keys to choose.
Because this causes additional server load this feature is currently turned off by default, at least for a short trial period. You can enable it by clicking the "Options" link, located directly below the search field on the home page of dict.cc. Please give it a try and tell me in case of problems!
2010-07-26: 300,000 voice recordings! Due to the permission of one participant to restore his deleted audio recordings from my backups, the total number of audio recordings went up by several 10,000 today! Thank you!
2010-07-23: Addition to the Hall of Fame: To also give credit to new contributors, there's an additional Hall of Fame version that only takes contributions from within the last seven days into account.
2010-07-22: Buildup tool extended: As of now it's possible to add comments from within Buildup. Additionally, you can now decide whether you want to add translations in both language pairs simultaneously or just in one of the possible combinations (German or English).
2010-06-23: Flattr integration
There's a new idea for supporting web services like dict.cc, called "Social Micropayment". Here is how it works:
You sign up with Flattr.com, deposit a certain amount of money and specify the monthly amount you're willing to distribute between your favorite websites (say 2 €). When surfing the web just click the Flattr button (if available) to support a service you like. Your monthly donation will then be divided between all the services you "flattred" this month.
I like this idea and want to support it, so I added a Flattr button at the top right section of the home page of dict.cc. But as their system is still in closed beta stage, you will need an invite code to sign up. If you want one, please just drop me an e-mail (paul@dict.cc). Update: Unfortunately my invite codes are all used up.
There's a new idea for supporting web services like dict.cc, called "Social Micropayment". Here is how it works:
You sign up with Flattr.com, deposit a certain amount of money and specify the monthly amount you're willing to distribute between your favorite websites (say 2 €). When surfing the web just click the Flattr button (if available) to support a service you like. Your monthly donation will then be divided between all the services you "flattred" this month.
I like this idea and want to support it, so I added a Flattr button at the top right section of the home page of dict.cc. But as their system is still in closed beta stage, you will need an invite code to sign up. If you want one, please just drop me an e-mail (paul@dict.cc). Update: Unfortunately my invite codes are all used up.
2010-06-21: All new vocabularies verified to more than 75% for the first time!
2010-06-16: To increase general visibility of the new language pairs, I've added a dropdown menu directly below the search field. This can also be used to restrict the keyword language (useful for terms that exist in both languages, like "test"). A similar, less visible dropdown menu in the first menu bar has been removed.
2010-05-31: Contribute: First delete vote per entry has to be justified using the comment field now.
2010-05-29: As of today there are more than 300,000 entries, all new languages combined!
2010-05-28: All new German-related vocabularies verified to more than 75% for the first time!
2010-05-14: Contribute: Quick denial of reopens: If a verified entry gets reopened by an unregistered/inexperienced user (VP1 or VP2), it can now be closed again by just one experienced contributor (VP5) by voting for the original version. This should alleviate the problem of occasional spam reopens.
2010-05-13: 250,000 voice recordings!
2010-05-09: As of today the catalogue of subjects will be maintained centrally. Subject descriptions and abbreviations are now being stored per language, not per language pair. This way all subjects will follow one consistent scheme from now on.
While this might sound easy this change caused quite a lot of technical efforts, as data structures had to be changed without interrupting the services. That's why some subsequent clean-up tasks are still pending and there's a chance of minor bugs appearing. In case of problems please mail to paul@dict.cc!
While this might sound easy this change caused quite a lot of technical efforts, as data structures had to be changed without interrupting the services. That's why some subsequent clean-up tasks are still pending and there's a chance of minor bugs appearing. In case of problems please mail to paul@dict.cc!
2010-05-06: For Google Chrome users there's an extension allowing to query dict.cc while browsing another website without leaving it. Right after highlighting a word, a little tooltip shows the first five translations from dict.cc. You can click "more" to go to the regular dict.cc results page or click somewhere else to read on. Thanks to Ismael Ritter for implementing this extension!
2010-04-11: Contribute: "Limited Input Mode" reactivated for experienced users. Now every language pair has an input limitation for users with more than 200 pending inputs. From now on "Limited Input Mode" will be active if more than 1000 translations are still pending.
2010-04-07: Forum: E-Mail notification changed: From now on only one e-mail will be sent by default. Further notifications will only be sent if the address is confirmed by clicking the link contained in the e-mail. » more information
2010-04-06: Contribute: The Voting Accuracy number required to achieve the maximum Voting Power (VP5) has been raised to 98% (rounded to integral numbers, so it really starts at 97.5%).
2010-04-05: First new language pair to leave beta phase!
Italian - German has exceeded the amount of 30,000 translation pairs today, featuring a verification rate of over 99%. That's why it's time to end the beta phase for this language pair today.
Italian-German is the first language pair at dict.cc that was built up from scratch (starting at zero entries), and, completely managed by volunteers, reached a level of quality and quantity that allows taking this step.
My cordial thanks and congratulations to the Italian-German team for a really impressive achievement!
Italian - German has exceeded the amount of 30,000 translation pairs today, featuring a verification rate of over 99%. That's why it's time to end the beta phase for this language pair today.
Italian-German is the first language pair at dict.cc that was built up from scratch (starting at zero entries), and, completely managed by volunteers, reached a level of quality and quantity that allows taking this step.
My cordial thanks and congratulations to the Italian-German team for a really impressive achievement!
2010-03-26: Contribute: Accidental anonymous votes or comments can now be revoked if the IP address hasn't changed. For security reasons this is only possible within one hour after posting.
2010-03-22: Contribute: "Limited Input Mode" now also active for the new language pairs. As soon as there are more than 2000 unverified entries in a language pair, new participants can only add new ones if they also review translations posted by others. The second limitation for experienced users (input limitation if user has 200 pending inputs) is not yet in effect for the new languages, but will also have to be enabled again in the future.
2010-03-18: Global Hall of Fame now online! Many users contribute to different language pairs at dict.cc - now it's possible to see the total amount of these contributions combined in one place.
2010-03-16: Some audio recordings contain noise from clicking the Record and Play buttons. To address this problem, there's a new "Editable Mode" that can be enabled and disabled from the audio recording page. Contributors who regularly get criticized for clicking noises at the ends of their recordings might want to try this: Just highlight the last part of the waveform after recording, right-click it and select "Delete Selection" to remove the last click.
This can only be done before publishing, but you can also re-record your own entries from the audio history page.
This can only be done before publishing, but you can also re-record your own entries from the audio history page.
2010-03-15: Language expansion: 250,000 translations have been added as of today (all new language pairs combined).
2010-02-26: Hall of Fame revised: As of today, also the amounts of reviews of inflections and audio recordings are displayed. Additionally, there's a new ranking system, based on an overall score that takes all kinds of contributions into account.
2010-02-05: Quick language chooser, at the top left of the screen ("All Languages")
2010-02-04: Now there's also a free dict.cc application for current Palm smartphones (see their App Catalog).
2010-02-01: Review Wizard: The regular review form has grown significantly over the years. While this hasn't been a problem for long-time contributors, I think it just got too complicated for new users willing to contribute. In order to make reviews easier for beginners, I came up with a reduced version of the review form, which is now linked directly by the "Contribute!" main menu item. Experienced contributors who do not want to use the new review tool can just click the menu item "New Entries" to get to the familiar view.
2010-01-25: Obligatory comments for new entries: As of today, new translation suggestions have to include an internal comment that makes it easier for other participants to verify them. This rule applies to all language pairs with 5000 entries or more.
2010-01-19: Language expansion: 200,000 entries available as of today (all new languages combined)! Many thanks to all participants, especially to the experienced ones who support and welcome new contributors!
2010-01-12: New language released: Bosnian!
Like with Esperanto, we're starting the new language with zero entries today, hoping to see a useful amount of entries in a few weeks. Esperanto-English has reached 3189 entries after 6 weeks, with a verification rate of 2%. Esperanto-German is doing a lot better: 4220 entries at 83%.
Like with Esperanto, we're starting the new language with zero entries today, hoping to see a useful amount of entries in a few weeks. Esperanto-English has reached 3189 entries after 6 weeks, with a verification rate of 2%. Esperanto-German is doing a lot better: 4220 entries at 83%.
News 2009
2009-12-30: Milestone: 200,000 voice recordings!
2009-12-23: Es weihnachtet wieder mal so sehr! Daher wünscht dict.cc allen seinen Usern eine ganz frohes Fest und einen super Rutsch ins neue Jahr! Und wir meinen es auch ernst - in allen unseren Sprachen:
Merry Christmas and happy New Year! Gëzuar Krishtlindjet dhe Vitin e Ri! Честита Коледа и щастлива Нова Година! Čestit Božić i sretna Nova Godina! Veselé Vánoce a šťastný Nový rok! Glædelig jul og godt nytår! Prettige kerstdagen en een gelukkig Nieuwjaar! Bonan Kristnaskon kaj feliĉan novan jaron! Joyeux Noël et bonne année! Kellemes karácsonyt és boldog új évet! Gleðileg jól og farsælt nýtt ár! Buon Natale e felice anno nuovo! Natale hilare et annum faustum! God jul og godt nytt år! Wesołych świąt i szczęśliwego nowego roku! Feliz Natal e próspero ano novo! Crăciun fericit şi un an nou fericit! С Рождеством Христовым и наступающим Новым Годом! Veselé Vianoce a šťastný nový rok! ¡Feliz Navidad y próspero año nuevo! God jul och gott nytt år! İyi Noeller ve mutlu yıllar!
Merry Christmas and happy New Year! Gëzuar Krishtlindjet dhe Vitin e Ri! Честита Коледа и щастлива Нова Година! Čestit Božić i sretna Nova Godina! Veselé Vánoce a šťastný Nový rok! Glædelig jul og godt nytår! Prettige kerstdagen en een gelukkig Nieuwjaar! Bonan Kristnaskon kaj feliĉan novan jaron! Joyeux Noël et bonne année! Kellemes karácsonyt és boldog új évet! Gleðileg jól og farsælt nýtt ár! Buon Natale e felice anno nuovo! Natale hilare et annum faustum! God jul og godt nytt år! Wesołych świąt i szczęśliwego nowego roku! Feliz Natal e próspero ano novo! Crăciun fericit şi un an nou fericit! С Рождеством Христовым и наступающим Новым Годом! Veselé Vianoce a šťastný nový rok! ¡Feliz Navidad y próspero año nuevo! God jul och gott nytt år! İyi Noeller ve mutlu yıllar!
2009-12-15: I'm testing the integration of forum postings into the dictionary search results pages (page bottom, blue box).
2009-12-14: Contribute: Filtering options linked in the tools section to the right. New filters: Skipped entries, Not reviewed/added by (user) - for those who lock horns from time to time.
2009-12-09: From now on synonyms are displayed within the inflection section, right on top of the translations.
2009-12-03: The voting accuracy numbers are now being rounded to full integers, so occasional unjustified outvotes (which have no effect on the voting power anyway) do not become visible in the Hall of Fame.
2009-11-30: New language: Esperanto! Due to the great amount of requests we've now added Esperanto as a new language. As with all of the new languages, Esperanto is being built up from scratch, so it will take a while until the vocabulary reaches a significant size.
2009-11-25: Language Selection Bar: Now there's a menu bar on top of the pages that allows you to easily switch between language pairs. By default, only language pairs with more than 3000 entries and a verification rate of 75% are displayed (values may change in the future). All other language pairs can be reached using the link "more ...". You can also use the "more" page to customize the languages displayed.
2009-11-06: 7th BIRTHDAY: RELEASE OF THE NEW DICTIONARIES!
dict.cc is seven years old today and finally, finally, finally, it's done: The dictionary has now officially been extended to other languages (public beta). 41 language pairs already exist and new ones can be added easily (there's a wish list for new languages).
At this point I'd like to say a deep-felt thank-you to all of the participants who have been working on building up basic vocabularies for the past months. You've been fantastic - thank you very, very much!
The home page of dict.cc now displays a box to the right of the page, enabling you to choose another language pair. Only vocabularies with a verification rate of 75% or more are displayed. You can help to bring up other languages there by following the review link here. To vote for correct entries it's sufficient to submit the review form unchanged - otherwise correct the fields directly and submit. Every entry has to be checked by several participants, so the system can tolerate an occasional error. Give it a try or just have a look at it!
Some statistical information for the records once again: Currently 11 servers are busy answering all the dictionary requests. There are 733,802 German-English translation pairs and 144,075 translation pairs in all new languages together. 177,208 audio recordings have already been submitted by the community. There are 68,976 registered users, 9,771 of them have already contributed to dict.cc (vocabulary, voice recordings, forum).
dict.cc is seven years old today and finally, finally, finally, it's done: The dictionary has now officially been extended to other languages (public beta). 41 language pairs already exist and new ones can be added easily (there's a wish list for new languages).
At this point I'd like to say a deep-felt thank-you to all of the participants who have been working on building up basic vocabularies for the past months. You've been fantastic - thank you very, very much!
The home page of dict.cc now displays a box to the right of the page, enabling you to choose another language pair. Only vocabularies with a verification rate of 75% or more are displayed. You can help to bring up other languages there by following the review link here. To vote for correct entries it's sufficient to submit the review form unchanged - otherwise correct the fields directly and submit. Every entry has to be checked by several participants, so the system can tolerate an occasional error. Give it a try or just have a look at it!
Some statistical information for the records once again: Currently 11 servers are busy answering all the dictionary requests. There are 733,802 German-English translation pairs and 144,075 translation pairs in all new languages together. 177,208 audio recordings have already been submitted by the community. There are 68,976 registered users, 9,771 of them have already contributed to dict.cc (vocabulary, voice recordings, forum).
2009-11-03: Inflections feature extended: Inflections can be added within the form for new translations; Serial input possible via Contribute/Inflections; Comment feature
2009-11-01: October was the first month to exceed 100 million monthly page views!
2009-10-27: First day with more than 4 million pageviews!
2009-10-26: Fictional terms (film or novel names, titles, characters, ...) can now be hidden (options).
2009-10-23: Subject selection now also possible via Tag Cloud.
2009-10-04: Language expansion: 100,000 entries available as of today (all new languages combined)!
2009-10-01: Special characters input tool for search field and forum now available in all languages.
2009-09-24: dict.cc is now the number 1 iPhone app in Germany and Austria (of all free apps)!
2009-09-20: dict.cc's iPhone application is performing incredibly well! Just one week after approval by Apple, dict.cc ranks amazingly:
Switzerland: Category "Education": #2, total ranking of all free apps: n/a
Austria: Category "Education": #1, total ranking of all free apps: #7
Germany: Category "Education": #1, total ranking of all free apps: #2 (!!)
Also the average user rating is quite impressive. Many thanks to Frank Budszuhn, the developer of the application!
Switzerland: Category "Education": #2, total ranking of all free apps: n/a
Austria: Category "Education": #1, total ranking of all free apps: #7
Germany: Category "Education": #1, total ranking of all free apps: #2 (!!)
