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Re: [edict-jmdict] JLPT Vocabulary
I wasn't going to enter this dialogue which I began, because I feel I am
eminently unqualified to make a meaningful contribution. With that said,
borrowing from Cicero, here goes. The following is my side email to Jim and
Paul on the subject.
"I'm going to get a "newbie's" opinion on the ease of usability of Edict.
He is very well educated, a Canadian with a double major in World Religion
and Physics, new to Japanese but taking the JLPT 1 in a day or so.
I have learned over many years of experience/failure that it is better to
dumb down, ie make things as simple as possible (KISS), than to assume a
knowledge of "private language". For me there is nothing difficult about
Edict but then I ignore most of the appendings for lack of need. In sum,
then, I would classify "vs" as "private language". And I doubt that many
people take time to go through your glossary of terms - kind of like me, eh?
I just don't know why 4-color coding is such a problem for the JLPT 1-4. I
mean in terms of usability and appearance we at Edict appear a bit DOS-ish.
I also believe the "mouse sweep overs" are so obviously necessary, lest we
have great content but not be useful for lack of usablility. Hope I am
helping here."
On 11/30/06, Jim Breen <Jim.Breen@infotech.monash.edu.au> wrote:
[Dennis Schrader (Re: [edict-jmdict] JLPT Vocabulary) writes:]
>> As an after-thought, your suggestion to add jlpt1", "jlpt2", etc. tag
to
>> JMdict is excellent. However do you not feel that we're getting a bit
>> "marker heavy"? Is color-coding possible in this case?
うん。。。 But JMdict is XML, and XML means text. To select a subset we
need something to select on.
How a client displays it is something else, of course. (I can handle
charm and spin later too 9-)} )
>> Also, the suggestion that "vs", etc. have a "mouse-over and receive an
>> explanation" (sorry for the poor wording) is a really nice touch,
though
>> fairly common nowadays. So many people new to Edict might drown in all
the
>> appendings and qualifiers without it. Just a thought.
As someone pointed out, you'd then have to train people to do a mouseover.
Yesterday I did presentation to high school and university Japanese
teachers,
and had a discussion on changes/inprovements, etc. Not a lot to come out
of
it. Several wanted a simpler interface, but no-one wanted to drop any
functionality. General agreement that it was really necessary to teach
people how to use any dictionary, at least initially.
Jim
--
Jim Breen http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/
Clayton School of Information Technology, Tel: +61 3 9905 9554
Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia Fax: +61 3 9905 5146
(Monash Provider No. 00008C) ジム・ブリーン@モナシュ大学