Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Language Database App for Mac

A

AusMacFan

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 31, 2010
42
24
I'm currently studying French and I want to find an app that allows me to create a database of French words and their English translations. Ideally, I would like to be able to filter these words based on things like alphabetical order (kind of like iTunes) and be able to search for them. Essentially, a translation dictionary app that I can make additions to.

At the moment I generally just use online French dictionaries, but with an app like this I would be able to focus more on what I learn throughout the course which will come in handy in exams and assignment where I am expected to show my knowledge on the things that we learnt in class.

Any help would be much appreciated.
 
Last edited:
There is Bento which I think will meet your needs. There is a desktop and iOS version with each having to be purchased separately. But, update ONLY the desktop. The onetime I attempted to update the iOS version and sync, I lost the changes. :(
 
So you're looking for a modifiable translation dictionary application. I would change your title since what you're looking for is a lot more specific than an application that uses a database. I can't begin to explain to you how many applications use some kind of database.
 
TuffLuffJimmy said:
So you're looking for a modifiable translation dictionary application. I would change your title since what you're looking for is a lot more specific than an application that uses a database. I can't begin to explain to you how many applications use some kind of database.
Click to expand...

Sorry about that, I changed the title.

As of right now, we generally take note of French words and their english translation in a book as we come across them. However, this is extremely messy and easy to lose track of if they're on a different pages, as well as very difficult to locate individual words. I can't really alphabetise the list because it's constantly being added to. Also, by using an app I could compile all the words I have come across in my French studies, whereas if I were to carry all of my notes from previous years, it would be very tedious.

So basically, I'm looking for something that will replace that with the added bonus of sorting and searching. I will give bento a go, but at $60 AUD, it seems like a costly solution to such a small problem.

And Numbers as well.
Click to expand...

I don't have iWork at the moment; I've decided that I'm going waiting for them to update it. Does numbers have some sort of searching and sorting feature?
 
AusMacFan said:
Sorry about that, I changed the title.

As of right now, we generally take note of French words and their english translation in a book as we come across them. However, this is extremely messy and easy to lose track of if they're on a different pages, as well as very difficult to locate individual words. I can't really alphabetise the list because it's constantly being added to. Also, by using an app I could compile all the words I have come across in my French studies, whereas if I were to carry all of my notes from previous years, it would be very tedious.

So basically, I'm looking for something that will replace that with the added bonus of sorting and searching. I will give bento a go, but at $60 AUD, it seems like a costly solution to such a small problem.

I don't have iWork at the moment; I've decided that I'm going waiting for them to update it. Does numbers have some sort of searching and sorting feature?
Click to expand...

Numbers is just a spreadsheet application. It's mostly for making nice presentable tables. But if you just want a good way to make a dictionary application (basically) I would use Excel, since there's a lot less graphical overhead. Or even better I would use LibreOffice. It's free and basically a new version of OpenOffice, since Oracle has pretty much screwed the OpenOffice project.
 
TuffLuffJimmy said:
Numbers is just a spreadsheet application. It's mostly for making nice presentable tables. But if you just want a good way to make a dictionary application (basically) I would use Excel, since there's a lot less graphical overhead. Or even better I would use LibreOffice. It's free and basically a new version of OpenOffice, since Oracle has pretty much screwed the OpenOffice project.
Click to expand...

"just" a spreadsheet? Jeez.

Where Numbers would excel *ahem* over Excel or LibreOffice is its ability to filter rows. So let's say you had a simple table of an English word, it's French translation and a third column with the part of speech. You easily could filter out nouns from verbs, or prepositions from relative pronouns. And so on.

Excel and LibreOffice might have similar functions (haven't found them), but it's extremely simple with Numbers.

mt
 
mysterytramp said:
"just" a spreadsheet? Jeez.

Where Numbers would excel *ahem* over Excel or LibreOffice is its ability to filter rows. So let's say you had a simple table of an English word, it's French translation and a third column with the part of speech. You easily could filter out nouns from verbs, or prepositions from relative pronouns. And so on.

Excel and LibreOffice might have similar functions (haven't found them), but it's extremely simple with Numbers.

mt
Click to expand...

Well considering LibreOffice has a database building feature, like FileMaker (Bento), I would consider LibreOffice much better suited for making a dictionary database. Have you ever even used LibreOffice?
 
mysterytramp said:
"just" a spreadsheet? Jeez.

Where Numbers would excel *ahem* over Excel or LibreOffice is its ability to filter rows. So let's say you had a simple table of an English word, it's French translation and a third column with the part of speech. You easily could filter out nouns from verbs, or prepositions from relative pronouns. And so on.

Excel and LibreOffice might have similar functions (haven't found them), but it's extremely simple with Numbers.

mt
Click to expand...

Excel and LibreOffice (Calc) allow you to do that. I have used Excel since 1999, and it was one feature I used at the very beginning.
 
mysterytramp said:
"just" a spreadsheet? Jeez.
Click to expand...
Ah I now realize why your post was so defensive. By "just a spreadsheet application" I meant that he doesn't need to shell out and buy iWork as he just needs a spreadsheet application. I did not mean to belittle Numbers, I was very impressed with its style when I used it until I realize I didn't need to make such silly, fancy, and wasteful (file size) spreadsheets.
 
He could get Numbers only from the App Store for just $20. You don't need to buy the whole iWork package.

I've tried to use the database package with OpenOffice, NeoOffice and LibreOffice. I'd be surprised if anyone has done anything useful with them.

I've used the spreadsheets in all of them, but only for fairly basic stuff. If it's complex, I can use Excel or Numbers, and I favor Numbers only because Excel has some quirks that infuriate me (select a range of cells and hit delete; one cell is deleted instead of them all; that drives me nuts).

mt
 
TuffLuffJimmy said:
By "just a spreadsheet application" I meant that he doesn't need to shell out and buy iWork as he just needs a spreadsheet application.
Click to expand...

If that's the case, then I'll just use excel. I have office at the moment and it's probably a better option than any other spreadsheet apps because of compatibility.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back