Also the average user rating is quite impressive. Many thanks to Frank Budszuhn, the developer of the application!
2009-09-17: New: Inflections! From today on the most important inflection information is visible on most of the search results pages. 120,000 inflections are already contained in the database. More can be added in the "Contribute!" section, using the newly added [+] buttons within the review forms. A list of all inflection entries can be found in a new subsection of "Contribute!".
Inflections are stored monolingually and are displayed for all (future) language pairs containing the respective language. Each German inflection entry, for instance, is displayed for German-English, German-French, German-Portuguese and so on. This way it's not necessary to add this information to the translations themselves.
Inflections can be added and reviewed by every registered user.
Inflections are stored monolingually and are displayed for all (future) language pairs containing the respective language. Each German inflection entry, for instance, is displayed for German-English, German-French, German-Portuguese and so on. This way it's not necessary to add this information to the translations themselves.
Inflections can be added and reviewed by every registered user.
2009-09-13: Free iPhone app! For those who cannot live without dict.cc even when away from their computers, I'm proud to announce the new English-German dictionary app for the iPhone. It's free and contains all of dict.cc's vocabulary for offline use (no roaming fees when abroad). Just search the AppStore for "dict.cc" to download and install it - no strings attached!
2009-09-07: Preview: To give you an idea of how the single-language inflection information will work, I've integrated a first version visible only to registered users (search results pages, only German and English). I'm still working on editing interfaces, so please send an e-mail in case of errors.
2009-09-02: Next step in the language expansion process: The language selectors are now visible to all registered users. It may be too early for this step, so I might undo this in a few days. Additionally, the maximum voting power is now back to 5.
2009-08-30: 10,000 pages in the translation forum! That's 100,000 threads or questions (456,269 postings in total)
2009-08-15: Language expansion: State of affairs
Statistics: Currently there are 20 new languages being built up, each connected to both German and English. Including German-English this makes 41 language pairs, with most of them still in their early stages. At the moment there are 38,000 entries, all new language pairs combined. More languages can be added as soon as the system has stabilized.
I spent the last days mainly adapting guidelines, fixing bugs and adding missing features, tags and the links to other online resources. The guidelines are now more or less stable. I'd ask all participants to have a look at the updated guidelines, as a few things have changed.
Inflection information normally appearing in most paper dictionaries will shortly be solved using a new single-language function (as opposed to adding the same information to a multitude of bilingual entries). That's why I'd ask you to use only the basic form when adding entries in the new languages.
The maximum "Voting Power" for new languages is still limited, previously to 3 points, and to 4 points starting today. As soon as the initial difficulties are mastered I will change the maximum to the regular 5 points.
A few days ago I met someone who now supports me in all language-related questions. Muhamed works with me in the office, gives advice and helps assembling all the language-related information dict.cc needs (inflection tables, guidelines, tags, links). He's also contributing to the vocabulary.
I'll be on vacation for 10 days, starting next Tuesday (Aug. 18). Please only send urgent requests during this time. Please postpone everything that can wait a few days to the end of August, so I can recharge my batteries to be able to finish the last few tasks needed for a fully working multilingual dict.cc.
Statistics: Currently there are 20 new languages being built up, each connected to both German and English. Including German-English this makes 41 language pairs, with most of them still in their early stages. At the moment there are 38,000 entries, all new language pairs combined. More languages can be added as soon as the system has stabilized.
I spent the last days mainly adapting guidelines, fixing bugs and adding missing features, tags and the links to other online resources. The guidelines are now more or less stable. I'd ask all participants to have a look at the updated guidelines, as a few things have changed.
Inflection information normally appearing in most paper dictionaries will shortly be solved using a new single-language function (as opposed to adding the same information to a multitude of bilingual entries). That's why I'd ask you to use only the basic form when adding entries in the new languages.
The maximum "Voting Power" for new languages is still limited, previously to 3 points, and to 4 points starting today. As soon as the initial difficulties are mastered I will change the maximum to the regular 5 points.
A few days ago I met someone who now supports me in all language-related questions. Muhamed works with me in the office, gives advice and helps assembling all the language-related information dict.cc needs (inflection tables, guidelines, tags, links). He's also contributing to the vocabulary.
I'll be on vacation for 10 days, starting next Tuesday (Aug. 18). Please only send urgent requests during this time. Please postpone everything that can wait a few days to the end of August, so I can recharge my batteries to be able to finish the last few tasks needed for a fully working multilingual dict.cc.
2009-07-24: On the first day after beta-releasing the multilingual features the tremendous amount of more than 3000 translation pairs were added! I'm really impressed! Thank you very much!
2009-07-23: Multilingual dict.cc: First private beta version released!
After a long period of development I'm proud to announce the release of the multilingual features of dict.cc for all experienced contributors (VP5). I'd like to thank the pre-beta testers for giving me the chance to find and eliminate the first bugs and problems, enabling me to make the system stable enough for more participants. As of now any language in conjunction with German or English can be added and filled with vocabulary. The link to the buildup page ("Add Your Language") on the homepage of dict.cc (www.dict.cc) is now visible to all VP5 users.
Other registered users can also participate if they know the link, but I'd like to avoid giving it to too many users at once to be able to fix possible problems without too much pressure.
The multilingual features are still in beta stage, some minor functionality is still missing and the risk of errors is still high. I will spend the next days watching the process, fixing problems and answering questions. As soon as the situation has stabilized I will unlock the new features for all registered users. My current plan is to release all of the functionality to the public (including unregistered, "passive" users) as soon as several language pairs have passed the mark of 1000 verified entries.
After a long period of development I'm proud to announce the release of the multilingual features of dict.cc for all experienced contributors (VP5). I'd like to thank the pre-beta testers for giving me the chance to find and eliminate the first bugs and problems, enabling me to make the system stable enough for more participants. As of now any language in conjunction with German or English can be added and filled with vocabulary. The link to the buildup page ("Add Your Language") on the homepage of dict.cc (www.dict.cc) is now visible to all VP5 users.
Other registered users can also participate if they know the link, but I'd like to avoid giving it to too many users at once to be able to fix possible problems without too much pressure.
The multilingual features are still in beta stage, some minor functionality is still missing and the risk of errors is still high. I will spend the next days watching the process, fixing problems and answering questions. As soon as the situation has stabilized I will unlock the new features for all registered users. My current plan is to release all of the functionality to the public (including unregistered, "passive" users) as soon as several language pairs have passed the mark of 1000 verified entries.
2009-07-20: There's a new add-on for Firefox 3.5, enabling you to display translations from dict.cc in a sidebar while surfing. More information here (German only)
2009-07-15: Voice recording revised (bugfixes, preparation for additional languages). New: Automatic reassignment in case of text changes in the dictionary, automatic assignment for new recordings.
2009-06-15: Vocabulary trainer revised (bugfixes, preparation for additional languages). New feature: Automatic voice output when learning (optional)
2009-05-20: Contribute: From now on only users with a voting power of 5 can reopen an entry after three verification rounds.
2009-05-09: Contribute-Section switched to a new linking structure. In case of problems (dead links) please mail to me.
2009-05-07: Vocabulary reaches 700,000 entries!
Once again the dictionary has grown by 100,000 entries - within one year, almost to the day! Amazing - and this has been achieved solely by the input of the user community! Thanks to all of the 8351 registered participants!
Once again the dictionary has grown by 100,000 entries - within one year, almost to the day! Amazing - and this has been achieved solely by the input of the user community! Thanks to all of the 8351 registered participants!
2009-04-24: Guidelines-Voting: Minimum amount of voters reduced.
2009-04-16:
New Guidelines System:
Lately there have been repeated uncertainties concerning the rules and conventions of dict.cc. Discussions in the forum often ended without results. That's why I created a new system for changing and extending the guidelines (the set of rules for vocabulary maintenance). Here is how it works:
a. Separation of the guidelines into a general (unalterable) and an alterable part called "Rules and Conventions for German-English".
b. The alterable part can be discussed and changed based on direct democratic principles.
c. Each section has its own "edit" link, "new" links can be found between sections. Only VP5 users can put sections up for discussion.
d. Open sections are treated in the fashion of open vocabulary entries (several variants to be voted on).
e. After a certain timeframe [x1] there will be a decision in any case and it will automatically be part of the guidelines. There are two possibilities:
e1. Suggestion Rejected: The change request does not reach the minimum number of participants [x2] or there is no majority for one variant: The guidelines will not be changed.
e2. Suggestion Accepted: One version has reached the majority of [x3]: The guidelines will automatically be updated.
Placeholders:
[x1]: 24 hours after the last new vote was cast, with a minimum timeframe of 3 days after initiation
[x2]: 50% of the number of users receiving forum/contribute notification e-mails (active within the last 30 days, at least 200 votes in total, preferences set to allow forum/contribute notifications)
[x3]: two thirds of the voters, weighted by voting power
The updated layout of the guidelines is now visible. I have also updated and rearranged the rules themselves, so please have a look at them. To detect possible problems with the voting process and for the participants to get familiar with it, I've opened a new test section. I'd ask all interested participants to play with the new functionality using this section. I will delete the section afterwards. I still consider the guidelines voting system to be in "beta" stage, so in case of bugs, please tell me.
a. Separation of the guidelines into a general (unalterable) and an alterable part called "Rules and Conventions for German-English".
b. The alterable part can be discussed and changed based on direct democratic principles.
c. Each section has its own "edit" link, "new" links can be found between sections. Only VP5 users can put sections up for discussion.
d. Open sections are treated in the fashion of open vocabulary entries (several variants to be voted on).
e. After a certain timeframe [x1] there will be a decision in any case and it will automatically be part of the guidelines. There are two possibilities:
e1. Suggestion Rejected: The change request does not reach the minimum number of participants [x2] or there is no majority for one variant: The guidelines will not be changed.
e2. Suggestion Accepted: One version has reached the majority of [x3]: The guidelines will automatically be updated.
Placeholders:
[x1]: 24 hours after the last new vote was cast, with a minimum timeframe of 3 days after initiation
[x2]: 50% of the number of users receiving forum/contribute notification e-mails (active within the last 30 days, at least 200 votes in total, preferences set to allow forum/contribute notifications)
[x3]: two thirds of the voters, weighted by voting power
The updated layout of the guidelines is now visible. I have also updated and rearranged the rules themselves, so please have a look at them. To detect possible problems with the voting process and for the participants to get familiar with it, I've opened a new test section. I'd ask all interested participants to play with the new functionality using this section. I will delete the section afterwards. I still consider the guidelines voting system to be in "beta" stage, so in case of bugs, please tell me.
2009-03-31: Links for browsing (">>") in the blue bar (top right) now added to the following page types: dictionary search results page, user contributions, Contribute! listings
2009-03-16: Certain older audio recordings (a lot of them non-native ones) keep reappearing in the audio voting area, because they don't find a clear majority that deletes or verifies them. That's why unfortunately it became necessary to put up a tidying function that automatically removes recordings that match the following criteria: Status = pending, older than 2 months, rated by 12 different users without result, verified alternative recording by another user exists.
2009-03-12: Almost exactly one year after introducing this feature dict.cc boasts more than 100,000 voice recordings! Even though the recording feature attracts the occasional joker, it's been a great success so far. Many thanks to all of the great speakers and verifiers!
Some numbers for the records: In total 765 different people have contributed voice recordings, 11 of them are considered "Top Speakers" because of more than 1000 verified recordings. My special thanks to you!
2009-03-11: Contribute: Input assistance for tags revised and prepared for future language pairs (tags are now maintained centrally). Umlauts are now inserted at the current cursor position, brackets are added in pairs.
2009-03-03: New option for the Re-Opening Notification: Send e-mail and wait for my vote only for possible outvotes.
2009-02-26: As of today there is another improvement for the "Contribute" section: To alleviate the problem of outvotes, re-opened entries now need to be re-checked by previous voters, otherwise verification will be delayed up to three days after re-opening. To avoid unnecessary waiting for former participants (while avoiding to send them unwanted e-mail notifications) this feature has to be enabled in each participant's preferences: Re-Opening Notification and Verification Delay
2009-02-19: Contribute section: Status message system revised. Error and confirmation messages are now centered and color-coded more visibly. Links to the history page and edit form of the processed entry have been added.
2009-02-11: Contribute / Structural change: To prepare the data structure for additional languages, the type of each entry (word class) has been moved to a separate field in the database. Before that, nouns were detected using the German gender tags, verbs using the word "to" at the beginning of the English field. Other kinds of entries used different additional tags. Now there's an extra field in the forms instead, stating the type / class of the entry.
This change was quite a substantial one internally, so in case of any technical issues, I'd ask for your understanding and a short notification by e-mail. I will most probably do some clean-up tasks within the next hours or days.
This change was quite a substantial one internally, so in case of any technical issues, I'd ask for your understanding and a short notification by e-mail. I will most probably do some clean-up tasks within the next hours or days.
2009-02-09: I'm currently working on storing entry types (word classes) in a more structured way. As a first visible step I've extended the vocabulary input form, further steps should become visible within the next days. In case of questions or technical problems please mail to me (as usual).
2009-02-06: As of today you can check for forum postings relating to each dictionary entry (context menu).
2009-01-14: Search results sorting - third round of optimizations: Sorting algorithm can now be changed using the options (linked right below the search field), subject lists are sorted alphabetically again, raise of the minimum amount of vocabulary lists that have to contain an entry to move it up in the search results.
2009-01-13: Server troubles: Unfortunately I underestimated the additional server load caused by today's changes. That's why we unfortunately had to experience a major downtime today. I'm sorry!
Search results pages optimized again: To further improve clarity search results are now sorted/grouped by type and amount of words more precisely, resulting in smaller groups of terms. Verb-derived nouns (and other nouns) now appear after verbs. If there are between 50 and 75 results, all are displayed on one page to avoid unnecessary page turning. To keep names and titles from literature works or movies from blending into regular results, entries tagged with the following subjects are now displayed in their own group below the other entries: "lit.", "film", "TV" und "Disney".
Search results pages optimized again: To further improve clarity search results are now sorted/grouped by type and amount of words more precisely, resulting in smaller groups of terms. Verb-derived nouns (and other nouns) now appear after verbs. If there are between 50 and 75 results, all are displayed on one page to avoid unnecessary page turning. To keep names and titles from literature works or movies from blending into regular results, entries tagged with the following subjects are now displayed in their own group below the other entries: "lit.", "film", "TV" und "Disney".
2009-01-08: Search results sorting improved: Due to the continually growing amount of entries it's getting harder to find common translations. That's why I currently try to use the vocabulary trainer statistics to determine the importance of each entry and sort the results accordingly. The grey number in the German column shows the number of vocabulary trainer lists that contain the entry. This number is updated on a weekly basis. Only one-word entries are taken into account.
News 2008
2008-12-31: New vocabulary trainer lists: Swedish-German and Swedish-English by Sephysto. Thank you very much!
