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What dict.cc is all about

dict.cc is not only an online dictionary. It's an attempt to create a platform where users from all over the world can share their knowledge in the field of translations. Every visitor can suggest new translations and correct or confirm other users' suggestions. The challenging and most important part of the project is the so-called Contribute! system making this process possible.
To guarantee that the users' work is not lost in case something happens to the maintainer of dict.cc (Paul Hemetsberger), the resulting vocabulary database can be downloaded anytime.

Background, History & Motivation

After finishing school in 1997 I worked at a web development company in Munich (Germany) for half a year. Because I had to spend the following 12 months as a civil servant for the Republic of Austria and I didn't want to forget what I had learned I crafted my own personal website (which, by the way, was never published). My intention was not only to build a private site, but also to provide valuable content. So I came up with the idea of creating an online encyclopedia enabling everyone to read and write entries, trying to bring my experience with Internet Newsgroups to the web. Unfortunately my programming skills weren't developed far enough to implement this in 1998.
But the idea was born and it didn't vanish in the following years.

On completion of my civil servant duties I worked as a web developer for various companies giving me the opportunity to expand my knowledge on programming and business administration. The overall aim was to start my own business as soon as possible. Finally I ventured this step in February 2001.
When I was ready to put my "project knowhowbase.com" into practice, I wasn't sure if I could handle the additional work load while doing client projects. By accident I discovered a vocabulary database compiled by Frank Richter and so I had the idea of applying my concept to the field of translations. The basic vocabulary was already there and a little lookup routine was written easily. So I started dict.cc in late 2002.
Because I continually found ways to improve and extend the site (History) and dict.cc's users kept giving me great feedback and suggesting enhancements, I decided to postpone and possibly drop my plans regarding the "Knowhowbase". I guess the Wikipedia project already renders it useless by now.

That is why my current aim is to add all the requested features to dict.cc and to extend the vocabulary to every language pair for which people are willing to contribute translations. In addition to Spanish, French, Italian and so on I already found possible contributors for German-Chinese and several Indian languages. Wouldn't it be great to have dict.cc featuring hundreds of languages in a few years - from Arabic to Zulu?

Many thanks to

Frank Richter: The vocabulary of dict.cc is based on the word list he released at dict.tu-chemnitz.de.
Winfried Honig for allowing me to integrate Mr Honey's Business Dictionary into dict.cc.
Without having these lists as a foundation dict.cc wouldn't have been possible!

And most important: Many thanks to the users of dict.cc for supporting the project by giving e-mail feedback, linking to dict.cc, improving the vocabulary and answering translation related forum questions!

Contact Information

Please read the FAQ before contacting me!
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dict.cc GmbH
Paul Hemetsberger
Erdbergstr. 10/55
1030 Wien
Austria

Phone: +43-699-19437670 (E-Mail preferred)
E-Mail: paul@dict.cc

Terms of Use

All services offered by dict.cc can be used in the web browser for free, both for private and business purposes. All other ways of usage, particularly automated requests (parsing) require express permission.

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