CD Han

Coping with English in my secondary and tertiary years is not a simple task as I communicate solely in Chinese when I was growing up. Do not get me wrong here. Its not that I don’t know my ABC, just that when hanging out with friends or some foreign exchange students who speak perfect English, I immediately know that I’m one notch lower. 

Throw a few jargons or bombastic words at me and I will probably be lost in all the talk. The solution is to have a bulky dictionary with me most of the time. Nowadays, I’m no longer dragging that dictionary around. Nah! My English had not improved much, just that I had embedded a dictionary into my phone. Now, I am truly a walking dictionary, provided that my smartphone is with me.

Interested in carrying a dictionary around? Introducing, the Advanced English Dictionary for platform S60 3rd Edition by jDictionary-mobile. This piece of software required 6.79 MB of storage space on your device but in return, you will have more than 1.6 million words (both American and British English) nicely tuck into your phone.

One of the features being highly advertised in their website http://jdictionary-mobile.com/index.html, is about a radical new approach and technology called WordNet. Instead of just listing the words and their definitions, Advanced English Dictionary shows how every word is linked to another.

For example, type in the word “tree” and one will get not only the definition, synonyms and opposites, but the hypernyms (a tree is a kind of what?), meronyms (what are the parts of a tree?) and more. You can also find a list of hundreds of trees, from yellowwood to the Tree of Knowledge, and even all words that contain the letters t-r-e-e. This WordNet approach will help one to understand the meanings of words better. Besides that, this dictionary also packs in lots of examples which I favoured. Personally, I am one who learns better through example or sample. To me a dictionary can provide an acute definition but only through sample usage, am I able to truly grasp the meaning of a word and used it correctly.

Another feature worth mentioning is its easy to use user interface which is customized for phones. The whole word searching process is intuitive enough that no manual is needed to use it. So, excited and want to own one?

The Advanced English Dictionary is retailed for USD 29.95 on their official website but if you got few more bucks to spare, I suggest getting the package deal from http://my-symbian.com/main/index.php for USD 31.46. Well, all in all, this offer may seems a little harsh on our Malaysian’s wallet after the conversion rate; but if you give it a deeper thought and compared it with an electronic dictionary, it ain’t that bad of a deal after all. Oh ya! About the package deal, an additional USD 1.51 includes a The World Factbook, also developed by jDictionary-mobile.

The World Factbook, is a compilation of information on all the nations of the world. It provides up-to-date, valuable data for more than 250 countries and territories in a concise, well-organized format. Up to date here does not merely means on current terms only, any changes in the future is also covered through free updates to registered users.

Each country entry has its own high-resolution, full-color map and flag picture. Do not expect Google Earth-like details in it but the map isn’t too shabby at all. Topics addressed include natural resources, industries, GDP, religion, ethnic groups, legal system and much more.

Key data are grouped under the headings of introduction/background, geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military and transnational issues. How I wish I had this baby for my geography test back then. The World Factbook is retailed at USD 14.99 from the developer’s website if it is to be purchased exclusively. By the way, it takes up about 4.5 MB of your storage.

Don’t get all disappointed if you don’t have a S60 3rd edition platform handphone, these softwares are available in UIQ and Nokia 9000 series too. A J2ME (Java) compatible edition is also available through WAP and GPRS. Prices of the products vary between platforms and for the Java based system, do expect additional charges from your friendly telco.

Here is one good reason why CD thinks that we should not ban handphone in school.If you know of any other dictonaries in different languages, contact him at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it