2008-12-30: New "official" vocabulary trainer lists: English-French, English-Italian, German-French and German-Italian, all featuring a basic vocabulary set. It would be great to find some users willing to create basic lists like these for other languages by copying the English-German list into a new one and using maintain/edit to change the terms. Upon notification I would check the lists and maybe publish them at the vocab trainer overview page.
2008-12-20: Contribute / Input Limitation: As suggested by several users and after an extensive discussion in the forum I'm testing the following regulation to reduce the ever-growing pile of unverified translation suggestions: As of today, each user can only suggest new entries if he/she has less than 200 still waiting for verification.
To speed up the verification process I recommend using the comment field to give good source information.
To speed up the verification process I recommend using the comment field to give good source information.
2008-12-09: Honey data now contained in download vocabulary, with friendly permission of Mr. Winfried Honig!
2008-12-04: External links harmonized. The section "More Information" (search results pages), the "Not Found" pages and the edit forms (Contribute section) now use the same links database which can be extended by one's own favorite ressources.
2008-11-24: To prepare dict.cc for the future upgrade to other languages I changed most of the services to Unicode lately. Unfortunately this led to some problems with special characters and short-term server overloading. The major issues should be solved by now, but I'm still doing some fine-tuning here and there. In case you're experiencing strange behaviour that doesn't disappear after five minutes, please notify me at paul@dict.cc. Sorry for the inconvenience!
2008-11-18: As of today changing the nickname or closing a user account is possible without having to send an e-mail to Paul. To do so, visit the My Account page.
2008-11-09: Guidelines changed: Abbreviations in angle brackets from now on!
2008-11-06: Birthday! How time flies ... dict.cc is six already!
Once again some statistical information for the records: dict.cc is currently using 10 servers in parallel, the vocabulary consists of 656,346 translation pairs (around 100,000 added in one year!) and there are 37,461 registered users. 7,311 of them have already contributed to the vocabulary or answered questions in the translation forum. This year there's a new number to mention: 49,448 voice recordings have already been submitted to dict.cc.
Once again some statistical information for the records: dict.cc is currently using 10 servers in parallel, the vocabulary consists of 656,346 translation pairs (around 100,000 added in one year!) and there are 37,461 registered users. 7,311 of them have already contributed to the vocabulary or answered questions in the translation forum. This year there's a new number to mention: 49,448 voice recordings have already been submitted to dict.cc.
2008-10-22: The vocabulary trainer now optionally includes German gender.
2008-10-12: Appearance of context menu changed slightly.
2008-10-10: Who of you uses a Browser Homepage?
I've never used one in the past, because having to wait after opening a browser window annoys me. But on the other hand I have to look up terms quite often and I also find it annoying having to open Google, Wikipedia or dict.cc first. I'm not using the search field of modern browsers, because I don't want to switch between the several search engines all the time. That's why I built my own browser homepage some time ago. Now I'd like to know what you think about it: http://start.dict.cc/
Features:
- Loads faster than the Google homepage (no graphics).
- Search field for any number of search engines, online dictionaries, etc.
- Entering a URL followed by [Enter] works like in your browser's address bar, you can even cut out the "www" part.
- Entering a keyword followed by [Enter] searches Google.
- Entering a keyword followed by the [Tab] key (once or several times) uses your preferred search engine.
- Your favourite sites can be listed below the search field.
- Search engines and links can be changed within seconds - no registration required.
- No ads, except for Google search results pages
Any feedback highly appreciated!
I've never used one in the past, because having to wait after opening a browser window annoys me. But on the other hand I have to look up terms quite often and I also find it annoying having to open Google, Wikipedia or dict.cc first. I'm not using the search field of modern browsers, because I don't want to switch between the several search engines all the time. That's why I built my own browser homepage some time ago. Now I'd like to know what you think about it: http://start.dict.cc/
Features:
- Loads faster than the Google homepage (no graphics).
- Search field for any number of search engines, online dictionaries, etc.
- Entering a URL followed by [Enter] works like in your browser's address bar, you can even cut out the "www" part.
- Entering a keyword followed by [Enter] searches Google.
- Entering a keyword followed by the [Tab] key (once or several times) uses your preferred search engine.
- Your favourite sites can be listed below the search field.
- Search engines and links can be changed within seconds - no registration required.
- No ads, except for Google search results pages
Any feedback highly appreciated!
2008-10-07: Hall of Fame: User statistics corrected!
Due to the technique of counting up for each posting, user statistics have become slightly inaccurate over the years. That's because reloading a page after posting can sometimes make the server count up a second time. Even though calculating the correct numbers takes up more server resources than simply counting up on every event, I got rid of the counting system. From now on, user statistics will be accurate all the time.
Due to the technique of counting up for each posting, user statistics have become slightly inaccurate over the years. That's because reloading a page after posting can sometimes make the server count up a second time. Even though calculating the correct numbers takes up more server resources than simply counting up on every event, I got rid of the counting system. From now on, user statistics will be accurate all the time.
2008-09-25: Vocabulary Trainer: Help and Hints revised, "show solution" link added. The correct answer to the last question is now shown below the graphical representation of the vocabulary box. If the "Yes" button was clicked by mistake, this can now be undone.
2008-09-23: Server cluster extended to ten machines.
2008-09-20: Due to popular demand by iPhone owners I've re-engineered pocket.dict.cc: New sorting algorithm, new presentation of results, automatic search language detection, second search box at page bottom, typo correction system.
2008-09-18: User statistics now also shown on "My Account" page.
2008-09-15: First day with more than 3 million pageviews!
2008-09-11: Contribute / Undelete: For a long time I've been thinking about adding the possibility to recover deleted entries. Doing so might facilitate edit wars if insistent users keep undeleting their entries over and over again. To avoid that, one user can undelete an entry only once. Additionally, each entry can only be undeleted by users involved in the previous input/review process. This will render fake registrations for the sole purpose of re-undeleting entries useless.
Other changes: New status for entries: REOPENED; the user statistics page "Input Pending" also shows re-opened (including undeleted) entries.
Other changes: New status for entries: REOPENED; the user statistics page "Input Pending" also shows re-opened (including undeleted) entries.
2008-09-06: Infrastructural change: dict.cc now uses Pound as a load balancer for all "www" servers.
2008-09-02: Contribute / Rights system changed: The "Voting Score" criterion has been removed from the calculation of user rights. The results of this criterion were quite similar to those of the "Voting Accuracy" anyhow. Only a few users, most of which are no longer active at dict.cc, lost a point of their Voting Power. This change makes the whole system more transparent and easier to adapt to further languages.
2008-08-21: Database synchronization between servers changed to a new system.
2008-08-20: Audio Blacklist: To further reduce audio-recording spam there a list of terms (and parts of terms) which can not be recorded by newly registered users (registration time within the last 12 hours).
2008-08-18: Database troubles - sorry!
2008-08-12: Speech output changed to user recordings (if available) on search results pages and within the vocabulary trainer.
2008-08-11: Batch audio recording now possible using the personal vocabulary list (My Vocabulary). In other words: You can collect entries from the search results pages and record them in one stack.
2008-08-07: Batch processing of audio recordings improved: Filter settings from the right part of the page now also work here. Additionally user comments are also displayed.
2008-08-06: Calculation of Voting Accuracy changed: Comments in [square] brackets (like the official tags) are not causing an outvote anymore. I might take back this change in case of problems.
2008-08-03: More than 50,000 voice recordings as of today! Thanks to all the speakers!
2008-07-29: Contribute/Subjects: Finally multiple subjects selectable!
I had to implement some changes in the database layout to make this available. That's not too easy without interrupting the service, that's why it took me so long to get it done.
The subject selecting interface doesn't open a popup window anymore, now it opens within the input form. This works faster and is more convenient to use. Tip: Limit the amount of subjects displayed by typing the first letter(s).
Additionally I improved keyboard control of input and review forms. Now you can handle the form quite ok using Tab, Space and Esc (Windows IE/FF work best).
I had to implement some changes in the database layout to make this available. That's not too easy without interrupting the service, that's why it took me so long to get it done.
The subject selecting interface doesn't open a popup window anymore, now it opens within the input form. This works faster and is more convenient to use. Tip: Limit the amount of subjects displayed by typing the first letter(s).
Additionally I improved keyboard control of input and review forms. Now you can handle the form quite ok using Tab, Space and Esc (Windows IE/FF work best).
2008-07-15: The German application directory of facebook now features a dict.cc application!
2008-07-14: Input assistance tool for special characters: The vocabulary trainer area of dict.cc now offers a tool for adding international characters when editing or learning vocabulary. Lots of character sets, from Arabic to Yiddish are supported.
2008-07-12: Unfortunately there was a database problem on the main server today, so several parts of dict.cc did not work. This problem is solved by now. I'm sorry for the inconvenience!
2008-07-11: Import routine for the vocabulary trainer: For a long time it has been possible to export vocabulary lists, now finally I managed to implement the often requested counterpart, the import feature. Both import and export are now available on the "Maintain" page, which is linked next to the name of each list on the vocab trainer overview page.
2008-07-01: News are available as RSS feed from now on.
2008-06-24: Vocabulary Trainer Menu now also available on right click (search results pages). This works in all browsers except Opera.
2008-06-18: Forum search changed to search within word boundaries, it's a lot faster now.
2008-06-15: Vocabulary Trainer: If there are several correct translations of a particular word in the list, only one possibility is classified as correct for each question. The other possibilities are displayed crossed out as of today.
2008-06-14: Users can now provide information about their region of origin. This is especially useful for users contributing audio recordings, unless their pronunciation is accent-free. If this information is given in a user's profile, the nickname is tagged with an [R] within the audio output areas.
2008-06-11: Audio Updates: I've changed or enhanced several details lately:
- Deactivated the trimming feature of the recording applet, so initial sounds are not being cut off. In case this leads to problems with long periods of silence before the actual words, I might put this back in.
- Comment feature for audio wish list replaces e-mail notification feature
- Audio wish list entries tagged "done" are deleted after 24 hours
- Audio wish list now shows user name (or part of IP address)
- Recordings by top speakers (1000+ points as shown in the audio hall of fame) require only 5 voting points for verification (but still 10 for deletion)
- Prepared texts for audio comments
- Additional filter for audio history: Limit to commented recordings (especially useful to check one's own recordings)
- Deactivated the trimming feature of the recording applet, so initial sounds are not being cut off. In case this leads to problems with long periods of silence before the actual words, I might put this back in.
- Comment feature for audio wish list replaces e-mail notification feature
- Audio wish list entries tagged "done" are deleted after 24 hours
- Audio wish list now shows user name (or part of IP address)
- Recordings by top speakers (1000+ points as shown in the audio hall of fame) require only 5 voting points for verification (but still 10 for deletion)
- Prepared texts for audio comments
- Additional filter for audio history: Limit to commented recordings (especially useful to check one's own recordings)
2008-06-04: Audio Recording Wish List: Now it's possible for users to request an audio recording for each dictionary entry that hasn't already been recorded. To post such a request, click the loudspeaker button, then the button "Request" within the speech bubble. Audio requests are collected in a list and displayed to registered users on the Audio Recordings page if available (yellow bar).
Using this feature also users who don't want to contribute by recording words can participate in improving the voice output feature - just report entries with questionable computer voices, so native speakers can record them.
Using this feature also users who don't want to contribute by recording words can participate in improving the voice output feature - just report entries with questionable computer voices, so native speakers can record them.
2008-05-28: The assignment of audio recordings to dictionary entries can now be changed. Using the list of recordings (button [A] next to the recorded word) every user can reassign his/her voice recordings.
An example of application could be having recorded the German word "modern" in the sense of "up to date" and erroneously also assigned it to "modern [verwesen]".
Experienced registered users (Voting Power 5) can change all assignments.
An example of application could be having recorded the German word "modern" in the sense of "up to date" and erroneously also assigned it to "modern [verwesen]".
Experienced registered users (Voting Power 5) can change all assignments.
2008-05-25: As the audio recording feature seems quite attractive for jokers, I've provided a simplified way to report them or other spammers who use the forum or contact forms. To report a user, click his/her name to get to the respective user page, then click the link "Report this user" (only visible to logged-in users). If three different users vote for deactivating the account in question, this is done automatically. In case I'm not at my desk I will then check this afterwards.
2008-05-15: Hall of Fame now contains audio recordings! To also give credit to those who improve dict.cc by contributing voice recordings, there's an Audio Hall of Fame page as of today. The ranking is determined by the number of verified recordings minus the number of deleted recordings to reflect both quality and quantity.
2008-05-12: Voice Recording | Update: As of today it's possible to comment on voice recordings. This feature is only available to registered users to avoid spam. Comments are visible on the audio history page, in the "status" column. The last comment is displayed to the recording user directly before recording the next entry. This way users can be provided with improvement suggestions quickly.
Other updates: Dictionary search results pages now highlight entries with user recordings once a user clicks the loudspeaker button. The "Record" button (audio list, page bottom) now suggests the most important words and phrases (as defined by the vocabulary trainer's usage statistics). Additionally it's now possible to open audio entries by their number (audio list, "Tools" section). Some other enhancements are still pending and will be released soon.
Other updates: Dictionary search results pages now highlight entries with user recordings once a user clicks the loudspeaker button. The "Record" button (audio list, page bottom) now suggests the most important words and phrases (as defined by the vocabulary trainer's usage statistics). Additionally it's now possible to open audio entries by their number (audio list, "Tools" section). Some other enhancements are still pending and will be released soon.
2008-05-05: Vocabulary reaches 600,000 entries!
It took dict.cc just slightly more than a year to grow by 100,000 translations! That's an enormous accomplishment! Many thanks to all contributing users, most of all to the core group of power users!
It took dict.cc just slightly more than a year to grow by 100,000 translations! That's an enormous accomplishment! Many thanks to all contributing users, most of all to the core group of power users!
2008-04-28: Now you can open up forum postings by entering the number directly on the forum homepage.
2008-04-22: Forum: Now there's a simple way to refer to other postings. Just add the pound (hash, number) symbol and the number of the posting, e.g. #123456. This number is displayed at the top right corner of each thread.
2008-04-21: More than 10,000 voice recordings! Many thanks to all users recording words or checking recordings! I'm very proud to say that there are excellent speakers participating!
2008-04-12: After integrating a new ad provider several technical problems have been reported. I very much apologize for these issues! I'm working intensively on solving them. When sending error reports to me please include a detailed description of the problem, the browser version you are using and an example link (copy from address bar). If possible, please also include a Screenshot, so I can see several parameters at one glance.
2008-04-11: Layout update!
Since the start of dict.cc in 2002 the average computer screen size has increased a lot, so dict.cc started to look "thin" and glued to the left part of the screen. Additionally, dict.cc's content has widened due to many useful comments being added to the translations. Lots of new features also require an increased layout width. Last, but not least, the online advertising industry, making a site like dict.cc possible, also demands banner-compatible layouts.
