DiCE Translator

DiCE Translator is a Firefox extension that provides a tool-tip translation function, which can automatically guess the most appropriate meaning of the highlighted word within context. DiCE is short for Dictionary in Chinese/English, which means that it is a smart tool that separates blocks of Chinese text into meaningful phrases. Pronunciation and pinyin are also included in this software, which can be very helpful for users who need to learn Chinese.

This extension was developed by the summer interns at China-Singapore Institute of Digital Media, who are also members of the Web, IR / NLP Group (WING) at the National University of Singapore. Although the development of this software started as a summer project, it will be under active development for a long time to come. The team is constantly working on improving the tool, and development will continue even after the summer ends.

Currently, the team is investigating ways to make Chinese language learning easier for secondary learners who are fluent in English. They believe that the use of a translator can help and, as a result, are developing parallel language learning lessons, which might be integrated into the translator in the future.

If you are interested in learning more about the team and the project, there are several resources available. The project page at CSIDM and the WING Portal are great resources to get started. Although the dictionary isn't perfect yet, the team is constantly working on improving it.

Using this tool is extremely easy; simply highlight the English/Chinese words you want translated, and the tool-tip translation function will automatically detect the most appropriate meaning. This software has proven to be very useful for Chinese language learners, and will continue to be under active development for the foreseeable future.