If you write many articles, you probably know what a pain it is to have to regularly skim through a heavy dictionary to find the word you’re looking for. Luckily there’s a whole batch of lexicon applications that’ll send it back to the shelf (or in the trash can) forever. WordWeb is the perfect example of this type of dictionary and thesaurus combo in a hands-on interface.

What you’re looking for in a dictionary application is something you can open in a click, paste your word, and immediately get the results. You get that in Wordweb via system tray integration, and a Ctrl+Alt+W hot key combination. On install WordWeb will ask you the English locale you will use, such as Australian, Canadian American or New Zealander. The program keeps a history of your searches and you can quickly access them via the side arrows. You can refine your search by selecting word category like nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs and decide to show pronunciation, usage and offensive or vulgar words. WordWeb isn’t associated to any world famous reliable dictionary like Webster’s ,preferring its very own online source, comprising of more than 240,000 words and updated regularly, according to the developer.

The heart of WordWeb resides in the results tabs, although the difference between them all wasn’t obvious from the start. After a bit of testing we found that the “nearest” tab showed you the preceding and following words in the dictionary, “see also” was a suggestion of related words and “similar” presented a word that resembled your search but had a slightly different meaning. “Types” goes down to the meaning of the word, for example solid “types” will be plastic, crystal or block. The “type of” tab is another variation. “Types of” solid will be substance, state or form. These tools will be particularly helpful if you feel limited by your vocabulary and are looking to diversify your choice of words in the document you are writing.

WordWeb is a reliable dictionary and thesaurus with a simple, hands-on approach. It is an ideal partner to fight off writer’s block and improve your vocabulary. The online dictionary is a rich source and WordWeb should help you out of any mind jam whenever you’re writing an article.

Download WordWeb 5.5 in Softonic

Have you ever been faced by a situation where you've received some text in a strange language but you can't identify what it is?

Polyglot 3000 (despite sounding like some kind of wall filler!) is a language recognition package which recognizes more than 400 languages. Simply paste in the text that you need identifying and P3000 will immediately throw up suggestions as to what it could be. The program is lightning fast at detecting the language of the text and it also gives you an estimate of how accurate the results are (which is usually 100% although if the language shares similar words with another language, it may be slightly lower). As far as customisation goes, it's very limited though with the only real option being that of setting it to check for only popular languages. However, with so many languages in use over the internet, this program is an excellent starting point for anyone trying to identify the origin of a blog language or website that they don't understand.

If you're just looking for a one stop, simple way to identify the language of some mysterious text, Polyglot 3000 will do it in a flash but note that it doesn't perform any kind of translation.

Download Polyglot 3000 3.22 in Softonic

Though English speakers don't usually have language problems to browse the web, there are still occasions where you need to translate certain foreign words.

In that case you can use a traditional dictionary o take a faster detour by launching GoNaomi. This app works as a dictionary for 39 different languages and enables you to combine them all in search of the perfect translation. Each language contains about 1,000 entries.

GoNaomi includes popular languages as well as other ones which are not so common, like Tagalog, Ukrainian or Belorussian. You only have to select your source and target languages and enter the terms you're looking for.

On the downside, the program is not embedded into the browser in any way (which would have been easier to translate online texts) and requires a restart every time you change the language selection.

GoNaomi is a fairly complete dictionary with support for quite a high number of languages, but which unfortunately fails to integrate with the browser.

Download GoNaomi 1.66 Free in Softonic

If you regularly have to translate from one language to another, then it's a pain to keep going online to find a translator which can handle the languages you need.

The big advantage of Translate.net is that it scans multiple translation sites for languages that you need to translate to and from. The good thing here is that you don't have to go online and tediously surf the net for translators and by using translators from different sources, you can much more accurate and better translations. The annoying thing however is that the program displays advertisements within the program based on the translation texts that you are searching on. However, the developers assure that Translate.Net does not collect any personal data or use any aggressive advertising techniques on it's users. One thing worth mentioning however is that this program is completely open source which means that the advertising feature may be possible to remove, or at least block, if you have some C++ programming knowledge.

A great solution for those that translate regularly although be prepared to be bombarded with adverts.

Download Translate.Net 0.1.3036 in Softonic

CatsCradle is an aid for language translators that provides an easy way to translate web pages. While it does not do any translation, it extracts the text out of evey page and presents it in an easy to editable overview that allows you to translate the text portions without having to deal with any HTML code or other distractions.

The built-in editing screen allows for side-by-side editing, as well as optional real-time browser preview of the translated page. Additional features include a built in glossary that can suggest appropriate words and phrases while you are translating, project file catalog with word count and more. CatsCradle can also handle .hhc and .hhk files for translating of .chm help files. And of course, you can also use the tool to edit text on any web page without translating edit, so it can a also handy tool for webmasters that need some quick no-code text editing.

Download CatsCradle 3.7 in Softonic

Today's society works at a global level, and that usually requires the ability to speak at least one foreign language besides your mother tongue.

But if you never managed to learn the German declension system or the Spanish verbs, don't worry. Now you can rely on gTranslate to grasp the general meaning of any online document you come across while browsing the web.