By displaying synonyms and inflections more prominently I hope I was able to make dict.cc even more useful with this change. In case you find any layout bugs, please tell me about them (make sure to include the full URL from your browsers location bar, or, even better, a screenshot). Any other feedback is very welcome, too. If the ads annoy you, click "Remove Ads" above the top banner.
Since the start of dict.cc in 2002 the average computer screen size has increased a lot, so dict.cc started to look "thin" and glued to the left part of the screen. Additionally, dict.cc's content has widened due to many useful comments being added to the translations. Lots of new features also require an increased layout width. Last, but not least, the online advertising industry, making a site like dict.cc possible, also demands banner-compatible layouts.
By displaying synonyms and inflections more prominently I hope I was able to make dict.cc even more useful with this change. In case you find any layout bugs, please tell me about them (make sure to include the full URL from your browsers location bar, or, even better, a screenshot). Any other feedback is very welcome, too. If the ads annoy you, click "Remove Ads" above the top banner.
2008-04-01: Audio recordings are now being normalized when saving to make up for the different volume levels.
2008-03-13: New feature: Audio Recording! (Beta)
Since August 2003 dict.cc contains a voice output feature, quite intensively used with currently more than 127,200 requests per day. The audio files needed are generated by a so-called text-to-speech program on each request.
As of today there's a new addition to that. Just like the vocabulary database is continually extended by the users of dict.cc, everyone can also contribute voice recordings without leaving the site. You only have to connect a microphone or headset and click the record button, there's no additional software needed.
Any given word can have several user recordings attached to it. This way it will be possible to hear the same word spoken with a British, an American, Canadian, Australian, Irish or other accent, provided that different user recordings are available for that word.
In addition to that the speech recording function will also be able to solve the problem of heteronyms, which are words equally written, but pronounced differently - like "minute" ("very small" or "part of an hour").
A list of previous recordings including a rating function and a recording button can be found here.
To my knowledge there is no other dictionary website in the world providing a user recording feature, so I'm very excited about how it'll work out. Please try it and tell me what you think about it!
Since August 2003 dict.cc contains a voice output feature, quite intensively used with currently more than 127,200 requests per day. The audio files needed are generated by a so-called text-to-speech program on each request.
As of today there's a new addition to that. Just like the vocabulary database is continually extended by the users of dict.cc, everyone can also contribute voice recordings without leaving the site. You only have to connect a microphone or headset and click the record button, there's no additional software needed.
Any given word can have several user recordings attached to it. This way it will be possible to hear the same word spoken with a British, an American, Canadian, Australian, Irish or other accent, provided that different user recordings are available for that word.
In addition to that the speech recording function will also be able to solve the problem of heteronyms, which are words equally written, but pronounced differently - like "minute" ("very small" or "part of an hour").
A list of previous recordings including a rating function and a recording button can be found here.
To my knowledge there is no other dictionary website in the world providing a user recording feature, so I'm very excited about how it'll work out. Please try it and tell me what you think about it!
2008-03-02: Added a little FAQ page to reduce my daily e-mail traffic.
2008-02-25: As of today you can also state your country of residence in addition to your native country in your user profile.
2008-02-23: User/Contributions: List of comments-only votes (like votes pending, etc.) added. Linked from My Account (top of page).
2008-02-22: Contribute: Optional e-mail notification on re-opening of an entry you submitted or reviewed. Can be activated in your preferences.
2008-02-17: Using the shareware program "Slicktionary" you can access dict.cc from any Windows application. Just hold down the shift key and right-click the word to look up. » Download
2008-02-13: Unfortunately I had some mailserver problems lately. If you sent an email to paul at dict.cc and have not received an answer, please resend your message. Sorry!
2008-02-05: Server cluster extended to eight machines. Currently I'm evaluating several ways to improve server performance, to keep server costs and maintenance efforts within bounds. Currently serving 2.2 million page views daily (on workdays).
2008-01-17: I'm testing a new idea to get rid of the current spambot pest. If you encounter problems when trying to post to the forum or Contribute section, please tell me! For HTML coders: form action="nirvana" onsubmit="correct_form_action()" - this means: Javascript required!
2008-01-16: Contribute: Pending votes and comments can be revoked now. This feature can be found on the history page of the respective entry.
2008-01-15: User / Contributions: Votes Pending now also shows comments.
2008-01-14: Vocabulary Trainer List Search: As of today you can search for specific vocabulary lists by specifying list name, user name and / or language combination.
2008-01-07: A commonly requested feature lately was the possibility to edit one's forum postings, to correct typos or the like. That's possible from now on, but only for registered users. Log in to see "edit" links following your posted text.
News 2007
2007-12-14: Forum formatting changed: +word+ will be rendered italic, *word* will appear as bold+italic
2007-12-10: Contribute / Voting Score: As of today no point will be deducted anymore if a non-confirmed voting corresponds with the final entry. Example (Buaya)
2007-12-06: Multi-word query results pages improved (examples: weg sein, guinea pig, sich abrackern, kitchen sink): Sorting algorithm improved, divider between exact matches and matches containing the keywords.
2007-12-01: Vocabulary Game: Do you have a few minutes to spare and want to spend it in a useful way? Try the new vocabulary game, it's the yellow box located directly on the homepage of dict.cc! You can also set www.dict.cc as your browser's startup page and start your working day by improving your language skills!
2007-11-19: Contribute / Listings / Tools: Open entry by number
2007-11-13: Despite technical security measures (Captcha for newly-registered users) a spam message was posted using the contact form of some registered users a few days ago. That's why I'm introducing an additional rule to hopefully avoid this in the future. Only users who have been active in the forum, the Contribute area or the vocabulary trainer section at least once can utilize the contact form from today on. This should circumvent software-induced spam.
Even though this has happened only rarely so far, I'm really sorry for the spamming incidents and I apologize for that.
Users who can do without a contact form can also disable it completely using the My Account / Preferences page.
Even though this has happened only rarely so far, I'm really sorry for the spamming incidents and I apologize for that.
Users who can do without a contact form can also disable it completely using the My Account / Preferences page.
2007-11-07: This went faster as expected: Yesterday, exactly on the fifth birthday, dict.cc received more than 2 million pageviews for the first time! This means it took less than a year to double the pageview number!
2007-11-06: Birthday! dict.cc is five years young today! A few numbers for the records and to illustrate the development of dict.cc: The dictionary vocabulary currently consists of 558,600 translation pairs, there are 17,292 registered users in total, and 4,845 of them have already contributed to the vocabulary or answered questions in the translation forum. Yesterday the page view number exceeded 1.9 million, so the 2 million border should soon be reached.
2007-11-02: Phrase Search: As of today you can use quote signs when searching to indicate that you're looking for the exact phrase (keywords have to follow each other immediately, in the same sequence as specified). Compare apply to with "apply to". Other examples: "nicht nur", "auch so"
2007-10-30: Vocabulary trainer (my.dict.cc):
New feature on the maintenance page: Sort entries alphabetically.
New feature on the maintenance page: Sort entries alphabetically.
2007-10-26: Forum: Now it's possible to cross out or emphasize certain words or phrases. This should turn out to be useful when correcting texts. To strike out a word use -wort-, to emphasize use +word+ oder *word*, without spaces next to the first or last letter of the word.
2007-10-23: New feature: Forgot nickname.
2007-10-15: Due to maintenance work it's possible to encounter server downtimes during the following days: 17th (Wednesday), 23rd (Tuesday) und 25th (Thursday), starting at 4.30 a.m. and lasting about two and a half hours. If www.dict.cc is inaccessible, you can try www2.dict.cc, www3.dict.cc, and so on (up to www6.dict.cc), only one of the servers will be down at any given time. Sorry for the inconvenience!
2007-09-28: Contact form captcha: Newly registered users have to type in a captcha code to send a message using other users' contact form from now on. This should protect registered users from spambots.
2007-09-25: While I was travelling there were several server problems. I apologize for that - I'll find a solution to avoid this in the future.
2007-09-05: Vacation: From September 6th to 24th I'll be on a concert tour through Peru as a member of the Vienna University Choir. I'll try to answer my mails daily, but as I'll have to do this using notebook and cellphone while travelling through the country, I'm not sure if I can get a connection every day. Please send mail only in urgent cases until 25th. Vocabulary correction requests will be processed once I'm back again, because I can't carry all of my reference books.
2007-09-02: Due to the expected traffic growth in autumn I've installed another server. That makes dict.cc run on six servers simultaneously now.
2007-08-30: The vocabulary trainer now also offers voice output for French, Italian and Spanish. To use it, make sure the language settings of your vocabulary lists are correct, click the maintain link next to each list to check. Currently there are no predefined vocabulary lists for these languages, so please add the translations yourself, using the "Add" button ("maintain" page).
2007-08-26: Due to popular demand I've implemented a function to mix the vocabulary trainer learning cards. The shuffle link can be found below the answer field. Clicking it will shuffle all cards within their boxes.
2007-08-01: Forum: Now also answers can be tagged as "Chat/Comment". Chat entries can be hidden from the listing if required.
2007-07-27: Contribute/forum notification: From now on core users will receive a notification email whenever a new discussion is opened in the "contribute" section of the forum. An unsubscribe link is included in the mail. Definition of a core user regarding this feature: 200+ entries reviewed, "contribute" activity within the last 30 days.
2007-07-26: Search results pages slightly redesigned: Word class labels like {adj} or {m} are lighter and not bold anymore, comments/descriptions slightly darker, and cell backgrounds don't alternate brightness levels anymore, instead they're slightly structured. Any feedback regarding these changes is welcome!
2007-07-24: Vocabulary trainer extended: From now on it's possible to use the "maintain" menu to edit existing entries and type in your own translations. This way you're not limited to English-German translations anymore. My plan is to utilize the most widely used entries per language combination to build up basic verified vocabulary databases.
I will use the next days and weeks to implement several other vocab trainer enhancements, like speech output for other languages and a search feature for public vocabulary lists.
I will use the next days and weeks to implement several other vocab trainer enhancements, like speech output for other languages and a search feature for public vocabulary lists.
2007-07-16: Contribute - delete warnings: As of today it's possible to get notified by mail each time a delete vote is cast on a user's input suggestion. This option can be turned on in the user preferences section.
2007-07-03: Google Gadget: If you're already using Google's personalized homepage (iGoogle), you can integrate dict.cc's dictionary module now. The gadget called "dict.cc Translation Box" shows the first three entries without leaving Google, clicking "more..." takes you to dict.cc (if needed).
2007-07-02: Some optimizations:
The typo correction feature also finds erroneous compound spellings from now on. Examples: desweiteren, jenachdem, rumbleseat, bottomline.
The list of unsuccessful searches does not contain terms identified as typos anymore. A typo is identified when a user clicks one of the suggested corrections after an unsuccessful search. This improves the usefulness of the list as a basis for new vocabulary suggestions.
Search algorithm modified, better results for multi-word entries with word recurrences.
The typo correction feature also finds erroneous compound spellings from now on. Examples: desweiteren, jenachdem, rumbleseat, bottomline.
The list of unsuccessful searches does not contain terms identified as typos anymore. A typo is identified when a user clicks one of the suggested corrections after an unsuccessful search. This improves the usefulness of the list as a basis for new vocabulary suggestions.
Search algorithm modified, better results for multi-word entries with word recurrences.
2007-06-23: Fine-tuning the Voting Score system:
1.) Rating negatively is not possible anymore, because a neutral rating is already a negative one compared to the standard plus.
2.) Splits generate an automatic plus for previous votes corresponding to one of the split variants.
3.) For entries with several verification rounds the system only considers the last round per user.
For detailed information and discussion see the corresponding forum thread.
1.) Rating negatively is not possible anymore, because a neutral rating is already a negative one compared to the standard plus.
2.) Splits generate an automatic plus for previous votes corresponding to one of the split variants.
3.) For entries with several verification rounds the system only considers the last round per user.
For detailed information and discussion see the corresponding forum thread.
2007-06-19: Contribute / Voting Score (Release): As of today the "Voting Power" is calculated by a new algorithm - the voting score data is included and the contested user rating system is dropped from now on. For more information about the new rights system, see the right column at the Hall of Fame.
2007-06-12: First day with more than 1.5 million page views!
2007-06-10: New: German Inflections! By popular demand, German inflections will now be displayed next to the search results (in the column to the right). Complete inflection tables can be reached using the link "more". Additionaly these tables are being used for the feature "did you mean", appearing when a particular inflected word could not be found. Examples: begriffest, unsres, abonniertet, Abbildern
2007-05-26: Changes concerning voting accuracy and guidelines: Labels, as displayed next to the input / review forms (like [Am.], {adj}, {adv}) will not be taken into account when calculating the voting accuracy index. Exceptions: {m} {f} {n} {pl}. I also changed the guidelines covering the treatment of {adj} and {adv} labels, as discussed in the forum.
2007-05-21: Server 2 now powered by new hardware: Dual-Core Opteron, 4 GB RAM. This way there should be room for further traffic increases. I also updated the English speech output software, former mispronunciations like "toothache" are correct by now.
2007-05-18: Added some basic root word detection to the "not found" page as suggested by Polarjud. Additional rules welcome!
2007-05-14: The entrepreneurship center / office community "Rochuspark" (Vienna) still has some space to rent! Today I had my first regular working day there, and I'm really glad I finally stopped working from home. Virtual communication is just not the same as talking to real people... If you're self employed and looking for a nice place to work, feel free to contact me: paul at dict.cc (translators or other textual workers would be handy for me ;-)
2007-05-11: Sorry for the accessibility problems lately! I thought the current server setup would make it through the summer, but unfortunately it doesn't seem so. That's why I ordered another server yesterday - I will add it to the cluster within the next days.
2007-05-09: Forum Categories: The major improvement suggestions for the forum were a chat area, a place to discuss issues regarding vocabulary/guidelines and the possibility to indicate the language direction when asking for a translation. I tried to satisfy these wishes by adding categories to the forum. I wanted to avoid having separate areas, because regular users would have had to check each of them separately. So I came up with some kind of filter system, enabling users to choose which entries to display at the listing pages. Wishes, complaints and further requests are always welcome!
2007-04-23: New Feature: Recent Searches! I finally managed to add another long-requested feature: The right column next to the search results now contains the possibility to make dict.cc remember your last 20 search keywords, so you can look them up again quickly. There is no login required and the list can be deleted with just one mouse click.
2007-04-19: Second Life Integration: There's a new gadget in Second Life enabling you to use dict.cc to look up translations in-game. This tool, developed by Miyo Yoshikawa, uses an online interface to communicate with dict.cc's servers, so the translations are always up to date.
For more information visit Miyo's place.
For more information visit Miyo's place.
