Languages support: classical greek, hebrew, japanese.

[pierre71]

Hi there !

I m looking for an eink device with the following mandatory features:

Support for Classical Greek, Biblical Hebrew and Japanese.

Optional features that I would be interested in:

- waterproof (as in stuck in a bag that fell in the pool or left under the rain for a night).
- default support for inflexion dictionaries, if not possible then support with third party document reader.
- Existing dictionaries for the above mentioned languages.
- Linux desktop friendly.

I know nearly nothing about those type of devices. I first compared Kindle and Kobo and felt Kobo more appealing (default epub support). Reading this forum I realise there is also the pocketbook market and some third party viewer such as Koreader or Platon that may or may not support inflexion dictionaries.

[Quoth]

Kobo Libra2.
I don't have any patches or 3rd party reader on most of my ereaders.
I've had or have iRiver, Sony, Nook, Amazon Kindles, Boyue Likebook Mars, Kobos.
The Kobo is best.
Kobo: I only have KOReader on the 10" Elipsa to autocrop larger PDFs.
Mars: Used for Android Library App (reader included). PDFs autocrop on native reader on 7.8" screen. The epub was poor, so KOReader downloaded as APKK direct on it from Git using builtin browser, but I really only use it for Library.
I've not seen any need to customise the original H2O, original Libra or Sage.

The Sony PRS350 is next best (5"). But Sony don't make them now. My Sony T1 went back for refund.

Kindle Paperwhite is next after the Sony. Kindle DXG is terrible (too heavy and low resolution for 9.7", too slow for PDFs. Only old Mobi and poor fonts). The Kindles with older than 3.x FW are poor. The Kindle Basic was low resolution.
I still have DXG, KK3 and a Paperwhite. Only used for serial numbers for Amazon and for testing ebooks created from wordprocessor files.
Nooks are a bit crippled.
Kindle always been behind on language support compared to Kobo. Prior to 3.x FW practically only Roman/Latin, no oriental, Hebrew, Arabic, Cyrillic, R to L or embedded publisher fonts. Only limited Greek characters in the Latin font.

Kobo is also best supported by Calibre. Best for export of annotation or import of collections or series data (Kobo Utilities on Calibre). Unlike Kindle you can easily change FW version and customise.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Kindle always been behind on language support compared to Kobo. Prior to 3.x FW practically only Roman/Latin, no oriental, Hebrew, Arabic, Cyrillic, R to L or embedded publisher fonts. Only limited Greek characters in the Latin font.

However, that's no longer the case. Current Kindle models come with free high-quality commercial dictionaries for more languages than any other E-Ink device.
Kindles also support RTL language KFX books, which the OP could generate with the free Calibre KFX output plugin.
Hebrew isn't officially supported by Amazon, but, AFAIK, Kindles and most Kindle apps render Hebrew text with diacritics fine. The same goes for polytonic Greek characters.

Amazon also offers 3 Japanese dictionaries as free downloads:

• Progressive English-Japanese Dictionary(プログレッシブ英和中辞典)
• Progressive Japanese-English Dictionary (プログレッシブ和英中辞典第３版)
• 大辞泉 (Daijisen Japanese Dictionary)

[kandwo]

Originally Posted by pierre71

Hi there !

I m looking for an eink device with the following mandatory features:

Support for Classical Greek, Biblical Hebrew and Japanese.

Optional features that I would be interested in:

- waterproof (as in stuck in a bag that fell in the pool or left under the rain for a night).
- default support for inflexion dictionaries, if not possible then support with third party document reader.
- Existing dictionaries for the above mentioned languages.
- Linux desktop friendly.

I know nearly nothing about those type of devices. I first compared Kindle and Kobo and felt Kobo more appealing (default epub support). Reading this forum I realise there is also the pocketbook market and some third party viewer such as Koreader or Platon that may or may not support inflexion dictionaries.

You might want to consider an Android reader if dictionary support is important to you. I use aard2 with offline wiktionary as my dictionary on my Nova 3 and Hisense A5 Pro. It is able to find most Finnish words, which are highly inflected. Wiktionary also has a lot of Ancient Greek. I don't know anything about Japanese or Hebrew support, though.

Unfortunately, the dictionaries on Kindle, Kobo and Pocketbook are lacking for inflected languages. My Kindle is good for only English and Spanish (on Android I have dictionaries for Russian, Ukrainian, Finnish, etc. working just fine).

I use Linux and haven't had a problem managing these devices on there. I mostly use syncthing to sync my books, fonts, documents, etc between them and my computer.

[JawadLeLogeur]

I would have recommended an Android tablet to ensure full linguistic compatibility but given your waterproofing requirements it sounds like the Kobo Sage or second-hand Forma would be the closest alternative. I don't know for sure if KOreader can support biblical languages in all their glory but since it allows for external fonts and dictionaries it will in all likelihood afford you the flexibility to do so.

I would look for the KOreader main thread and ask about the languages there.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by JawadLeLogeur

given your waterproofing requirements it sounds like the Kobo Sage or second-hand Forma would be the closest alternative.

FYI: the current Kindle Paperwhite and Oasis models are also waterproof (IPX8).

[kandwo]

Originally Posted by JawadLeLogeur

I would have recommended an Android tablet to ensure full linguistic compatibility but given your waterproofing requirements it sounds like the Kobo Sage or second-hand Forma would be the closest alternative. I don't know for sure if KOreader can support biblical languages in all their glory but since it allows for external fonts and dictionaries it will in all likelihood afford you the flexibility to do so.

I would look for the KOreader main thread and ask about the languages there.

KOreader definitely doesn't support inflection in their dictionaries, though, which makes them useless.

In my opinion it just boils down to what features are most important. If you'd prefer waterproofing - go for Kindle or Kobo; if dictionary support is paramount - Onyx Boox.

[pierre71]

The probability of meeting an unexpected pond being way bigger than that of meeting a foreign word in a sentence I wont have a translation in a more intelligible language already on the device, I have ordered a kobo libra 2.
Thanks for your feedbacks !

[Quoth]

And try it without patches or kepub or KOReader first. I don't use any of those on my original Libra or H2O.
Kindles have improved on language support but are far behind Kobo on flexibility, finding books on the device, Collections, Annotations (at least three good methods) and series support. But for all makes Calibre is invaluable.

Hope you enjoy it!