This extension enables you to translate any word on any webpage to the language of your selection, provided it's supported by the Google translation services which are the ones used by gTranslate. The extension sets the right language combination automatically, according to your browser's language and the website you're visiting, but you can change it if you like. Also, though I thought it would only work with singles words, I was pleased to see it could translate short snippets of text as well.

On the downside, the translation sometimes takes a while to appear, or doesn't appear at all. In any case, always use automatic translation with care: they can help you understand the overall meaning but they usually fail in grammar and syntax.

With this extension you can translate words and text snippets on any webpage, always bearing in mind that automatic translations are far from perfect.

Download gTranslate 0.3.3 in Softonic

On the whole, Lingoes is an interesting application which combines a comprehensive dictionary with a translator service (while looking and feeling mysteriously similar to its competitor, Babylon). There are also some useful tools like the periodic table, an abbreviation chart and an irregular verbs one, plus an international time zone converter, a dialing codes directory, a weights & measures converter and to end a currency converter.

Theoretically the most useful tool is that by pressing CTRL+ right click on whatever word you have on your screen, a pop-up window should appear with the definition of that word, a search tool for a deeper definition and also an audio file with the correct pronunciation. The disappointing aspect of this feature is that it doesn't work with a lot of words (unfortunately, I have to say, the majority), even if they appear in the list of definitions that Lingoes has in its database. I think this is a major bug as it invalidates massively the application's main utility which would be to have an always-available dictionary without having to change window.

The program leans on Google for the translation function which I find to be weak as many words are not translated correctly or not even found.

Because of strange performance issues, Lingoes is not worth using if you're just looking for an on-the-fly dictionary or translator. Some of its other features are really useful, though.

Download Lingoes 2.2.0 Beta in Softonic

iWisdom is a desktop program that will help you manage and maintain a list of quotations and insightful ideas. Besides allowing you to store and manage your quotes, the program offers a number of tools to help you publish them.

Key features:

• A number of related fields, including title, category, author, source, year of initial publication, and rights
• Storage of your wisdom in an open, non-proprietary XML format
• Multiple sorting and selection fields
• Multiple files with remembered viewing options for each
• Multiple levels of categorization, with a tree view to let you see your items within categories
• Automatic Web Publishing
• Automatic XML publishing (to create RSS feeds, for example)
• A Find function
• A Category Mass Change function

Download iWisdom 1.60 in Softonic

If you study classical Latin or Greek you're going to find Diogenes really helpful. This program is a translation assistant that you can use to look up words and expressions in those two languages, using the official online resources and databases provided by the Packard Humanities Institute and the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.

The program features several ways to query Latin and Greek databases, although the way they work sometimes is not clear and I ended up getting some cryptic database message errors which I wasn't sure how to avoid, as there's no documentation.

In any case, Diogenes offers very detailed answers including meaning, example of usage and other important informative elements that can be very useful when translating classical writers.

With some improvement, Diogenes would become the perfect alternative to paper dictionaries in classical translations.

Download Diogenes 3.1.6 in Softonic

WikSpeak is a phonetic dictionary that allows to analyse the correlation between pronunciation and spelling of the English words.

It's basically a simple and fast graphic interface to retrieve either the phonetic transcription (IPA) or play the sound from any English word avoiding the annoying process of browsing dictionaries.

The most important features are the time reduction to determine the pronunciation from an English word based on the spelling and the facilitation of the phonetic transcription understanding.

It's a language tool highly recommended from beginners to advanced non-native english
speakers practising english phonetic.

Download WikSpeak 0.3 in Softonic

Kana no quiz is an educational tool which enables you to memorize the transcription and pronunciation of Japanese kana (hiragana & katakana) in a quick, easy, and flexible fashion.

This program features several methods and options to teach the complete beginner or test even experts on kana recognition and pronunciation.

This package works both on Unix (GNU/Linux, FreeBSD), Windows and Mac OS X using the same GTK+ interface.

Download Kana no quiz 1.7 in Softonic

ShaPlus Google Translator is an add-on for Internet Explorer that enables you to translate selected text on any webpage using the Google translation services. Just highlight the tex you want to translate with your mouse and select the "ShaPlus Google Translator" option in the context menu.

Take a look at what this program has for you:

• Supports all the language pairs provided by Google Translate
• Translation displayed in a pop-up window, no need to leave the reading page
• Parts of translated text can be be further translated within ShaPlus Google Translator itself

Download ShaPlus Google Translator 1.0 in Softonic

Google translator allows to translate texts and web pages to and from several languages (English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese) by using the Google online translation services. This means that you obviously need to be connected to the Internet in order to use it.

This small app is very easy to use. It stays minimized on your system tray, without interrumpting your work. Then, whenever you need to translate any text string, just select it with your mouse and press the appropiate keyboard shortcut. You can set your own favorite key combination in the program's configuration menu.

The translated text can be shown up in a balloon-type hint box (if it's a short translation) or in a pop-up message window, if it's a longer one. The text can also alternatively be copied to the Clipboard right after being translated into the target language.

