I have found, outside of using an application’s built-in spell checking, two particular tools that I prefer. These tools are GoldenDict and Dict. The former is a splendid GUI tool, whereas the latter is a lightning-quick command line tool. Let’s see which of these tools suits your needs best.

GoldenDict

GoldenDict is a feature-rich graphical dictionary program that allows the user to take advantage of multiple local dictionaries as well various on-line dictionaries. It’s easy to use and actually works in conjunction with other applications.

To install GoldenDict just do the following:

1. Open up your Add/Remove Software Utility.
2. Search for “goldendict” (No quotes).
3. Mark GoldenDict for installation.
4. Click Apply to install.

Figure 1

Once installed, you will find GoldenDict in the Applications > Office menu.

When you fire up GoldenDict you will the main window where you can take care of all of your lookups (see Figure 1). The usage is fairly straight-forward. You enter your word in the “Look up” text area and hit Enter. The results will appear as the disambiguation in the left pane and the actual definition in the right pane.

Now…let’s say you want to extend GoldenDict out to your other applications. If you click on Edit > Preferences and then click on the Scan Popup tab you can enable GoldenDict to work on any text you highlight in any application. I will warn you…this can get in the way of every day use. To that end I always enable this feature but enable it along with the “Only show popup when all selected keys are kept pressed”. With this feature you can configure a key (either Alt, Ctrl, Shift, or Meta) that must be pressed along with the word selection. When this combination is done a popup will appear definining the word.

Dict

Now let’s take a look at a much simpler tool – dict. Dict is a command line only tool that allows you to search online dictionaries (or local dictionaries if you have them installed) for word definitions. Installing dict is simple:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo apt-get install dict (or a suitable command for your distribution).
3. Accept the dependencies.
4. Wait until the installation is complete.

When you have dict installed, the usage is simple:

dict -h SERVER WORD

Where SERVER is the server you want to use and WORD is the word you want to look up. Normally you could just issue dict WORD but currently the default servers for dict are all not responding. So in order to get around that you need to define a server to use. One server that is working is dict.tu-chemnitz.de. To use this server you would issue the command:

dict -h dict.tu-chemnitz.de WORD

Where WORD is the word you want to look up. You would then be rewarded with the definition of the word in question.

I am currently trying to learn French and German and often find myself using many computer-based resources to ease my learning, some obvious, like dictionaries, and some not-so, like podcasts.

Dictionaries

Different languages generally have different online dictionaries. For German, I often find myself using dict.cc, whilst for French, I use Reverso. The best way to find dictionaries is to Google, but one option to definitely consider is the ever-growing Wiktionary. Effectively every language has a Wiktionary and whilst it can be difficult to navigate, it is quite large and the range of languages makes it amazing.

Verb conjugators

Verbix is another web-based tool. It allows you to conjugate verbs, and even supports irregular ones.

The free web-based tool supports verb conjugation in 97 languages, ranging from Afrikaans, to Milanese, to Old English to Welsh! They offer Windows shareware which supports over 300 languages.

Verbix also offers a tool too which analyses text and guesses its language.

Podcasts

Podcasts are a very useful way to perfect your listening.

It is very useful for me to hear a native German or a Francophone to speak.

Browsing iTunes will obviously bring up many possibilities.

My suggestions? For German, use Slow German. For French, try One thing in a French day. Naturally, I can’t make suggestions for other languages!

Vocabulary trainers

One of the best ways to learn is purely to repeat.

Many vocabulary trainers are available. These allow you to input words, or use preprepared word lists, and then be tested on them. The trainers compile statistics so you can identify weak points etc.

For OS X, try the freeware Vocab. A wide-range of options exist for Windows users; ProvaLingua seems popular. Another option, which also works under Linux, is this program.

Wikipedia

I already mentioned that Wiktionary exists in many languages, but so does Wikipedia.

To improve your knowledge of a foreign language, try reading an article on your native language Wikipedia and then on a foreign one. It won’t be the same word for word, but many ideas will be similar so you should be able to pick out some key words.

Wikipedia is also a good way to find technical vocabulary in a foreign tongue.