Yourdailygerman Advent Calendar
“Quite The Opposite“
♥♥♥♥♥♥
Hello everyone,
and welcome back to the epic Yourdailygerman Advent Calendar, today for the 6th of December. And that means in Germany it is Nikolaustag (St. Nicholas Day).
On Nikolaustag, the children wake up to little surprises stuffed into their shoes… yes, I am not kidding. As a kid, I would empty out my shoes from chocolate, oranges, nuts and fir branches and then put them on to walk to school.
But yeah, the tradition is that St. Nicholas (who is kind of like a more austere version of Santa Clause) comes by and drops a few small treats,
and so you’ll get a little treat too.
A new feature for the dictionary on this site… some of you might also call it… search function :).
So yeah… drumroll please…. ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to bring you
Opposites
Yes, that’s right.
From now on, my dictionary will start showing the opposite for a word.
Or I should say, it will show the opposite for a MEANING.
As you know, words often have more than one meaning, or idea, as I call them.
And these ideas might have very different opposites. first idea might have a totally different opposite than the second one.
Like for anziehen for instance..
- anziehen (to put on clothes) – ausziehen (to take off clothes)
- anziehen (to attract) – abstoßen (to repulse, to push away)
- anziehen (to fasten the handbrake) – lösen (to losen the handbrake)
And in my dictionary, you can now see the opposite for each idea individually ( if it has one, of course).
Here’s how it looks:
And of course, you can also click on it to get to the entry for that word.
Now, as of now, I am only using ONE opposite per idea. So sometimes, I have to pick one of several options and there might be other words that can also express the opposite. If you come across one, I’m happy to talk about it in the comments of the entry. ‘
And another thing I have to say… the system is pretty darn new. Vitor, one of the readers here who helped me with some of the coding, and I have only finished it like a couple of weeks ago and I haven’t had much time to actually enter many opposites yet.
So yeah… lot of the obvious ones will be missing.
But I’ll gradually add more and more till everything is covered.
And by the way… we’re working on a similar feature that shows you how common each idea is so you know if it’s something you should add to your vocabulary deck…. I mean… vocabulary.
Cool. So that’s the new feature and I’m really happy with it, so I hope you like it, too.
And I’m curious how you like the dictionary in general.
It’s been about a year since I put up the first “real” version of it and I have added a ton of stuff over the last year, both entries and functions.
But I also anonymously track the search attempts that fail to get an idea what people are looking for, and we recently crossed 10.000 failed searches, so I’m not sure how satisfied you actually are.
That’s why I have prepared a little questionnaire :).
So if you have a couple of more minutes, I’d be really happy to get some feedback.
And please be honest. If it sucks, it sucks, if it’s great, it’s great.
***




***
Let me know in the comments if you have any additional feedback or ideas how I can improve it. Any input is welcome, really, so no worries about hurting my feelings. I can take whisky, so I’m oka… I mean, I can take criticism. That’s what I meant.
Anyway, have a great day, and I’ll see you tomorrow.
It would have been nice to have a ranking instead of a one choice radio button. A couple of those questions I had two things I thought were important but one was more important than the other. They were close though.
I wish I could step through the dictionary alphabetically, like a hardcopy dictionary. Just go on a word journey without a specific word in mind!
I’ll be adding a function like that next year, hopefully. Meanwhile, you could just enter “a” into search and start scrolling :)
I had no idea it was a thing! I will start to use it now :)
I personally always look up your dictionary and it is totally awesome. I learn so much from it and the examples also the familie words that came along with it when i search for the root word. Honestly it will be even much better if you put all the examples with it and more words. But hey you did a great job in making a dictionary. It is my daily routine to sweep in and search for some new words. A huge thank you for that and the membership
Thanks a lot, I’m glad to hear you like it so much :). I’ll keep improving it over time.
Picky, picky (but I know you love this stuff): I would say I emptied my shoes “of” (not from) the treats. : )
Yeah, learning these combinations literally never ends. Like… never. If anyone feels bad about getting one wrong in German… don’t worry. It’s normal!!
The dictionary is thoughtfully constructed and very useful.
I would like to thank the extra payers of daily German cause because of them many including me can study for free .Who can’t pay because of various reasons.You are seriously so great
Opposites/antonyms definitely welcome, but etymology is what I like most in dictionary entries. (The dictionary version of character development?) Rare in one language to another dictionaries, but you could be a trend setter. I know you’ve been working towards a book, which I hope I haven’t missed while not paying attention for much of this year.
Now, I’m working on two books, because the progress on one book was just sooo fast (kidding). But yeah, I’m not alone on one of them, which is very much what I need… a team effort!! You’ll get a sneak peek very soon.
Any chance a mobile app (for either Apple or Android) will be developed for your dictionary?
Not in the near future, I can’t afford a programmer for that.
FYI – The fancy but correctly used word for “opposite” in this context is actually “antonym.” Just trying to help. Very neat search function! Thank you!
Ist das Wörterbuch am google app verfügbar??
Neee, noch nicht. Das dauert noch eine Weile.
I’ll admit that I didn’t know that YDG had a dictionary, but I’ve never actually thought of using YDG’s built-in search to look up a word meaning. The main reason is just that it’s usually simpler to type the word into Google. If I do that for the above example “anziehen”, Google directly gives me back a set of English translations (attract, tighten, put on), and then follows that up with a set of synonyms and related words. Below that come a set of links to dictionaries and so forth with more in-depth information, including (some way down, I’m afraid) the YDG page for the word. The YDG definition page is a bit friendlier than some of the other dictionaries, but it’s not dramatically different. Note: your experience will likely be different if your primary language isn’t English!
