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The native OSX dictionary (hover + 3-finger-tap) does not work for the Hebrew language.

The example below shows its reluctance to interpret the word פרסומת, a valid Hebrew word.

Any ideas how to add extra languages to the dictionary?

enter image description here

Community
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Adam Matan
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  • http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/58823/how-to-switch-language-of-os-x-dictionary – Rene Larsen Aug 21 '14 at 06:30
  • Great picture. I'll link this to the duplicate but feel free to ping me if this is somehow different than the linked question in the end. – bmike Aug 21 '14 at 15:36
  • @bmike it is different, I want to add a language that isn't already there – Adam Matan Aug 21 '14 at 16:52
  • So Hebrew isn't covered in is post? http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/58833/5472 You can add any new dictionaries to /Library/Dictionaries... It's not clear if you are looking for recommendations on how to locate a proper hebrew dictionary or just wanted to know that you could add languages if you don't like the ones Apple supplies. – bmike Aug 21 '14 at 17:08
  • See if this page has a Hebrew dictionary to add: http://clasquin-johnson.co.za/michel/mac-os-x-dictionaries/index.html – Tom Gewecke Aug 21 '14 at 17:25
  • @TomGewecke All clear for a real answer :-) Thanks! – bmike Aug 21 '14 at 17:45

3 Answers3

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This site has a number of extra dictionaries:

http://clasquin-johnson.co.za/michel/mac-os-x-dictionaries/index.html

and this article provides links for Hebrew/English and English/Hebrew

http://blog.jle.vi/post/72464439746/get-the-look-up-dictionary-feature-in-os-x-to-work

Tom Gewecke
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8

Three-finger tap lookup is enabled by Dictionary.app.

Dictionary -> Preferences will enable you to activate more built-in dictionaries.

For more on adding dictionaries to Dictionary.app, check out this article which also points out how to download and install third-party dictionaries.

Chris
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5

I was fed up with how hard it is to find good dictionaries if you don't speak one of the "big" languages that Apple supports (El Capitan adds a few very good dictionaries for German etc., but that's not very helpful for users in small(er) countries) and so I decided to do something about it and made an app for installing translation dictionaries: Dictionaries.

Right now it has 44 languages (including Hebrew) and dictionaries are based on a good source (Wiktionary, periodically updated and growing steadily) and have stylesheets to look good in Yosemite and El Capitan. That's my two gripes with clasqm's huge collection that Tom mentions: those are mostly old dictionaries, not updated for 10.10+'s more modern look and they are one-off conversions.

Václav Slavík
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  • Works BUT contains quite limited dictionaries, and is a commercial product (although very cheap, only a couple of dollars) – oori Feb 14 '16 at 11:22
  • @oori Out of curiosity, what language(s) did you try? The quality varies depending how popular a language is at Wiktionary, some are pretty good, some… ehm, less so. – Václav Slavík Feb 14 '16 at 11:32
  • hebrew 15k definitions – oori Feb 15 '16 at 07:12