2007-03-30: Contribute / Voting Score (Beta): I'd like to introduce a new concept for the evaluation of the review quality to replace the disputed user rating system. The new system takes the amount and the quality of the reviews into account and doesn't require additional work by users. When voting for an entry users can optionally rate previous reviews positively, negatively or neutral. Joining another opinion by clicking it within the form page results in a positive rating of the previous review. This way no extra work is required for determining people's review quality, but still there's a user-driven component to it, for cases where computer algorithms don't work out. Other advantages: Early and precise reviews will be rewarded, there's more transparency and less possibility for manipulation than with the user rating system.
I released the rating part of the system today. As soon as enough data is collected and possible improvement suggestions are incorporated, I will finish the second part (analysis and calculation of the voting power) and remove the user rating system.
I released the rating part of the system today. As soon as enough data is collected and possible improvement suggestions are incorporated, I will finish the second part (analysis and calculation of the voting power) and remove the user rating system.
2007-03-24: Vocabulary reaches 500,000 entries!
A big thank you to all of the users participating in the development of the vocabulary, first and foremost to you guys! Some statistical information: Currently more than 600 translation pairs get verified daily, out of the 500,000 entries around 300,000 have already been edited by users and there are over 3.500 users contributing to the vocabulary! All in all a great success so far - many, many thanks for your invaluable assistance!
A big thank you to all of the users participating in the development of the vocabulary, first and foremost to you guys! Some statistical information: Currently more than 600 translation pairs get verified daily, out of the 500,000 entries around 300,000 have already been edited by users and there are over 3.500 users contributing to the vocabulary! All in all a great success so far - many, many thanks for your invaluable assistance!
2007-03-09: Subject list cleaned up, bugfixes, tooltips in search results pages
2007-03-07: Typo correction improved ("Did you mean..." if no results were found) - now it finds words with more than one letter misplaced.
2007-02-23: Users keep suggesting additional links for the "context menu" (see the triangle buttons next to each search result). Unfortunately I can't add all of them, otherwise the menu would grow too large. But as of today it's possible to customize the menu (last menu item), so every user can add his/her personal favourites.
2007-02-13: Synonyms added to compact view.
2007-02-09: New: English synonyms! The data was taken from WordNet 3.0 by Princeton University. If available, synonyms are displayed in a column to the right of the regular search results.
2007-02-02: Public vocabulary lists by other users (76 lists) divided into several pages. Including the non-public ones there are more than 2500 lists stored on the server already. The vocabulary trainer section served 862,000 pageviews in January (first full month after release).
2007-01-24: Once again, an infrastructural upgrade was necessary. So dict.cc is already using 5 servers.
2007-01-20: Correct-a-mistake form simplified (when coming from the search results page).
2007-01-19: For additional visibility I added the subject filtering links to the Contribute / New Entries page (right part, tools section). More filtering options can be found under Contribute / Specials.
2007-01-13: The ads for voting didn't work out as expected, so I deactivated them.
2007-01-11: Contribute: "Limited Input Mode" introduced.
If I wouldn't limit the number of unverified translations this number would grow into infinity, because each new translation (posted by one user) needs to be reviewed by several other users to keep up the quality of the vocabulary. For regular contributors it's quite annoying to be restrained from adding new translations, especially after having checked hundreds or thousands of other users' suggestions.
So from today on, when the number of pending entries is above 2000, the vocabulary input form is switched to "Limited Input Mode", meaning that users can only post a new entry after having reviewed another one. Top reviewers (VP4+) can always post new entries.
If I wouldn't limit the number of unverified translations this number would grow into infinity, because each new translation (posted by one user) needs to be reviewed by several other users to keep up the quality of the vocabulary. For regular contributors it's quite annoying to be restrained from adding new translations, especially after having checked hundreds or thousands of other users' suggestions.
So from today on, when the number of pending entries is above 2000, the vocabulary input form is switched to "Limited Input Mode", meaning that users can only post a new entry after having reviewed another one. Top reviewers (VP4+) can always post new entries.
2007-01-07: From now on the available ad space will partially be used to display unverified translations. This way I try to draw some additional attention to the "contribute" features, hopefully resulting in a smaller amount of pending unverified translations.
News 2006
2006-12-29: To get back to the search input field, you just need to press any letter key from today on (Windows only). In case of problems please tell me!
2006-12-15: The new vocabulary trainer has proved to be very stable, no problems were reported to me (just a few improvement suggestions). That's why I removed the "Beta" label today. By the way, there are already more than 360 user vocabulary lists stored on the server!
2006-12-04: Vocabulary trainer and my.dict.cc (beta) now online!
I continually receive mails containing improvement suggestions and feature requests for dict.cc. Some features are regularly asked for, for instance a way to remember often needed terms, a possibility to print certain terms, to import a selection of terms into other programs, and a vocabulary trainer feature.
I spent quite an amount of time thinking about these requests, doing some experiments and finding a system that hopefully suits all suggestions. The resulting set of features - called my.dict.cc - is now available in a beta version. "Beta" means it might still contain errors and may need some fine-tuning.
I'm counting on your feedback by mail again, so please report errors and possible improvements!
Here's how it works:
You can highlight entries from the search results pages by clicking an empty space next to an entry. This makes the background color of the term(s) change to orange. A menu appears, enabling you to add the highlighted terms to your personal vocabulary. No registration is necessary for this feature, but for technical reasons (Cookie) the list can only contain a maximum of 500 entries. Registered users can maintain up to 20 lists containing a maximum of 5000 entries each (for free). Go to http://my.dict.cc/ or use the menu to explore the other possibilities (vocabulary trainer, print view, export, list administration). As a logged-in user you can use your lists from any Internet-connected computer. In addition it's possible to make some of your lists publicly visible. This way students or teachers can compile lists for, say, the next vocabulary test, and all schoolmates would only need to copy them to their personal vocabulary trainer.
The vocabulary trainer itself follows the card box principle. The box is divided into five sections. If you know a term it's moved to the next section, if you don't know it, it goes back to the first one. Once a term made it to the last section, it should be stored in your long-term memory. As an added functionality you can let the computer speak the answer for you and you can display the first / next letter of the answer word. I personally recommend using the trainer with your keyboard only, by typing in the answers instead of clicking the buttons. If an answer is recognized as correct, the next question appears automatically. Using the space key or entering a dot enables you to(cheat) get some inspiration ;-).
Have fun exploring the new features!
Paul (@dict.cc)
I continually receive mails containing improvement suggestions and feature requests for dict.cc. Some features are regularly asked for, for instance a way to remember often needed terms, a possibility to print certain terms, to import a selection of terms into other programs, and a vocabulary trainer feature.
I spent quite an amount of time thinking about these requests, doing some experiments and finding a system that hopefully suits all suggestions. The resulting set of features - called my.dict.cc - is now available in a beta version. "Beta" means it might still contain errors and may need some fine-tuning.
I'm counting on your feedback by mail again, so please report errors and possible improvements!
Here's how it works:
You can highlight entries from the search results pages by clicking an empty space next to an entry. This makes the background color of the term(s) change to orange. A menu appears, enabling you to add the highlighted terms to your personal vocabulary. No registration is necessary for this feature, but for technical reasons (Cookie) the list can only contain a maximum of 500 entries. Registered users can maintain up to 20 lists containing a maximum of 5000 entries each (for free). Go to http://my.dict.cc/ or use the menu to explore the other possibilities (vocabulary trainer, print view, export, list administration). As a logged-in user you can use your lists from any Internet-connected computer. In addition it's possible to make some of your lists publicly visible. This way students or teachers can compile lists for, say, the next vocabulary test, and all schoolmates would only need to copy them to their personal vocabulary trainer.
The vocabulary trainer itself follows the card box principle. The box is divided into five sections. If you know a term it's moved to the next section, if you don't know it, it goes back to the first one. Once a term made it to the last section, it should be stored in your long-term memory. As an added functionality you can let the computer speak the answer for you and you can display the first / next letter of the answer word. I personally recommend using the trainer with your keyboard only, by typing in the answers instead of clicking the buttons. If an answer is recognized as correct, the next question appears automatically. Using the space key or entering a dot enables you to
Have fun exploring the new features!
Paul (@dict.cc)
2006-11-20: Translations within the search results pages are now linked to the compact view of their retranslations. This can be changed using the options page (linked to below the search field).
2006-11-13: More than 1 million pageviews within one day!
2006-11-10: Sorry for some minor technical problems lately! For performance reasons I had to rearrange the technical infrastructure. If anything still doesn't work as expected, please mail to paul@dict.cc!
2006-11-06: dict.cc is four years old today!
I took the occasion to add a third chart to the statistics page, showing the progress of the monthly access rates since the launch of dict.cc in November 2002. Looks quite nice to me... ;-)
Many thanks to all of the 2686 registered users who contribute to the vocabulary and answer questions in the translation forum!
I took the occasion to add a third chart to the statistics page, showing the progress of the monthly access rates since the launch of dict.cc in November 2002. Looks quite nice to me... ;-)
Many thanks to all of the 2686 registered users who contribute to the vocabulary and answer questions in the translation forum!
2006-11-03: To be able to handle future traffic increases reliably, the dictionary is being served by four servers concurrently from now on.
2006-10-27: User/Contributions - new report page: my recently finalized input (linked to at the my account page).
2006-10-26: Contribute: For technical reasons and to avoid cheating it is now necessary to log in for unregistered users, if their current IP address matches one of a registered user.
2006-10-23: To cope with the current spambot situation, I added a so-called Captcha to some of the forms. That's an image containing a code to be entered whenever an unregistered user wants to post a link to the forum or tries to contact another user by his/her personal contact form. This will hopefully reduce the spam problem to a minimum.
2006-10-20: Forum-Spam - The Neverending Story!
Once again our friend Demirusleo delights us with his presence on the forum today, spreading his ambiguous messages. I took the occasion to further develop the anti-spam functionality of dict.cc. Now, when a posting in the forum gets flagged as spam, the corresponding user (recognized by his/her IP address) is automatically blocked from accessing dict.cc.
Unfortunately there's one problem: With most providers the IP address can be changed by disconnecting from the Internet and connecting again. That's why I came up with another trick: Every provider only has a certain address block available, so the new IP address must be similar to the previous one. So from now on the IP address is checked against dict.cc's blacklist when saving a new forum posting. If it is similar to the address of a known spammer, the posting will not be stored.
Only one more problem is still pending, and that's the automated forum spam by spambots (programs similar to viruses installed secretly on thousands of Windows PCs, spending the whole day happily posting spam to every form field they find on the net). Ugly little creatures! I'm still working on that one.
Once again our friend Demirusleo delights us with his presence on the forum today, spreading his ambiguous messages. I took the occasion to further develop the anti-spam functionality of dict.cc. Now, when a posting in the forum gets flagged as spam, the corresponding user (recognized by his/her IP address) is automatically blocked from accessing dict.cc.
Unfortunately there's one problem: With most providers the IP address can be changed by disconnecting from the Internet and connecting again. That's why I came up with another trick: Every provider only has a certain address block available, so the new IP address must be similar to the previous one. So from now on the IP address is checked against dict.cc's blacklist when saving a new forum posting. If it is similar to the address of a known spammer, the posting will not be stored.
Only one more problem is still pending, and that's the automated forum spam by spambots (programs similar to viruses installed secretly on thousands of Windows PCs, spending the whole day happily posting spam to every form field they find on the net). Ugly little creatures! I'm still working on that one.
2006-09-29: New feature: German synonyms! Daniel Naber, the maintainer of OpenThesaurus.de allows me to include the results of his project in the search results pages of dict.cc. Thanks a lot for that! If available, synonyms are displayed in a column to the right of the regular search results.
2006-09-20: Removed the subject "slang" (caused too much confusion). Please use the English label "[sl.]" instead.
2006-09-14: Because users continue to ask me about possible manipulations within the user rating system, I added a page where people can see who rated a specific user. This page also shows the IP addresses of the users. IPs similar to those of the rated user might indicate possible manipulation. The actual rating score will not be shown.
To get to this page, click "User Rating" at the right column of the user's personal page (only possible for logged-in users).
To get to this page, click "User Rating" at the right column of the user's personal page (only possible for logged-in users).
2006-09-04: Search results pages / context menu: New function: Copy to clipboard (Internet Explorer only)
2006-08-25: Contribute / Special Tasks: I compiled a list of entries by dict.tu-chemnitz.de, reflecting their changes in the last couple of years. As this list is quite big, only a maximum of 200 entries will continually be visible at the "Check new entries" pages. If you have some time to spare I would be really glad if you would check a few!
2006-08-24: Contribute: Introducing the "Special Tasks" page!
For a long time I've been thinking about how to treat tasks like changing round brackets to square brackets, allowing specialists to bulk-check entries from their field of work or to add and check whole vocabulary lists from users. I always thought about adding user maintainable special task lists which would have made things more complicated (user interface, database layout, programming). But, inspired by Nitram's changing of brackets commented by "[]", I came up with the idea of filtering entries by comments to create batches. Commonly used comments are now being displayed on the "Specials" page automatically. Additionally you can just check split requests or filter entries by subjects, comments or users. For instance you might want to check only entries which have already been reviewed by users you trust.
I hope this new feature is able to improve the overall efficiency of the review process. In case of questions or problems, as always, feel free to send me a note anytime.
For a long time I've been thinking about how to treat tasks like changing round brackets to square brackets, allowing specialists to bulk-check entries from their field of work or to add and check whole vocabulary lists from users. I always thought about adding user maintainable special task lists which would have made things more complicated (user interface, database layout, programming). But, inspired by Nitram's changing of brackets commented by "[]", I came up with the idea of filtering entries by comments to create batches. Commonly used comments are now being displayed on the "Specials" page automatically. Additionally you can just check split requests or filter entries by subjects, comments or users. For instance you might want to check only entries which have already been reviewed by users you trust.
I hope this new feature is able to improve the overall efficiency of the review process. In case of questions or problems, as always, feel free to send me a note anytime.
2006-08-14: Search results pages: Introducing the "See Also" section!
2006-08-11: Some minor adjustments:
Hall of Fame: default order now "Voting Power > Number of Votes" instead of "Voting Power > User Rating". Seems fair.
Contribute - Check new entries: Oldest entries first. Should reduce the problem of old entries hanging in the system for months.
Translation input from search results page opens a new window. The old form keeps its values to make posting multiple entries easier.
Hall of Fame: default order now "Voting Power > Number of Votes" instead of "Voting Power > User Rating". Seems fair.
Contribute - Check new entries: Oldest entries first. Should reduce the problem of old entries hanging in the system for months.
Translation input from search results page opens a new window. The old form keeps its values to make posting multiple entries easier.
2006-08-02: Cooperation with WEB.DE! One of Germany's most important search engines now also offers translations from dict.cc if you search for certain terms. More Information: WEB.DE SmartInfo®
2006-07-11: Due to several spam incidents within the vocabulary maintenance system (Contribute) accounts with a user rating of -2 or less will automatically be deactivated from now on. Additionally the IP address belonging to the account will be blacklisted, so the user will be blocked from accessing any part of dict.cc for a limited time.
