Product Review: Berlitz Bilingual Dictionaries
Fellow Axim users and colleagues:
Late last spring, AximUsers.com afforded me the opportunity to review the product “Berlitz Wörterbücher für Pocket PC,” Handbuch Version 1.6.6. For non-Germanophones, this means Berlitz Wordbook (dictionary) for Pocket PC, and since the Berlitz name is already synonymous with language-related products and services, it is not surprising to learn that this particular product is a bilingual dictionary configured for translating between English and four other languages; French, German, Italian, and Spanish. The German product name comes from the manual that came with the program, obviously developed in Germany.
As the Head of a Modern Languages Department at a medium-sized university with majors in French & Spanish, minors in German & Chinese, and study abroad programs in Québec, France, Germany, Spain, and China, reviewing this product was of particular interest to me. It had, in my view, the potential to be of considerable use to our faculty and students alike. So this summer, after putting it in the hands of several of my faculty and working with it extensively myself, I am pleased to report that not only has its potential been realized, but it has provided us with trouble-free installation and operation, as well as an easy-to-use interface that is a pleasure to use both at home and on the road.
My experience with the product began with an easy-to-follow installation routine with which I installed the French, Italian, German, and Spanish versions of the dictionary on my Dell Axim x51v. The installation offers a demo version of the German program as well as the full version of the language dictionary in question, and as successive programs are loaded, the user can choose the desired language or “book” from a menu. In addition, once the language of operation is chosen, the user can toggle back and forth from that language’s dictionary to English by tapping “flag” icons of the British Union Jack, French Tricolore, or the German & Italian equivalent. An adjacent selection arrow also allows an easy switch to another language. This makes it much easier to use than a regular bilingual dictionary, or rather, dictionaries, because all four programs are available simultaneously once loaded. I had no problems navigating between each.
The functions within each dictionary are intuitive and easy to use. Entries are selected by typing in an entry window, scrolling with the sidebar button, or simple “point and tap,” but a full-text search function is also available from the options menu. The dictionary entries themselves are represented on an alternating white and blue field for ease of reading. Definitions of selected entries appear at the bottom of the screen, and, if the user desires, can be displayed as a separate screen with a long tap. This is particularly useful for long and complicated entries, and as an added bonus for writers, either the headwords or the entire entry can be selected, copied, and pasted into other documents, either manually or with the edit function.
There is also a menu of “supplements” such as a pronunciation guide, an instruction manual, and a “preface” for each dictionary that offers useful insights on the art of translating. The package is rounded out by functions for creating bookmarks, selecting font size, and toggling to and from full-screen mode. The program is extremely well-thought out, and its layout, as well as its redundancies, make it a joy to use in all the available languages.
My faculty reported satisfaction with the product as well, noting in particular the definitions of idiomatic English expressions such as “yesman” and “Yellow Pages,” as well as a history of terms searched and examples of a given word in use, and the presence of encyclopedic entries such as definitions for “Yellowstone National Park (in the German version). One faculty member lamented the inability to hear each word pronounced, but given its complexity, as well as the resources the associated volume of sound files would require, it is certainly not surprising that such a feature is not available in this program. Another faculty member reported a few anomalies in the English-language text of the introductory comments, which, having apparently been translated from the German, serves to underline the difficulty of the translator’s art. As a professor of French and Spanish, I found the .pdf file of the manual, apparently available only in German, of little use until I realized that it gave me the opportunity to test the product in that language. I found it every bit as useful to me as a beginner in that language as it was in the languages in which I am more competent. However, if they have not already been prepared, I would encourage the developers to include them in the package for each language.
By their own admission, the authors acknowledge that each dictionary’s 50,000-odd entries make them most useful to beginning and intermediate-level students or speakers of the language in question. However, as a traveling companion on an overseas trip, as a resource in a study-abroad classroom, or as an aid to writing texts with a foreign language component, I believe that this product is a superior choice for any pocket PC user with needs in French, German, Italian, or Spanish - even very advanced speakers of these languages. I also hope that if it isn’t already, it will soon be available in other languages. I certainly could have used it in China this summer. I encourage all inquiries, and I recommend this product without reservation.
Best wishes,
D. Brian Mann, Ph.D. (oakndog) North Georgia College & State University
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Chinese language included. More information:
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