ABBYY Lingvo 11

The developer - the company ABBYY. Program website www.abbyy.ru. Propagation conditions - shareware. The cost of the package depends on the sales package.

In the last issue we talked about the dictionaries and phrasebooks for smartphones based on Symbian S60. It's time to elaborate on these products for PDA and PDA-based Pocket PC / Windows Mobile. This review will focus on getting acquainted with one of the most powerful electronic dictionaries - ABBYY Lingvo from the Russian company ABBYY, which is one of the world's leading software manufacturers in the field of linguistics, semantics, word processing systems and optical character recognition.

ABBYY Lingvo is one of the most complete and powerful electronic dictionaries, including over 5.5 million detailed entries and about 12 million transfer. Allows you to translate from Russian into English, German, French, Italian and Spanish and vice versa. In addition to the traditional set of dictionaries in the new version of Lingvo 11 includes lingvostranovedcheskie dictionaries for U.S., UK and Austria.

Supplied.

Full package ABBY Lingvo 11 "Six Languages" includes 2 CD-ROM, floppy disk with the activation key, and quick start guide, packaged in DVD-box. The program is designed for installation on a desktop computer and includes versions for Windows Mobile, Palm and Symbian S60.

Since we are primarily interested in the version for your device, then once we note that it is installed option after installing the basic version of the program on a PC. Package Price £ 1140.

System requirements.

Pocket PC (Pocket PC)

Smartphone (Windows Mobile)

Installation.

During the installation of software on a PC are invited to choose the interface language, a set of dictionaries and components. As an option - you can leave the default set and change it later. During installation, you can immediately activate the product by inserting a floppy disk with the keys in the 3.5 "drive. If the aforesaid is missing, the activation program will then navigate through the Internet. The most extreme is a way to activate by phone. It is also possible. Activation allows access to all features and functionality of the program. Installation time is also dependent on the composition of components. To test the package on the device installed Russian-English and English-Russian dictionaries and sound base. The copying process took just under an hour.

The program's interface.

Calling the main window is made from the Start menu.For quick access to the dictionary, you can assign one of the key communicator.

In the main window displays a list of words and phrases stable to be transferred, the line for manual input of speech, access to service menu button, translation and the translation direction.

Service.

Using the Tools menu, you can translate the clipboard contents, the input line. If you are unsure of the correct spelling of the word, the program can offer spellings from which you can choose the most suitable.

Item History "allows you to view all references to the dictionary in the current session.

An analog desktop version of the program is to select "Dictionary". The difference is that icons connected dictionaries are not displayed in the window, and called through the Tools menu.For each case, you can connect a separate set of dictionaries and their application to specify the order by priority.

For each dictionary can obtain detailed information about its composition and purpose. Item "Options" allows you to customize the appearance of cards with color overlays, the arrangement of accents and choice of font.

After configuring the interface can begin to work. According to many professional translators who work with the dictionary ABBYY Lingvo provides satisfactory translation in 70% of cases in the texts of general vocabulary, and up to 30% in cases of specialized terms. Significantly extends the capabilities of the program connecting specialized dictionaries. This is a very good result for the non-specialized vocabulary. Many professional translators use it Lingvo complete with their personal dictionary databases.

Translation functions.

Translated from the input line.

At any time you can get a multivariate translate words entered in the input field.

Word translation was called on an individual card, which has two types of presentation and additional control buttons. When installed sound modules, you can listen to the pronunciation of the word. 15,000 most frequently used English words voiced announcer from the UK, 10 000 German words - speaker from Germany. Also displays information about the transcription of the word.For the irregular verbs are shown temporary forms.

In the Tools menu option appeared the "Find" and "Find Next" to allow a more accurate value of contextual search. Blue arrow buttons allow quick transition between the already-open cards. The center button with a green arrow toggles the output summary / detailed information. Two further buttons allow you to search for meaning in other dictionaries are connected, and the rightmost icon shows which dictionary is being used.The same information is displayed in the top of the window (near the Start button).

Translate the clipboard.

The program integrates translate words from office documents (Word, Excel) and the most popular programs for reading texts. As an example, we used the program Haali Reader, the text of which was reproduced from the zip-archive.To translate the words from the application Internet Explorer to display the page in the options uncheck the item «Screen Drug».

Gradual transition between the variants and synonyms can choose the most accurate value for the translation of the word in the current context.

New optional 11-second version has a connection Dictionary of Russian language, with more than 130,000 articles. Collegiate Dictionary allows you to establish the presence of additional values ​​in familiar words, to get acquainted with unfamiliar words, to determine the legality of using the word in a given context, etc.

A similar principle applies when translating from a foreign language into Russian. Connecting explanatory English dictionaries may as an option.

We note again that ABBYY Lingvo is no translator, so when translating sentences and phrases meaning for each word will have to watch individually.

Some limitations.

Not all the special terms, widely spread, reflected in the proposed dictionaries.For example, the phrase "flip-phone" in the database.

It is for such purposes and to the formation of custom dictionaries, which can then be easily integrated into the environment Lingvo.

Additional functionality of the device.

Conversation.

In the 11 version of Lingvo has several phrasebooks available for all languages ​​with which the program operates.To access the input line must enter _RAZGOVORNIK.

Using the options phrasebook is very easy to obtain the values ​​of the most common phrases in all languages ​​included in the official package.

The kit also includes a guide to English grammar.In order to open it in the address bar to type the word Grammar.

Impressions and conclusions.

On the second disc included in the kit can be found with an interactive tool for working with vocabulary, significantly facilitates the development of a software package. The kit Lingvo for Palm includes its own keyboard.In addition to them on a disk utility and there are demo versions of programs for PDAs as well as a new demo version of OCR Fine Reader 8.0.

Testing program was carried out on the communicator Qtek S110, provided by Vobis. System requirements of this unit satisfies in abundance, so no brakes when you open a dictionary to find synonyms, and the work of sound modules are not observed. For the initial launch of the program takes about 5 seconds (when all installed dictionaries). The maximum time to search for a word and its translation was not more than 2 seconds. When you type a word letter by letter in a string transfer delay with the search words are not marked at all. At the same time on the device have been installed all the Anglo-Russian and Russian-English dictionaries with sound bases.On less powerful devices, may significantly increase the time to translate words.

The main claims of the developers commented on the lack of a version of Lingvo Tutor for Pocket PC.

In conclusion, I note that additional dictionaries are connected without any problems and are available at www.lingvoda.ru.

Summary.

Excellent software package that will suit both professional and ordinary users who want to expand their knowledge in foreign languages.

We express our gratitude to ABBYY Lingvo for providing the full version of Lingvo «Six Languages" and company for providing Vobis communicator Qtek S110.