In the current case the user (Guenther/Theodor, aka Joern B.) left so many traces that it was easily possible to find out his name and address to be able to take further measures in case of recurrence.
In the current case the user (Guenther/Theodor, aka Joern B.) left so many traces that it was easily possible to find out his name and address to be able to take further measures in case of recurrence.
2006-07-06: There's a new offline dictionary for Linux (gtk+), based on dict.cc's vocabulary data. Thanks to the developer Lukasz Czajka!
2006-07-05: The dictionary now contains more than 450'000 translation pairs.
2006-07-04: A user managed to bypass the user rating system and to vote for his own translation suggestions by registering several times (using different user names). Although in the current case the resulting verified translations were of good quality, I cannot accept this behaviour. The positive aspect is that within a very short period of time several other users told me about suspicious activities, so the system still appears to work quite well.
What I did was to deactivate all of the user accounts in question and to delete the corresponding user rating votes. Additionally I sent an e-mail to the user inviting him to start from scratch registering as a new user and building up his ratings in a fair way. To avoid the problem in the future I will write a little program to check all accounts for multiple registrations regularly and to notify me in case of suspicious facts.
What I did was to deactivate all of the user accounts in question and to delete the corresponding user rating votes. Additionally I sent an e-mail to the user inviting him to start from scratch registering as a new user and building up his ratings in a fair way. To avoid the problem in the future I will write a little program to check all accounts for multiple registrations regularly and to notify me in case of suspicious facts.
2006-06-28: From today on it's possible to send messages to registered users via a contact form. This way people can thank others for answering questions in the forum or clarify problems when working on the vocabulary. Using the My Account page (section preferences) you can choose whether you want to be contacted by everybody, only registered users or by nobody at all. The default setting is "registered users only". Clicking a username within the forum or contribute pages will send you to the personal page of the user, which also displays the contact form from today on (unless the user chose to disable it). The link to the referring forum or contribute page is added automatically in most cases, so the recipient will know immediately what you're talking about.
2006-06-23: Dictionary Lookup: Language restriction links are now displayed on demand (example: fallen). Search box area slightly modified.
2006-06-14: Forum: Report Spam - From now on there's a predefined way to report spam in the forum. Every posting by an unregistered user now includes a link to a spam report page. The title and text of a posting will be hidden as soon as there are three spam votes for it. Additionally the administrator will be notified, so he can later delete the entry completely if necessary.
2006-05-30: User/Contributions - Now it's possible to list only those entries which have been reviewed by other users lately (see the pages "Input Pending" and "Votes Pending").
2006-05-17: Based on dict.cc's vocabulary there's a new offline dictionary for Linux (command line and Emacs), developed by Tassilo.
2006-05-16: New: Browse by subjects
2006-05-11: Contribute: According to popular demand I've added the possibility to submit reviews as "comment only", without voting (for registered users). This way users can suggest improvements without harming their voting accuracy in case they're not sure about the correctness of their opinion.
2006-05-10: Because of the great usage rate increases (accompanied by higher ad income) dict.cc's financial situation has finally stabilized. That's why the project isn't dependent on donations anymore, enabling me to finally remove the donations page from the main menu. Cordial thanks to all users who supported dict.cc by donating in the difficult first years!
2006-05-09: New feature on front page: Tell-a-Friend!
2006-05-08: User/Contributions - new report page: my deleted input (linked to at the my account page).
2006-04-29: After a little user rating war there's a new rule: Ratings by those, who on average rate extremely negative, will not be taken into account anymore.
2006-04-14: Voice output improved.
2006-04-11: New context menu including additional button
- Better recognizable as being a menu
- Last used menu item is shown as additional button to make important functions more comfortable to reach.
- After selecting "Source and review history" from the menu the source information will be shown directly by the additional buttons (U = User Input, C = TU Chemnitz, H = Mr. Honey).
- Better closing behaviour of the context menu (ESC key or click outside of menu).
- The search results are separated by thin white lines again (might not look as good as before, but improves readability).
- Speech output does not open an additional window anymore.
- Better recognizable as being a menu
- Last used menu item is shown as additional button to make important functions more comfortable to reach.
- After selecting "Source and review history" from the menu the source information will be shown directly by the additional buttons (U = User Input, C = TU Chemnitz, H = Mr. Honey).
- Better closing behaviour of the context menu (ESC key or click outside of menu).
- The search results are separated by thin white lines again (might not look as good as before, but improves readability).
- Speech output does not open an additional window anymore.
2006-04-07: To be able to handle future traffic increases reliably, the dictionary is being served by three servers concurrently from now on.
Technical specifications of the newly added server www3.dict.cc: Athlon 64 3700+, 1 GB RAM.
Technical specifications of the newly added server www3.dict.cc: Athlon 64 3700+, 1 GB RAM.
2006-03-31: Forum Guidelines introduced.
2006-03-20: Half a million page requests per day exceeded for the first time!
2006-03-13: User/Contributions: The Pending Votes page can now be sorted by the number of votes. In addition two new reports are available: "my outvoted reviews" and "re-opened reviewed entries", linked to at the my account page. Thanks to Polarjud for suggesting these additions!
2006-03-12: Number of votes needed to verify a translation pair increased to 10.
2006-03-09: Contribute Update / User Rating: To improve fairness and precision of the voting rights system, there's a slight change in the rules: A voting accuracy of 90% (instead of 92%) increases the voting power by one. Additionally, the newly added user rating index will have quite an impact on the voting power, making it vary between 1 and 6. That's why the number of votes needed to verify a translation pair has been increased to 8. This reduces susceptibility to manipulation by unregistered users, but at the same time still enables two experienced users to verify an entry without having to wait for others to agree. More information regarding the calculation of user rating and voting power can be found here: Hall of Fame.
2006-03-03: Dictionary search: Amount of results within comments displayed at the end of the list. Examples: insekt, falter, golf, vogel, football, pflanze, giftschlange
2006-02-28: New button on the dict.cc toolbar: When surfing the web you can now highlight any word and click "Highlighted word" to get it translated immediately.
2006-02-27: Guidelines add-on: Latin names; Dictionary search results pages: subject labels centered. Thanks to Don for suggesting these (and a lot more) improvements!
2006-02-24: User Rating also added to the contribute form as suggested by Bast
2006-02-23: Contribute: Split function adapted according to user feedback
2006-02-21: Due to a complete power failure in the data center both dict.cc servers were down for about half an hour this afternoon. I'm really sorry, but there's nothing I can do about that. Thanks for your understanding!
2006-02-16: User rating: In order to further improve the voting rights system, I'm introducing the possibility to rate other users' overall voting quality. Only experienced users (>50 votes) can rate other users and to avoid quarrels users will not see who rated them. I'm waiting for some data before changing the calculation of the voting rights, so please use this function to help improve dict.cc!
2006-02-13: User pages: Statistics added.
2006-02-10: Contribute: Check for similar entries improved, behaviour of gender buttons slightly changed.
2006-02-01: January was the first month with more than 10 million pageviews!
2006-01-26: Finally finished checking all of Mr. Honey's entries, so after double-checking the latest few thousand user verifications and doing a small website for a client I will be able to do some more programming work for dict.cc. Please bear with me while your suggestions are waiting for implementation!
2006-01-18: dict.cc is partially unreachable this evening due to DNS problems at Networksolutions. It's already the second time this happens and I can't do anything against it. Sorry for the inconvenience!
2006-01-05: Testing a different ad location. Just click "Remove ads" if they're too annoying!
2006-01-02: Checked about 27,000 Honey translations in December - "only" 25,000 to go ;-)
2006-01-01: Happy New Year 2006 to all visitors of dict.cc, especially to those who contribute to the vocabulary and participate in the translation forum!
News 2005
2005-12-16: To avoid using the options to search for a word in a particular language, I've implemented two additional language-restricting submit buttons. This is especially useful when searching for words like locker, stock, gut, wort, teller, lied, fast, ...
2005-12-02: Currently I'm concentrating on improving the quality of the existing vocabulary. Last month I've checked about 30,000 translation pairs from Mr. Honey's vocabulary and adapted them to fit the guidelines of dict.cc. There still are 52,000 translations waiting for me, I hope to finish them off by the end of January.
2005-11-28: dict.cc is partially unreachable this evening due to DNS problems at Networksolutions, LLC.
2005-11-07: Comments and labels/tags harmonized
All additional information previously tagged within round brackets will from now on be specified within square brackets, making it possible to distinguish keywords from additional information.
Examples: (fig.) -> [fig.], (Br.) -> [Br.]
All additional information previously tagged within round brackets will from now on be specified within square brackets, making it possible to distinguish keywords from additional information.
Examples: (fig.) -> [fig.], (Br.) -> [Br.]
2005-11-06: dict.cc is three years old!
Thanks to all of the 804 registered and many other unregistered contributors who help to maintain the vocabulary and give advice to others in the translation forum!
Thanks to all of the 804 registered and many other unregistered contributors who help to maintain the vocabulary and give advice to others in the translation forum!
2005-10-22: Contribute: Publicly visible comments in square brackets
Comments and explanations can now be excluded from acting as search keywords by putting them into square brackets. An example: searching for "veraltet" would find the entry "poussieren (veraltet)", but would not find "poussieren [veraltet]" (irrelevant words in square brackets). If you want to find entries containing the keyword "veraltet" within comments, just add square brackets to your keyword (e.g. "[veraltet]").
Comments and explanations can now be excluded from acting as search keywords by putting them into square brackets. An example: searching for "veraltet" would find the entry "poussieren (veraltet)", but would not find "poussieren [veraltet]" (irrelevant words in square brackets). If you want to find entries containing the keyword "veraltet" within comments, just add square brackets to your keyword (e.g. "[veraltet]").
2005-10-16: dict.cc has moved to a new main server this weekend: a 64-bit processor (AMD 3400+), 2 GB RAM and new operating system and software versions ensure that the site is able to handle further traffic increases. The second server www2.dict.cc (AMD 3000+, 1 GB RAM, answering about a third of the requests) remains unchanged.
2005-10-12: dict.cc already has more than 1000 registered users!
2005-09-23: Contribute: Split feature ready to use! Every now and then, multiple translations get entered at once. In order for the automatic duplicate check to work properly, these entries should always be separated. Until today only the administrator (me) was able to split entries, now every regular user can do so within the voting process. The function is linked from the verification form, next to the delete link.
2005-09-22: Guidelines updated (abbreviated entries)
2005-09-21: Traffic explosion!
Without any warning the amount of concurrent users went up tremendously!
Update 17:00: I just found out that Leo had internet connection problems. So I guess I was able to welcome some of Leo's users at dict.cc! In the meantime traffic has returned to a level which doesn't affect the servers' performance anymore.
Without any warning the amount of concurrent users went up tremendously!
Update 17:00: I just found out that Leo had internet connection problems. So I guess I was able to welcome some of Leo's users at dict.cc! In the meantime traffic has returned to a level which doesn't affect the servers' performance anymore.
2005-09-14: Hall of Fame now visible to everybody!
This page shows statistics about all registered users contributing to the vocabulary of dict.cc and answering questions in the forum. An important figure is the so-called Voting Accuracy, giving information about the quality of the users' amendments. This information is used to increase the Voting Power of experienced users. From now on this is done automatically, see the explanatory notes in the Hall of Fame for the exact formula.
This page shows statistics about all registered users contributing to the vocabulary of dict.cc and answering questions in the forum. An important figure is the so-called Voting Accuracy, giving information about the quality of the users' amendments. This information is used to increase the Voting Power of experienced users. From now on this is done automatically, see the explanatory notes in the Hall of Fame for the exact formula.
2005-09-07: Added new possibilities to navigate within the forum
2005-09-04: Finished a regularly requested feature: Wildcard Search!
Examples: test*, *test, t*st, t*s*t
Examples: test*, *test, t*st, t*s*t
2005-08-28: Subject labels can now be changed by experienced users (>50 votes) anytime. This change is visible immediately, without approval from other users.
2005-08-23: This night the main server of dict.cc will be unavailable for a (hopefully) short period of time. That's because the power supply in the datacenter is undergoing an upgrade. The second server, www2.dict.cc, is not affected, so if you cannot reach www.dict.cc, just add the number "2" right after "www" in the address bar of your browser.
2005-08-18: The feature "Remember me on this computer" is now officially supported, so active forum and contribute users are saved from the trouble of logging in all the time. The list of users has been adapted to reflect this change (last activity instead of last login).
2005-08-15: Search results pages improved once again: the context menu is now visible on mouseover, some source code modifications should improve loading times on dialup connections, better links for "Continue Searching", minor layout issue on Mac corrected
2005-08-10: Text pages updated, new page Links-to-dict-cc
2005-07-30: Question number 20'000 posted in the forum!
The translation forum now contains 20'000 questions and 47'686 answers! That's why I'm asking you: Should I extend it to other languages?
The translation forum now contains 20'000 questions and 47'686 answers! That's why I'm asking you: Should I extend it to other languages?
2005-07-29: In addition to the tabular representation of the search results there's a new compact view for each translation. It can be reached by clicking the keyword in the first blue bar.
2005-07-18: New feature: contribution tracking!
An often requested feature is now ready to use: From now on it's possible for registered users to check the status of their input and their modification proposals. For example one can check if a translation suggestion has been accepted, modified or deleted or if the entry is still in the review stage.
The tracking pages are subitems of the personal page of each user (e.g. http://users.dict.cc/Paul/), the link is labeled "Contributions".
An often requested feature is now ready to use: From now on it's possible for registered users to check the status of their input and their modification proposals. For example one can check if a translation suggestion has been accepted, modified or deleted or if the entry is still in the review stage.
The tracking pages are subitems of the personal page of each user (e.g. http://users.dict.cc/Paul/), the link is labeled "Contributions".
2005-07-14: Context menu updated
Due to a decent amount of user feedback I decided to redesign/rewrite the context menu. I hope I was able to improve both visibility and usability of this feature. As before it can be disabled using the options page.
Due to a decent amount of user feedback I decided to redesign/rewrite the context menu. I hope I was able to improve both visibility and usability of this feature. As before it can be disabled using the options page.
2005-06-30: "Continue Searching" box added to the search results pages.
This block can be turned off anytime using the minus symbol next to the headline. Also the "add a translation" form can be disabled now, making the pages load faster.
This block can be turned off anytime using the minus symbol next to the headline. Also the "add a translation" form can be disabled now, making the pages load faster.
2005-06-21: Redesigned the "Browse" feature, added index pages.
2005-06-11: A listing of the latest verified translations is now available. The verification history of each translation can be tracked by clicking the verification date.
2005-06-07: Sometimes it's useful to restrict the dictionary lookup to a certain language. Now there's a quick solution available: simply click the link "English" or "German" located in the first blue bar. Especially useful for words with completely different meanings in German and English. Try wand, gut, lied to get the idea.
2005-06-03: Christian Simon has written a program for looking up translations without being connected to the Internet. This "elcombri Translator" is available for free under the terms of the GPL and can be downloaded at www.elcombri.de.
