Updated:

Now we switch to Golden Dict since Stardict is not developed any more. Golden Dict also has the similar functions like Stardict, and Stardict dictionaries can be used with Golden Dict.

Simply copy the dictionaries (of Stardict) to the folder “content” of Golden Dict. Add and check the path in the Files tab (from menu Edit>Dictionaries), Click Rescan now. Then OK, you are now ready to use! That’s it!

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The aims of this post is to introduce you to Stardict, a free & opensource international dictionary, provide some useful and free dictionaries including Pāli-English English-Pāli. Whenever you visit a web page in Pāli, just select or double click on a Pāli word, Stardict will auto look up the meanings of that word in English, you do not need to type the Pāli word.
If you want to type Pāli word, please see part 5. And if you just want to read the Tipitaka in Pali, you can use Pāli Text Reader, Pāli Text Reader itself contains Pāli-English dictionary.

This post has 5 parts as listed bellow:

1-What is Stardict
2-Downnload& Install Stardict
3-Add dictionaries to Stardict
4-Stardict pronounces English words
5-More Pāli resources

1-What is Stardict?

StarDict is a Cross-Platform and international dictionary Software. It has powerful features such as “Glob-style pattern matching”, “Scan selection word,” “Fuzzy query,” etc. Stardict Version3.0 has developed a lot of new functions, such as Full-text translation, Net Dict.

Just select the Pali word on the website, Stardict will look for its means in English

• Mouse Inquiry: When “scan” option is selected, you can capture the words via mouse to translate.
• More Powerful!: Thousands of free dictionaries can be found on the internet. Choose your own favorites.
• Net Dict : Dictionary installation on your own computer is not necessary any more. Click the main menu icon on the top right of the corner, choose “Preferences” option. Here you can set Net dict. Register or log on your account, then you can use the Net Dict with your own dictionaries.
• Full-text translation: Click text translate icon on the left. With google, yahoo, Altavista, Excite Janpan translation engines you can tranlate from one language to another with satisfactory results.
• My other posts about Stardict can be found Here

2-Downnload& Install Stardict

According to which OS you are using, you can downloa d 1 of these versions and install Stardict. For the Window OS and Linux system, just double click on the downloaded file to start to install. (If you can’t downloa d the files here, please try this link.)

For Linux (Debian, Ubuntu) stardict_3.0.1-1_i386.deb 1.6 MB (Or you can install via terminal: sudo apt-get install stardict)

For Window OS:  stardict-3.0.2.exe 10.6 MB

For Mac OS http://sourceforge.net/projects/stardict/files/stardict/3.0.1/StarDict-3.0.1-MacOSX.zip/download

3-Add dictionaries to Stardict

Here are some of Stardict Dictionaries that I am using:

Pāli-English-English-Pāli-Vietnamese

1) English-Pali của ngài A.P. Buddhadatta

2) Pali-English của ngài A.P. Buddhadatta

3) Pali-Việt của ngài Bửu Chơn

4) Thuật ngữ Luật tạng Pali-Việt của Sư Giác Nguyên

5) Abhidhamma Pali-Việt của ngài Tịnh Sự

6) Việt-Pali của Sadi Định Phúc

7) Pali-English English-Pali Dictionary

8) Pali-English Dictionary-Pali Text Society

9) CKJ Buddhism Dictionary

1- Startdict-Buddhism-3dics.zip  contents 3 dictionaries: CKJ Buddhism Dictionary, Pali-English English-Pali Dictionary, Buddhist Dictionary by Ven. Nyanatiloka Mahathera:

http://cuongdang.info/stardict/pali/3Buddhism-and-8Pali-dicts.zip

2- Here are some useful dictionaries for Vietnamese (En-Vn, Vn-En, Fr-Vn, Vn-Fr, Vn-Vn, Rus-Vn) 6 dictionaries

http://cuongdang.info/stardict/6dics-En-Vn-and-others-for-vietnamese.zip

YOU CAN ALSO DOWNLOAD THEM FROM HERE:

http://cid-2aaf1aaefb464249.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/stardict

For other language dictionaries you can download them from http://stardict.sourceforge.net/Dictionaries.php

or

http://reciteword.cosoft.org.cn/stardict-iso/stardict-dic/

If you are using Ubuntu Linux and new to Ubuntu, you can use this method:

Firstly, right click on the downloaded compressed file and choose Extract Here, you will get a new folder (*).

Using sudo nautilus to copy dics to /usr/share/stardict/dic

Now open the Terminal (Go to the menu Applications/Accessories/Terminal)  type:

sudo nautilus

provide your root password, then the nautilus (like window explorer on Window^^) will be opened. Now just browse to the uncompress folder (*) and copy them to  usr/share/stardict/dic.

Or you can use this method:

To install these tarball dictionaries, do this:

tar -xjvf a.tar.bz2

sudo mv a /usr/share/stardict/dic

B – Install Dictionaries in Window OS:

Use free uncompress program 7 Zip or other unzip softwares like Winrar…. to extract the .tar.bz2 file, which you get a directory, then move this directory to the dic\, such as C:\Program files\stardict\dic\

C- Install Dictionaries in Mac OS X:

tar -xjvf a.tar.bz2 -C /opt/gtk/usr/share/stardict/dic

4-Stardict pronounces English words