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SCMP Reporter

LEARNING to speak and read English does not have to be a tedious and time-consuming task.

  The latest gadget on sale to help Cantonese and Mandarin-speaking people improve their English is a multi-lingual pocket electronic dictionary, which won this year's Federation of Hong Kong Industries Consumer Product Design Award.

  Developed by the Hong Kong firm Group Sense (International) Ltd, the Instant-Dict EC863B not only translates over 130,000 English words into Cantonese and Mandarin, at the press of a button, but pronounces the word.

  Design technicians at Group Sense started developing talking dictionaries five years ago and this year's winning model - the seventh in the company's series - went on sale in October last year.

  After typing in an English word, the dictionary also will give verbal translations in Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese.

  Chinese characters can be typed into the dictionary and the English translation and word pronunciation given.

  However, the most endearing feature is verbally translating sentences while displaying the written sentence on screen.

  The dictionary, which costs $2,000, was designed with Cantonese travellers and students in mind, Thomas Tam Wai-tong, the firm's managing director, said.

  'Cantonese speakers can go into a European restaurant, press a button and the dictionary will ask all the right questions,' Mr Tam said.

  'While the dictionary is speaking, a translation of the sentence is printed in Cantonese, or the chosen language, on the screen.

  'It is a lot more than just a dictionary.'   English grammar and parts of speech would be easier to master using the dictionary, which gave users step-by-step instructions on how to form a sentence, he said.

  'After getting the definition and pronunciation of a word, the user can find out where it goes in an English sentence and find out what part of speech it is and if it changes with tense,' Mr Tam said.

  'For people who still cannot understand how the word should be used, the dictionary gives a variety of ways the word can be used in sentences.'   Explanations of synonyms and antonyms also were given, he said.

  Mr Tam said the company was the first in the world to design artificial intelligence sentence translation.

  Instead of giving a word-by-word definition of a sentence, the dictionary analysed an entire English sentence and translated it into Cantonese, he said.

  Cantonese-speaking professionals working in fields which used English terminology could expand their vocabulary using the dictionary's 'jargon' and 'slang' modes.

  Words are arranged in topics related to specialised fields, such as laboratories, classrooms, offices and Government bureaucracy.

  Mr Tam said another award-winning function of the EC863B was the personal planner, which included a telephone directory, calculator, world time schedule, alarm clock and a calendar.

  'With the dictionary, there is no excuse for people forgetting their mother's English and Cantonese birthdays,' Mr Tam said.

  'People can check the day their birthday falls on for the next 100 years and can also see what day their birthday fell on 100 years ago.'   Information stored on the dictionary can be transferred to hard or floppy disks.

  Other programmes include conversion tables which make it easier to do calculations and convert Taiwanese centimetres into metric or Imperial measures.

  Travellers also could key in the exchange rate for a number of countries, press a button, get conversions in Hong Kong, American and Australian dollars and in sterling.

  Mr Tam said the design team co-operated with many foreign partners to develop the talking dictionary which catered for Hong Kong's Cantonese speakers.

  'More than half of the students in Hong Kong have used the dictionary and we have sold over 100,000 in the first six months,' he said.

  'There is some competition in Hong Kong for similar products but we are the only company that emphasises Cantonese, which is why we hold more than 60 per cent of the market.'   The dictionary is the most advanced bilingual learning aid of the company's three main electronic educational products.

  Group Sense also won this year's Hong Kong Industries Certificate of Merit in Consumer Product Design for its Genius Book, for youngsters aged between three and eight who were learning English.

  Mr Tam said the company had spent two years and more than $7.72 million analysing the local market before coming up with its award-winning design.

  A cartridge is inserted into the book's plastic console and a picture card placed under a screen covered with a network of 'touch' sensors.

  When pictures on the touch panel are pressed, the book speaks.

  'Our research showed there was a large gap in the market for educational toys for younger children, who are not old enough to use the advanced talking dictionary,' Mr Tam said.

  'It is very easy to follow and is a lot of fun for children. It also improves hand-eye co-ordination and is designed to prepare children for school.' 



Dictionary's right on the button