2005-05-28: User registration feature now integrated into the translation forum!
2005-05-23: After months of dict.cc's functionality being limited it's finally possible to suggest new translations again! Thanks to the great help of dict.cc's users it was possible to verify more than 10,000 translations within just a few weeks! Thank you guys - you did a terrific job!
Here's how the suggesting system works: To avoid junk entries from being posted, new translations can only be entered by registered users or by people providing their e-mail address. There's a maximum number of unverified translations, currently set to 3,000, to maintain a constant quality of the vocabulary. The input form will be disabled and re-enabled automatically, depending on this number.
I'm looking forward to all those new words - I guess we will all learn a lot!
Cheers, Paul
Here's how the suggesting system works: To avoid junk entries from being posted, new translations can only be entered by registered users or by people providing their e-mail address. There's a maximum number of unverified translations, currently set to 3,000, to maintain a constant quality of the vocabulary. The input form will be disabled and re-enabled automatically, depending on this number.
I'm looking forward to all those new words - I guess we will all learn a lot!
Cheers, Paul
2005-05-02: Thank you all for your great participation!
After only a few days there are already more than 25 registered users helping to improve the vocabulary. That's why the list of users is now included in the main navigation bar!
After only a few days there are already more than 25 registered users helping to improve the vocabulary. That's why the list of users is now included in the main navigation bar!
2005-04-26: Contribution features upgraded with optional user registration!
Registered users will have more rights when verifying and correcting translations. Each vote of a registered user will count as two votes by "anonymous" users. Depending on the previous work of a particular user, this voting power might even be increased. This system should ensure a noticeable speed-up of the verification process without sacrificing the quality of the vocabulary.
Currently there are 10'487 new suggestions and 1'187 correction proposals - totalling 11'674 English-German translations - waiting for verification. As soon as this number is decreased to under 1000, it will finally be possible to post new translations again. That's why I'm asking everyone who is willing to contribute some time to give it a try - even without signing up!
At this point I also want to express my gratitude to all the contributors so far, also to those who I don't even know by name (yet). Thank you very much!
Paul Hemetsberger
Registered users will have more rights when verifying and correcting translations. Each vote of a registered user will count as two votes by "anonymous" users. Depending on the previous work of a particular user, this voting power might even be increased. This system should ensure a noticeable speed-up of the verification process without sacrificing the quality of the vocabulary.
Currently there are 10'487 new suggestions and 1'187 correction proposals - totalling 11'674 English-German translations - waiting for verification. As soon as this number is decreased to under 1000, it will finally be possible to post new translations again. That's why I'm asking everyone who is willing to contribute some time to give it a try - even without signing up!
At this point I also want to express my gratitude to all the contributors so far, also to those who I don't even know by name (yet). Thank you very much!
Paul Hemetsberger
2005-04-13: Effectivebrand has developed a free dict.cc toolbar for Internet Explorer. Feel free to try it out - any feedback is appreciated!
2005-04-05: dict.cc is now being sponsored by Lingo24 Ltd. on a monthly basis.
2005-03-31: Another improvement within Contribute!: Added a list view of translations suggested for revision.
2005-03-13: Improved the clarity of the search results pages when searching for English verbs: Adding "to" in front of the requested word restricts the result list to verbs ("test" -> "to test").
2005-03-07: New enhancement in Contribute!: highlighting of different votes
2005-02-25: Browse pages updated
2005-02-13: New hint: Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape integration! Thanks to outthere for this information!
2005-02-11: The vocabulary file is available for download again, this time based on a different license: the English-German translations contained are only available for personal use (learning, translating, proofreading, ...), republishing is not allowed anymore.
2005-02-10: New hint: Opera integration! Thanks to Morten for this information!
2005-02-04: The "notify of additions" feature allows you to keep track of discussions in the translation forum (the links are located on the "answer" pages).
2005-02-02: Last month dict.cc delivered more than 5 million page views for the first time!
2005-01-27: Quick search using the address bar of your browser
To quickly look up a translation without having to visit the homepage of dict.cc, simply type "dict.cc/term" into the address bar of your browser! More tips...
To quickly look up a translation without having to visit the homepage of dict.cc, simply type "dict.cc/term" into the address bar of your browser! More tips...
2005-01-22: Download of the translation database temporarily disabled! Read more...
2005-01-20: Many thanks to Ulrich Bretscher for contributing a list of translations regarding watches!
2005-01-13: Many thanks to Marc Ruef, security expert in Switzerland for his help in improving the security of dict.cc's servers!
News 2004
2004-12-20: dict.cc participates in the virtual demonstration against software patents
2004-11-10: dict.cc is proud to announce its second birthday along with two nice news:
Yesterday was the first day with more than 200'000 page impressions, and: now we have more than 400'000 verified English-German translations in our vocabulary database.
Yesterday was the first day with more than 200'000 page impressions, and: now we have more than 400'000 verified English-German translations in our vocabulary database.
2004-10-26: Further information regarding the plagiarism of translations available! (in German language)
2004-10-25: Many thanks to all the users who give me moral support by mail and telephone! Unfortunately the text I wrote on the 17th included some ambiguity, so I changed it a bit to avoid further confusion.
2004-10-20: The translation lookup traffic is now distributed between two servers (www and www2).
2004-10-17: Translation input feature temporarily disabled!
Due to a pending legal dispute I have to disable the translation input feature for some time.
There's a company using dict.cc's downloadable GPL word database in another web dictionary. This would be fine if they would stick to a few easy rules of the GPL. They would need to inform their users about the source of the translations (dict.cc) and the license (GPL). Unfortunately they refuse to do so, moreover, they claim the translations (the whole list!) as their own, which of course is not correct. That's why I need to protect dict.cc from any entries that might be maliciously submitted by this company (they could do so to accuse dict.cc of stealing). I will provide further details in accordance with my lawyers. My apologies for the inconvenience!
Paul
Due to a pending legal dispute I have to disable the translation input feature for some time.
There's a company using dict.cc's downloadable GPL word database in another web dictionary. This would be fine if they would stick to a few easy rules of the GPL. They would need to inform their users about the source of the translations (dict.cc) and the license (GPL). Unfortunately they refuse to do so, moreover, they claim the translations (the whole list!) as their own, which of course is not correct. That's why I need to protect dict.cc from any entries that might be maliciously submitted by this company (they could do so to accuse dict.cc of stealing). I will provide further details in accordance with my lawyers. My apologies for the inconvenience!
Paul
2004-10-03: Statistics page rebuilt!
2004-10-02: Speech output moved to www2
2004-09-27: Due to a massive increase in traffic I have to distribute parts of this dictionary to a second server. You should not experience any difficulties while this is happening, but there will be some minor changes, especially regarding the statistics pages and the URL of the speech engine and the translation service.
2004-09-21: dict.cc is one of the 6000 most important German Web-Sites!
You can find this site on page 452 of the recently published book "Web-Adressbuch für Deutschland 2005". More information is available at the publisher's site and at Amazon.de.
You can find this site on page 452 of the recently published book "Web-Adressbuch für Deutschland 2005". More information is available at the publisher's site and at Amazon.de.
2004-09-15: Minor improvements within the Contribute! system: A flag now shows the assumed home country of the poster. More information about other voters appears when moving the mouse over the "Other opinions" column.
2004-09-02: The translation forum reaches 1000 pages!
More than 10,000 questions and 21,000 answers have already been posted on forum.dict.cc! The forum has grown to be a really nice place - with a lot of nice people answering questions regarding translation problems. Most questions are answered within a few minutes. Thanks to all the regular users for making this possible!
More than 10,000 questions and 21,000 answers have already been posted on forum.dict.cc! The forum has grown to be a really nice place - with a lot of nice people answering questions regarding translation problems. Most questions are answered within a few minutes. Thanks to all the regular users for making this possible!
2004-08-20: More than 400,000 translations!
Finally the vocabulary of dict.cc contains more than 400,000 English/German translations! This would not have been possible without the help of the regular contributors. Thank you very much for using the Contribute! system to add new translations and improve existing ones. You're doing a great job!
It's amazing to see people working together to help others without asking for something in return. Please continue to do so!
Thank you very much and kind regards, Paul
Finally the vocabulary of dict.cc contains more than 400,000 English/German translations! This would not have been possible without the help of the regular contributors. Thank you very much for using the Contribute! system to add new translations and improve existing ones. You're doing a great job!
It's amazing to see people working together to help others without asking for something in return. Please continue to do so!
Thank you very much and kind regards, Paul
2004-08-08: A long-awaited feature has finally been implemented: The translation search result list is now grouped by the different types of entries, improving the usability of this dictionary a lot.
2004-08-01: When posting new translations it is now possible to specify a subject. Please use this field whenever possible and useful to avoid technical terms from being mixed up with regular translations.
2004-07-11: The vocabulary list can now be downloaded sorted by the English and/or German words.
2004-07-08: Bugfix: words within quotes will now be found accurately.
2004-07-03: New access statistics available: Usage by countries
2004-06-25: Contribute! correction form update:
Votes for the original entry will not be listed separately anymore.
Votes for the original entry will not be listed separately anymore.
2004-06-21: Contribute! - the translation input and editing system of dict.cc has been improved again! Along with some internal changes (database and URLs) and user interface improvements there is the possibility to correct existing translations now. User recognition has been improved, so modem users should be re-identified correctly. It is possible to display the version history of each translation. There's an introduction text and better instructions within each function. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them to paul@dict.cc!
2004-06-12: Extended guidelines - added a second text page and a feedback form. Updated the "add a translation" input form. This should make it easier to add good quality English-German translations.
2004-06-11: Corrected some misbehaviours when calling options or guidelines. Recolored them to make them distinguishable from the rest of the dictionary.
2004-06-07: The form in the translation forum has been adapted according to users' feedback. The fields' sequence has been changed and the width of the description field has been increased to achieve matching line breaks.
2004-05-31: Based on suggestions submitted by dict.cc's users I have re-implemented the translation search results page. Here's what's new:
- Added a context menu: click anywhere near a German or English phrase to re-translate phrases, get additional information and double-check translations with other German/English translation services. Can be disabled using the options.
- Removed the column containing the source of the translation: This information is now integrated into the context menu of each translation.
- Changed the text link to the speech output window into a graphical button which is easier to understand for new visitors.
- Added a header row indicating the beginning of partial matches (visible only when searching for multiple-word translations).
- Found the workaround for a bug in IE on Mac, causing table cells growing too wide sometimes.
- Any feedback greatly appreciated! (as always)
2004-05-26: As of today the vocabulary of dict.cc consists of more than 375,000 English/German translations!
2004-05-24: Spending most of my time verifying and correcting translations for the last days and weeks, I was able to reduce the number of unverified English/German translations from 13000 to about 4800. Thanks to some great users for adding such an amount of excellent translations to the dictionary!
2004-05-18: Testing a new advertising network: AdCell.de
2004-05-13: When requesting one-word translations the dictionary now automatically detects if the term is in English or German and sorts the list accordingly.
2004-04-30: Added 877 new translations concerning planning, building and law. Thanks to the University of Dortmund (Spatial Planning Faculty) for their friendly permission!
2004-04-27: When editing translations in batch mode it's now possible to skip a translation without returning to the list.
2004-04-20: Now it's possible to check new German/English translations in batch mode.
2004-04-01: March 2003 was the first month with more than 3 million page views on dict.cc!
2004-03-26: The Contribute tool - the system for checking and correcting translations on dict.cc - has been extended once again. Finally it's possible to include a comment with a correction proposal. Along with other graphical improvements there are new help buttons explaining some features. Due to rewriting some checking routines the 1-second delay after submitting a new translation has disappeared. Give it a try!
2004-03-22: I have received pictures of the pocket version of this dictionary running on a Sony Ericsson P800. It seems to work quite well, see a picture here. If you have tried running the pocket English-German dictionary on another mobile device, please let me know!
2004-03-13: Another forum update: An improved detail page replaces the old answer page and lets you see the other answers, too.
2004-03-12: Introducing new forum features:
:: Listing of all questions (displaying only titles) - to give you an overview about the current situation.
:: Listing of all unanswered questions - unanswered translation requests can get located easily.
:: New subnavigation bar to outline the features - lets you see where you are.
:: Listing of all questions (displaying only titles) - to give you an overview about the current situation.
:: Listing of all unanswered questions - unanswered translation requests can get located easily.
:: New subnavigation bar to outline the features - lets you see where you are.
2004-03-01: Some users asked for a list of the most requested terms on dict.cc. Here it is: Most requested English/German translations
2004-02-24: Contribution system updated: Sorting capabilities and two more columns added (user information, number of corrections), additional information available on mouse over at certain spots, other (minor) changes.
2004-02-22: Layout of AdSense ads updated.
2004-02-16: Contribution system updated: Now you see a history of all previously entered corrections on the verification page.
2004-02-15: Due to popular request I have extended the search capabilities of the translation forum. Now it's possible to search within several fields at a time (e.g. title and description). Moreover, the keyword you've searched for will now be highlighted with a different color.
2004-02-11: New feature: Search the translation forum for English or German vocabulary!
2004-02-07: Donation page updated!
2004-01-24: New feature in the translation forum: The input fields for username and email address will be pre-filled after you have posted your next question or translation. Technical information: The values are stored by your browser using a so-called cookie.
2004-01-22: Forum spamming: The translation forum has been spammed today (89 entries with offensive words). The main spammer - he is from Salzburg (Austria) - has been tracked down to his provider and reported as spammer. The provider knows the exact personal data, but is not allowed to give it away unless forced to by court. The person responsible for abuse and spam is going to call him today or tomorrow. As for my part of the story, I'm thinking about using my legal protection insurance - I pay for it, but I've never tried it...
2004-01-17: I have started to split dict.cc into two versions - German and English - to improve the user interface. Please be patient as this process may take a few days. Thanks!
2004-01-14: Finally: The first version of dict.cc Contribute! is ready to use! This system enables every user to add English/German translations and to verify the translation proposals submitted by others. Each translation is considered verified after it has been checked by 5 different users. If you can spare a few minutes, I would like to encourage you to give it a try and tell me what you think about it.
2004-01-13: The translation forum has exceeded 10 000 postings today!
2004-01-01: Wish you all a happy New Year and all the best for 2004!
News 2003
2003-12-18: Forum update: Amongst other changes, I have implemented a notification feature. If you turn it on, you will be notified right after a new question is added to the forum, enabling you to respond quickly. » English-German Translation Forum
2003-12-15: Finally I have managed to implement a feature I always wanted this dictionary to have: the automatic typo correction! To test it, just type in some mistakes and see the results.
Common typos are: bersetzung, englich, englsich, geramn, germann, germna, greman, grman, inglish, übersetz, übersetzten, übersetzter, übersetztung, überstzung, wörtebuch, worterbuch, wöterbuch.
