Thread: Implementing a English-Spanish/Spanish-English Dictionary

Hey everyone. I'm new to C, and I'm actually programming for the PSP. I just wanted to know if it would be hard to create a dictionary (both English-Spanish and Spanish-English).

I obviously can't type in all of the words in the dictionary- there must be some sort of database somewhere. How would I go about doing such a thing, and would it be too much for a beginner? I have a good idea of programming theory (I have been working with the scripting language lua for over a year), but I am pretty new to C.

Thanks for any help.

I just wanted to know if it would be hard to create a dictionary (both English-Spanish and Spanish-English).

It wouldn't be hard to create a working dictionary. It sure will be a bit harder to create an efficient one. But, in overall, the dictionary principle isn't complex; you give it a word, it gives you the different translation for that word (in its simplest form).

there must be some sort of database somewhere

It exists, somewhere, but i doubt you can find anything really complete. Google is your friend. Or is it ?

How would I go about doing such a thing, and would it be too much for a beginner?

Well it might be a bit hard for a beginner to create an efficient "dictionary". Having some knowledge about data structure will sure help. So if you have some, you might want to give it a try, else, you might want to do it either.

I suggest you implement it with some kind of trees.

There are numerous wordlists available on the net in English. I found several by googling and following the links. Be aware that British English is much different than it's American version.


One simple way to use it would be keep the word list file in alphabetical order, and then do a slightly modified binary search through that, for the target word.

Are you thinking of supplying each word's definitions, or just the words equivalent word in the second language?

Ok, thanks, foxman.

Adak:

I was thinking, at the moment, for it just to translate. So just the word's equivalent.