Using an Amazon Kindle with “other” languages can be a frustrating experience, but there are also a number of things that actually work fairly well, once one has figured them out. By “other” languages, I mean languages different from the default language of your device. Here are some things I have figured out for multilingual reading. Unless written otherwise, the text refers to Kindle Paperwhite, second generation.
Rule 1: There are no rules. What works on one reader or device with one software version may not work on another.
The first thing you want to do, is to find and buy a book in another language. To do this, use the web interface and search for a word that is likely to appear in the other language. In the search results, you may get a possibility to filter by language in the left column of the page. If you get that, use the filter. Otherwise, just search again with other search terms until you find a book in the language you want. If you just want to try things out, sort the search results by price, and choose a cheap or free book. Buy it.
The next thing you want to do is to install a dictionary on your device. This ought to be easy, but can be a hit or miss. Open the book you just downloaded. Press your finger on one word. Let go, and there may already be a translation for you. If not, you may get the option to download dictionaries. If you do not get the option to download dictionaries here, you can try one of several things: On your device, go to the home screen (tap the little house icon in upper left corner). Tap Cloud. Drag repeatedly over the screen to go to the last (yes!) page of All Items. On some devices you can also tap on the page number in the bottom right corner, and type in the last page. You will get to a folder called Dictionaries. Open it. Tap the dictionaries you want to install.
Another option is to use the web interface. Go to your account. Go to Manage Content and Devices. Go to Your Content > Show > Dictionaries and User Guides. You can use the search box to limit the list. Look for a dictionary for the language you are after. Click on the three dots (...) to the left of the name. Select Deliver. Select a Device and Deliver.
Here Amazon has created a trap for us. If the device list contains greyed out items, those readers are unable to use that particular dictionary. I have found no way to figure out which dictionary works on which device, without trying, which often means buying the device. I contacted Amazon’s support team, and it took them more than a week to figure out that an old Kindle Paperwhite was not able to use a Dutch dictionary.
Some more examples: The Dutch and Russian dictionaries do not work on the first generation Kindle Paperwhite, but they work on the second generation provided it has the firmware version 5.6.5. Note that they do not work on the first generation, even with firmware 5.6.5. The Dutch dictionary works with the current (December 2015) Kindle reader for iOS (iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch), but the Russian dictionary does not work with the Kindle reader for iOS. It is basically a wild guess, if the device you buy will support the dictionary you need.
I currently have dictionaries in the following languages: Chinese (simplified), Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. Some of them are bilingual like French-English or Italian-English, and some of them are monolingual, like French-French. You can let them work together, so if you do not find a word in the French-English dictionary, when reading a book, you can quickly change to a French-French dictionary, and see if you have more luck.
The dictionaries are not perfect. Far from it. The Kindle finds some grammatical forms, but not all. I have had big problems with this in both Russian and Italian. When the Kindle does not find a word, it reverts to Wikipedia. This means that it is a very good idea to get a 3G version of the Kindle if you use dictionaries a lot in locations where you do not have access WiFi.
Another issue is that the dictionaries may become incredibly slow over time. I have not figured out what causes this, but some things that may cause this are:
- Vocabulary builder and Word Wise. Switch them off in the settings, if you get problems.
- Switching between dictionaries. When I have read books in both Russian and Dutch for some time, both dictionaries seem to become slow. Solution: finish one book, before you start the next.
- Too long usage. If the dictionaries get slow, restart the Kindle. That speeds them up again, at least temporarily.
Next thing is to type in foreign languages, so you can search for text and add comments. If the language is a European language, you may be able to get away with the keyboard that is there by default. For example, to type ç, tap and hold on the c-key. Remove the finger. You will get the option to choose from variants of c, and among them ç.
If you want to type in Russian, Japanese or Chinese, that is not an option, so you need to activate the foreign keyboard. You can keep several keyboards at the same time, and switch between them while typing. To activate a keyboard, tap on the three horizontal lines in the upper right corner. Tap on Settings. Tap on Device Options. Tap on Languages and Dictionaries. Tap on Keyboards. Select the ones you need. For Chinese, there seems to be only pinyin input. For Japanese, I found only Romaji input. For basic short input, those options should be fine. Once you have selected the keyboards you want, tap on OK in the lower right corner. (This is a potential trap. You need to tap on OK. It is not enough to just leave the page with the list of keyboards.)
To switch between keyboards while typing, tap on the little globe symbol next to the space bar.
Those are the main points I figured out to read multiple languages on a Kindle.
There is just one more detail. You may encounter multilingual books, like Война и мир (War and peace), which is written in both Russian and quite a lot of French. If you want to look up a French word in such a book, the Kindle seems to be able to figure out which language it is. When the Kindles does not identify the right language, you can force it to choose a dictionary for another language, by tapping on the dictionary name at the bottom of the dictionary window. You will only see dictionaries installed on the device, so you may have to go through the install a dictionary section above again.
Hopefully, some of this information will apply to your particular device and your languages. Enjoy the multilingual reading!
War and Peace in mixed French and Russian. The French dictionary works on an iPhone, but the Russian one does not.