Common typos are: bersetzung, englich, englsich, geramn, germann, germna, greman, grman, inglish, übersetz, übersetzten, übersetzter, übersetztung, überstzung, wörtebuch, worterbuch, wöterbuch.
2003-12-03: Hardware problem: Right after sending press reports about the speech output to important media companies, the speech server dies due to a hardware defect. Now that's what I call an embarrassing situation! I'm working hard on migrating the speech output scripts to the main server. Sorry for the trouble!
Update (21:15): Speech output successfully moved to main server. Up and running again!
Update (21:15): Speech output successfully moved to main server. Up and running again!
2003-12-01: Happy Birthday dict.cc!
This baby has completed its 12th month alive and online! Time to say "thank you" to you, the users of this dictionary, for making it grow by 10 - 50% each month! I've compiled the access statistics to show you what's going on in terms of traffic.
This baby has completed its 12th month alive and online! Time to say "thank you" to you, the users of this dictionary, for making it grow by 10 - 50% each month! I've compiled the access statistics to show you what's going on in terms of traffic.
2003-11-29: The downloadable word list will now automatically be generated every day.
2003-11-26: Changed the default options to display only verified entries. This prevents the majority of dictionary users from seeing nonsense translations other users added.
2003-11-25: Currently the dictionary has quite a big number of unverified entries. You can choose to display only verified entries after clicking on the link "Options" located below the input field.
2003-11-22: Did some layout changes on the search result pages and added some helpful buttons to the "Add a translation" form. Move your mouse over the buttons to see a short description.
2003-11-20: The translation forum has exceeded 5000 postings!
I guess I will have to add search capabilities to it...
I guess I will have to add search capabilities to it...
2003-11-17: Cooperation between Lisa! Sprachreisen and dict.cc: view extensive information about language-learning holidays (in German language). You can also order a free catalog!
2003-11-15: This dictionary is "Surf-Tipp der Woche" at surf-guide.de!
2003-11-10: Displaying the list of contributors instead of Google ads (on some pages).
2003-11-05: Yesterday was the first day with more than 50,000 page impressions (counted by the Google Ad bar)! And: last month was the first month with more than 1 Million page impressions! It's great to see the access rates growing every day! Thanks to all of you!
2003-10-27: Added three new resources to the doublecheck pages.
2003-10-21: Added an input field to the list of alternative online dictionaries, enabling you to easily suggest another dictionary site (and go there). Default is a Google search for the term you entered before. Try this function on the "double-check" and "nothing-found" pages.
2003-10-20: To return to the input field please press Alt + e (or Strg + e on Mac), not Alt + i anymore. I've changed this shortcut so you can use it single-handed.
2003-10-19: English voice updated and slowed down. It sounds a bit clearer now...
2003-10-15: Server problems: Unfortunately the new dictionary server encountered hardware problems causing the whole machine to hang sometimes. These problems should be solved by now - sorry for the downtime again!
2003-10-10: Finally: the dictionary is running on its own dedicated server!!
2003-10-06: New server almost set up - should be ready within the next days. In the meantime have a look at the new favicon, the symbol you see in your browsers address bar. (If you don't see it, try adding this page to your favorites.)
2003-10-02: Because of a server problem the dictionary was unreachable today (between 17:20 and 21:20 CET). Sorry for that! I'm working on migrating dict.cc to a dedicated server - seems to be quite urgent already...
2003-09-26: The PayPal donation program is running for about 1 month now. Unfortunately it's not doing very well. Despite the fact that more than 100'000 people requested more than 1 million pages within the month of September, the project received only 3 donations! If anybody has an idea why this ratio is so low, please tell me!
I want to thank the contributors - Jos, David and Sebastian (EUR 5, 10 and 5):
Thanks a million for your support! Paul
I want to thank the contributors - Jos, David and Sebastian (EUR 5, 10 and 5):
Thanks a million for your support! Paul
2003-09-22: Due to the rapidly increasing number of users I am forced to move the dictionary to a dedicated server. The existing (virtual) server cannot keep up with the load. If you know about affordable offers for dedicated servers (>= 2 GHz) in Austria or Germany please let me know!
2003-09-11: It is now possible to re-translate whole phrases by double-clicking the empty space near the words (result list). This feature is turned off by default and can be enabled using the options.
2003-09-08: Added 122 terms regarding the german "Luftwaffe". Thanks to Don_JV44 for his permission!
2003-09-04: Finished a new usability feature: Moving your mouse over the results will highlight them. Click on an empty space next to the text and the translation will be marked in a different color.
People familiar with phpMyAdmin will probably recognize it ;-)
Might be useful when considering which translation to use...
This feature can be turned off in the options. Please tell me what you think about it!
People familiar with phpMyAdmin will probably recognize it ;-)
Might be useful when considering which translation to use...
This feature can be turned off in the options. Please tell me what you think about it!
2003-09-02: Sometimes the dictionary seems to be a bit slow. I've written a monitoring script that will periodically check both the voice server and the database server to find out what the problem could be.
2003-08-29: Because of the great feedback I receive and the ever increasing number of users I'm now working fulltime on maintaining and further developing this dictionary. In order to keep the dictionary free from annoying popup ads and stuff like that, I need some support from the users of dict.cc. More information on the about page (section "finance").
So if you think this project is worth supporting, I would be very glad to receive a small donation via PayPal. Thank you very much! Paul
So if you think this project is worth supporting, I would be very glad to receive a small donation via PayPal. Thank you very much! Paul
2003-08-27: Important - please read these pages (German language): Software-Patente: Demnächst auch in Europa! | Heise Newsticker: Proteste gegen Softwarepatente | Was schon alles patentiert ist!
2003-08-26: dict.cc has been featured by krone.at, one of Austria's biggest online newspapers!
2003-08-25: The dictionary has been mentioned in a number of online/computer magazines! So far, I have seen articles on the following sites: ORF Futurezone, Golem.de, Computerwelt online, userchannel.de, rtv online, Onlinekosten.de, ECIN - Electronic Commerce Info Net, akademie.de, at-web.de, Uptime Systemlösungen, Fihlon it-service, Bernd Hesse-Nießen, Aon Digital World, ORF Teletext.
The print edition of Computer Bild (18/2003) mentions dict.cc on page 104 (100 new Internet addresses).
Thanks to all the editors involved for supporting this project!
The print edition of Computer Bild (18/2003) mentions dict.cc on page 104 (100 new Internet addresses).
Thanks to all the editors involved for supporting this project!
2003-08-21: The dictionary has already answered 2 million requests until today!
The first million requests were accomplished within 8 months, the second million within only 2.5!
The first million requests were accomplished within 8 months, the second million within only 2.5!
2003-08-20: Fixed some problems with the bookmarklet.
2003-08-08: Looking for Austria-related T-Shirts? Visit xishirt.com!
2003-08-07: English voice output available! Click "say" in the result list.
2003-08-06: Dictionary and speech output together received more than 20000 page views yesterday!
2003-08-05: Received a list of 371 corrected translations from a dict.cc user! Thanks to J.K.!
2003-07-30: The dictionary has not been available from 10am to 1pm today due to a connectivity problem of my hosting provider. Sorry for that!
2003-07-23: I guess I've found a way to make dict.cc read any German translation (sound output)!
2003-07-22: This online dictionary has answered more than 12000 search requests today!
2003-07-08: Joined the Google AdSense program!
2003-06-20: dict.cc has been added to the index of www.surf-guide.de
2003-06-19: This dictionary has been linked by www.fitlineshop.biz (German language)
2003-06-16: Want to look up words while surfing the web? Try pocket.dict.cc in your IE search bar!
2003-06-12: A nice site regarding European languages, lifestyle and culture: www.eurocosm.com
2003-06-06: Lots of new features:
:: all 345.000 entries are now fully searchable
:: you can help improving the dictionary by reviewing the unverified entries (see the result list)
:: added guidelines for those who want to contribute to the dictionary
:: you can now choose how many results you want to get per page
:: you can turn pages to see all results, even if there are thousands
:: you can restrict your search to one language only
:: change the options (link located below the search form) to suit your taste!
:: all 345.000 entries are now fully searchable
:: you can help improving the dictionary by reviewing the unverified entries (see the result list)
:: added guidelines for those who want to contribute to the dictionary
:: you can now choose how many results you want to get per page
:: you can turn pages to see all results, even if there are thousands
:: you can restrict your search to one language only
:: change the options (link located below the search form) to suit your taste!
2003-06-02: Finally: dict.cc has answered 1 Million requests since it exists (Nov 2002)!
2003-05-26: Translation counter exceeds 250.000 verified entries.
2003-05-16: Translation counter exceeds 240.000 verified entries.
2003-05-05: Translation counter exceeds 230.000 verified entries.
2003-04-26: I guess the requests these days have just been attempts to make the dictionary available offline (site stats show "Web Downloader/5.8" as the User Agent). Please do not try to do this - you would need a lot of hard disk space! Search result pages can have more than 20kB each and there are currently 222.000 entries online - this would occupy more than 4GB on your hard disk.
2003-04-24: Massive requests! Yesterday (15:00) dict.cc received 4589 requests within a few minutes, today (11:00) there were 19833 requests. I have to consider this a denial-of-service attack and would kindly ask the attacker to stop it, so I'm not forced to take further action. IP addresses are logged.
2003-04-20: The translation forum exceeds 1000 entries!
2003-04-08: Did a few new features today:
:: Words in the result list are linked now: just click on a term - this will re-translate it.
:: You can change the assorting language of the results by clicking on the headline (Englisch/Deutsch).
:: If search time or internet connection are slow you will see an "in-progress" display now. Any bugs?
:: Words in the result list are linked now: just click on a term - this will re-translate it.
:: You can change the assorting language of the results by clicking on the headline (Englisch/Deutsch).
:: If search time or internet connection are slow you will see an "in-progress" display now. Any bugs?
2003-04-07: Stopped the Amazon Sidebar. Somehow google doesn't like it (no update within 2 months).
2003-04-06: Stopped the Banner Exchange Program. Click rate on foreign sites: 0,03 percent :-\
2003-04-05: This dictionary now contains more than 220.000 verified German/English translations.
2003-03-31: I'm trying a banner exchange program now (German browsers only). If the banner is too annoying, just click on the link "Werbung ausblenden". This will remove the banner for the whole session.
2003-03-30: Translation counter exceeds 210.000 verified entries.
2003-03-24: Finally exceeding 200.000 entries! Thanks to Mr Honeys Business Dictionary!
2003-03-21: This dictionary now contains more than 190.000 verified English/German translations.
2003-03-15: This dictionary now contains more than 180.000 verified English/German translations.
2003-03-14: Found a nice link-collection for webworkers: http://www.ossi-industries.de (link removed, site offline now)
2003-03-11: This dictionary now contains more than 170.000 verified English/German translations.
2003-03-08: Joined amazon.co.uk's affiliate program (displayed with browser language "en-gb").
2003-03-07: Joined amazon.com's affiliate program (displayed in non-German browsers).
2003-03-05: This dictionary now contains more than 160.000 verified English/German translations.
2003-02-28: Cleaned up the database, removed duplicates and prepared about 190.000 entries from Mr Honeys Business Dictionary for integration into the translation database. The integration will be done manually within the next weeks. A big thank you to Mr. Honey for allowing me to use his wordlists!
2003-02-07: Interested in skiing and the Ski WM in St. Moritz? Visit kunstpiste.com! (mostly German)
2003-02-05: Another link ressource added to the list: Onelook Dictionary Search
2003-02-04: Addition to the "not found" and "doublecheck" pages: PONS English-German dictionary
2003-02-02: dict.cc has been added to Fix-Finden.de (German directory for dictionaries / glossaries).
2003-01-29: This would have been a very successful day: word count reaches 135.000 and there were more than 9.000 search queries! Unfortunately my provider had some troubles with the database server this night, so the dictionary wasn't reachable for a few hours. I'm really sorry for that!
2003-01-27: Added another alternative dictionary to the "nothing found" page: FLM
2003-01-26: New: When posting a translation you are now able to add a comment.
2003-01-20: New feature: downloading the wordlist is also possible in ZIP Format now.
2003-01-10: Now you can double-check your search results with 10 other dictionaries!
2003-01-09: First day exceeding 7.000 search requests!
2003-01-03: New additions: some 100 computer related terms (applet, backup, CLI, DLL, EXE, ...)
2003-01-02: Finally the database has reached 130.000 entries! Thanks to all helpers out there!
2003-01-01: Happy birthday to all the New Year's babies out there! (including myself - I'm 25 now)
News 2002
2002-12-31: I wish you all a Happy New Year! May your hopes and wishes for 2003 all come true!
2002-12-29: Added the US federal states including nicknames and capitals. Click here to see them!
2002-12-28: I'm back in Vienna after a wonderful Christmas time with my family! Merry Xmas to you all!
2002-12-21: New search algorithm finished. I'm sure you will find it more useful than the old one ;-)
2002-12-19: Currently I'm working on version 2 of the search algorithm (much better performance)...
2002-12-13: Nice new feature implemented: Now you can browse this dictionary alphabetically!
2002-12-11: If you're looking for other online dictionaries, try Mike's Collection of Web-Dictionaries
2002-12-06: dict.cc is 1 month old! Results: 123.724 queries, ~ 25.000 visits and 1 broken keyboard ;-)
2002-12-04: Yesterday was the first day with more than 6.000 queries!
2002-12-03: The dict has been linked by the University of Wales Swansea. Thanks to Duncan Large!
2002-12-02: The wordlist is growing rapidly! It contains more than 127.500 entries by now!
2002-11-26: The FORUM is ready to use! Use it to ask the others for terms or sentences you don't know.
2002-11-25: Implemented a new navigation bar to have room for further extensions (like the forum).
2002-11-24: dict.cc has been linked by Word2Word Language Resources. Thanks to Bennett Blaustein!
2002-11-20: I had to set up a blacklist of IPs, because some people think spamming is funny. Sorry...
2002-11-16: The dictionary now contains more than 125.000 entries!
2002-11-15: Now you can download the current wordlist.
2002-11-14: First day with more than 5.000 queries.
2002-11-11: First link to www.dict.cc! Thanks to DANiEL NOTTHOFF!
2002-11-10: First abuse: someone (IP is logged) tried to automatically query a huge list of words.
2002-11-08: PDA-Version https://pocket.dict.cc ready to use!
2002-11-06: Going online: Search engine submission and creation of a Google Adwords account...
>> English: History of the English/German dictionary
>> Deutsch: Verlauf der Mitteilungen zum Wörterbuch
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English-German online dictionary developed to help you share your knowledge with others. More information
Contains translations by TU Chemnitz and Mr Honey's Business Dictionary (German-English). Thank you!
Links to this dictionary or to single translations are very welcome! Questions and Answers
Contains translations by TU Chemnitz and Mr Honey's Business Dictionary (German-English). Thank you!
Links to this dictionary or to single translations are very welcome! Questions and Answers
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