A Great Free Cursor Translation/Dictionary Software that Rivals Mighty Babylon

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I am not a regular user of the dictionary software but when I need the translation service for a difficult word I usually prefer the one-click translation dictionary software (also called cursor translation) over the conventional dictionaries because of the convenience that you don’t have to launch the dictionary and type the word manually that you are looking for. Using cursor translation dictionaries you can simply point the cursor at the word you want to translate and press a quick mouse/keyboard combination and the translation of that word will appear in a popup window(assuming that the dictionary is running in the background for example in the traybar). There are some excellent free dictionaries available for Windows including the Sage,Everest and Mobysaurus Thesaurus but the problem is that they do not support the cursor translation feature that I am talking about. I you have some money to burn then you can also try excellent Babylon dictionary that supports smart translation(from and to any supported language), spell checking, wikipedia content, auto completion, premium dictionaries , currency conversion and many other features all form the convenience of a single mouse/keyboard shortcut. Babylon supports a plethora of features and is THE most powerful dictionary/text translation software out there of its kind. But all the other people like us out there that don’t have enough money to burn on Babylon have to look elsewhere.

Fortunately I was able to discover a great freeware alternative to Babylon that supports all the important features of the Babylon that I mentioned above. It is called Lingoes and is essentially a cursor translation dictionary and text translation software. Some of the important features of the Lingoes are outlined below.

• Cross-translation over 60 languages
• Shift hotkey for the cursor translation and cross-translations between different languages
• Open management of dictionaries
• Words and Texts Pronunciation
• Downloads a huge amount of vocabulary bases for free
• The user interface exquisitely designed
• Small size but high efficiency

 

A strong point to note is the large amount of free dictionaries available on the official website that can be added to Lingoes to extend it further. These dictionaries can be easily installed or uninstalled form the options. It also supports the pronunciations using the TTS(Text to Speech) engine. User interface is really slick looking and at the same time very responsive and fast. In speed and responsiveness it scores points over the Babylon. It also supports online dictionaries as Babylon. Only real feature I can see that is missing as compared to the Babylon is currency conversion that may not be as important for many of the users.

Despite using it as cursor translation dictionary you can launch it directly from the traybar icon and type in the word you are looking for directly. It will match the word you are looking for with the words available in dictionary in real time as you continue to type in the text as you can see from the picture given above. What it means is that in many cases you will not have to type in the whole word in this interface to see the translation. As you can see it supports an unusually large feature set for a free dictionary but it also scores in the user interface as well,as all the features are placed at the right place where you expect them to be. I have incorporated this dictionary in my normal work flow on the Windows PC and I recommend this one to any user that needs these features because you will rarely find these features in a free dictionary. You can download the Lingoes from the official website.

Tags: cursor, dictionary, languages, Software, text to speach, translation, Windows

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