Download Google Translator 2.4 in Softonic

Mobysaurus Thesaurus is a English thesaurus tool that helps you write and speak better by leading you to the right word for every purpose or occasion. The app contains 2.5 million synonyms and growing, instant results, cross-referencing, fast full-text search, and requires no network connection.

The program is powered by the most recent version of Moby Thesaurus (compiled by Grady Ward), which is the large and most comprehensive English thesaurus data source available to date in the public domain. Having over 30,000 headwords (main entries), and 2,500,000 synonyms and advanced search functions at your call, it's unsurprisingly that simple for you to be wise at words.

It runs locally. There's no need to connect to the Internet, open up your browser, type in URLs, wait for pages to load, click on/view advertisements, and sometimes expose your system to spyware/adware threats.

Download Mobysaurus Thesaurus 1.0.55 in Softonic

LingoPad is a free English-German offline dictionary for Windows. Lingopad allows you to import your own wordlists and use them in parallel to the existing dictionary.

Amongst the key features are the ability to search for beginning, ending and middle part of a word (*ending or *middle*), search for collocations and activation with customizable HotKey.

Best of all, the program is fully functional and totally free.

Download LingoPad 2.5.323 in Softonic

TheSage's English Dictionary and Thesaurus is a professional software package that integrates a complete dictionary and a multifaceted thesaurus of the English language into a single and powerful language reference system. TheSage's English Dictionary and Thesaurus is used by tens of thousands of users from over 60 countries across the globe.

The Dictionary comprises:

• More than 145,000 references with multiple detailed definitions (over 200,000).
• A large collection of examples of usage (approx. 35,000).
• Encyclopedic information (geographical, historical, political,...).
• Academic knowledge (medicine, biology,... ).

The Thesaurus encompasses:

• Synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, meronyms, holonyms,...
• Nearly 1,200,000 relationships between definitions.

The essential functionality includes the following:

• Tabbed interface allowing multiple definitions and searches to be readily available.
• Quick cross-referencing (any and all displayed words are clickable, triggering a lookup).
• Standard and advanced wildcard search functionality.
• Anagram search.
• History and session record keeping.
• Options that allow customization of the appearance of TheSage.
• Copy to clipboard of all or part of the information displayed.

Download TheSage English Dictionary 1.4.0 in Softonic

TheSage's English Dictionary and Thesaurus runs locally, and does not use your Internet connection. The Dictionary comprises more than 145,000 references with multiple detailed definitions (over 200,000); A large collection of examples of usage (approx. 35,000); Encyclopedic information (geographical, historical, political,...); Academic knowledge (medicine, biology,... ).

The Thesaurus encompasses synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, meronyms, holonyms,...; Nearly 1,200,000 relationships between definitions. The essential functionality includes the following: Tabbed interface allowing multiple definitions and searches to be readily available; Quick cross-referencing (any and all displayed words are clickable, triggering a lookup); Standard and advanced wildcard search functionality; Anagram search; History and session record keeping; Options that allow customization of the appearance of TheSage; Copy to clipboard of all or part of the information displayed.

Download TheSage English Dictionary and Thesaurus 1.1.2 in Softonic

WordBanker is a unique and fun method of helping you to improve your English Vocabulary. Adapted from the multi award winning "WordBanker Foreign Language Vocabulary builder" WordBanker VB is offered completely free of charge. Do you have trouble memorising new words or phrases ? WordBanker's "Visual Clue" method of testing means you learn without you even realising.

WordBanker is incredibly easy to use. Just view the word and then click the button you think is the definition of that word. That's all there is to it. Whether you are a complete beginner or already speak another language WordBanker has something for you.

Download WordBanker 4.0 in Softonic

Mobysaurus is a free, feature-rich English thesaurus and dictionary software that integrates Moby Thesaurus II, Roget's Thesaurus, GCIDE Dictionary and WordNet -- all royalty-free, powerful and most suitable for everyday reference. With this, you will feel it so much easier to choose the right word or words for every occasion or purpose.

Download Mobysaurus 2.4 Beta 1 in Softonic

Language Reader takes advantage of existing speech technologies, provides a richer on-screen reading experience with multilingual voices enabled. You can select text using your mouse, and hear the selected text being read by pressing a key on your keyboard.

Features:

• Read text (word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, document) using Microsoft Text-To-Speech technology.
• Provide a richer on-screen reading experience with multilingual voices enabled.
• Supported languages/voices: American English, British English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and Korean.
• Interface language: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch.
• Supported document formats: Adobe Acrobat (PDF), Microsoft Word (doc, rtf), Microsoft Excel (xls), Microsoft PowerPoint (ppt), HTML (htm, html, shtml), Text (txt).
• Cartoon characters, Merlin, Robby, Peedy, and Genie, who serve you as Assistant powered by Microsoft Agent technology.
• Easy-to-use built-in editor to edit text to be read aloud.
• Download and install required Microsoft Speech, Avatar components when needed.

Download Language Reader 1.0 in Softonic