If I want the opposite of a word, I would just type “anziehen opposite”, and Google gives me back “abstoßen”and “ausziehen”, and, amusingly, just below that, a link to this page… :)
I come to YDG for fascinating articles about grammar, word families, and usage, and for that, I think it’s a unique resource. But the straight dictionary definitions are not so different from other things out there, IMHO. Just my two pfennig.
BTW, hot tip: you can effectively search YDG directly from Google just by adding the letters “ydg” to your search. For instance “anziehen ydg” returns the YDG page as the top hit.
What sets my dictionary apart is the usage notes :). Google will not tell you what context to use a word in and which one to avoid. I’ll do that based on my experience.
I didn’t know that YDG was enough for google, btw… that’s a great tip!!
Like… I thought one has to type the whole thing, yourdailygerman.
Yes, I’m a bit surprised it works… Those letters do appear in the HTML source for the page, and they’re a relatively rare letter combination, so I’m guessing that adding them is just enough to bump up the Google’s ranking for your site with respect to the search query.
Stimmt das: “Zeit für einen kleine Überraschung”? Sollte es nicht “eine” sein?
Nein, du hast recht. “eine kleine Überraschung”. Habe ich das im Newsletter falsch?
Yep
Hello,
Let’s do the opposite of “not-typos”:
“Santa Clause” (Santa Claus)
“pick on of several options” (pick one of several options)
“lot of obvious ones” (a lot of obvious ones)
“I also anonymously rack the search attempts” (I also anonymously track the search attempts)
I love the dictionary, but it sometimes fails to give a link to the article. The opposite feature is a great addition, as it will indeed give you an even better feel for the word you looked for in the first place, which is pretty darn useful when a word has more than one meaning – which seems to be almost every word in German :)
How common an idea or word is would also be awesome. I often find that a spend time and effort learning words that Germans rarely use in daily talk, so that other idea of yours is also great. I know coding all this stuff and adding all these words, likns, etc. is a lot of work and very time consuming, so thank you for being our Nikolaus!
Bis morgen!
The coding is the fun part, to be honest.
It’s the entering that really gets under my skin. I’ve done a bit too much of that this year, so now I get a visceral reaction whenever I start doing it. So I stop :). I’m just entering opposites at the moment, not new words.
As for missing article links… there are lots of words in the dictionary that are not part of any article, so they’ll not have a link.
Sometimes, there’s a dummy article showing up, saying like “s” or “p” or whatever. That’s the one I used to enter the word (I can only enter them in the article editor). I’ll have to fix that, so those don’t get displayed at all.
Ironic Elsa, that you caught so many typos but not your own (“likns”). ;)
For that she would have to read her comment again. Typos happen. Correcting them doesn’t mean that one doesn’t make any oneself. No picking on Elsa!! Her corrections are helping everyone having a better reading experience!
Danke für den Hinweis auf das Wörterbuch! Habe überhaupt nicht gewusst, dass es sowas auf dieser Seite gibt, aber das liegt an mir. Ich probiere es aus.
Great! The idea of labelling according to CEFR reference levels is a very good one, also for teachers
Hmmm, I’m wasn’t planning on doing it that way, but instead just how common I “feel” the idea is.
That’s the thing… I will assign the “commenness” to each idea, which is something CEFR doesn’t do, I think.
Maybe that could be an extra marking, but I’ll see. Still working on that feature.
The opposites idea is a really good one. I didn’t know you had a dictionary, so I’m going to be able to make use of it now. I admit I mainly use DeepL, sometimes with a supplement of Google Translate, to find meanings.
Well, my search function is basically a dictionary mixed with a content finder.
But it’s nowhere near as complete as real dictionary. So if you just need a translation for a random word, I’d stick with your options.
Only if you need usage advice or you want to dig a little, then it’s useful.
The other commenters seem to have said it better, but I really like the opposites feature. I’ve always especially liked the usage notes in the entries/posts themselves, this seems like a helpful addition. Definitely for this user.
Great feature! Gives a much better feeling for the definition and very often, exactly what I wished other dictionaries had as I need to know what the opposite is – not necessarily an antonym, but the opposite, like in your example above.
I’m trying to make it “intuitive”. I can’t think of an example right now, but for some words, the “opposite” I chose might be debatable on a technical/logical level, but it’s the one that most people would be looking for. Of course, I can’t know that, but I’m trying my best :)
That’s a feature I don’t think I’ve seen before in a dictionary. I think it’ll be really useful to build connections between words.
The third question was the hardest to answer. I went with the translations and usage notes, but the examples are a close second. Links to articles and word families aren’t far behind. I would add two other things: the audio right there in the entry and the formatting. A lot of times I go cross-eyed when I’m reading an online dictionary and the word has a lot of meanings. The way they’re numbered and separated here is easy on the eyes.
If I could have one wish, it would be a way to navigate the dictionary in addition to the search function. I know I’ve said that before, but I noticed that I don’t use the dictionary as much now that it goes through the search function. Sometimes I search through Google when no results come up, but other times I move on. I feel bad about that because I know I’m missing out on a lot. I used to spend a few minutes here and there just scrolling through and would have one or a couple “aha” moments from the usage notes and examples. Stuff I never thought I wanted to learn that day, but was glad I did.
As a kid, I was the weird one who read the dictionary, so I understand if I’m the odd one out on this, but I just thought I’d throw it out there.
Still am the one that gets “lost” in the dictionary. One word leads to another.
Ereaders are my savior: click on a word, get the definition/translation and keep the flow.
When I want to spend time getting lost in the dictionary, I go to the bookshelf and pull one out and start to durchblättern.
What’s the opposite of durchblättern?
Ha, I can’t think of an opposite for that one. Do you have something in mind, an act that is not “nicht durchblättern”?
Das Buch zuschlagen und eine Runde zocken.
One word leads to another – yeah, exactly :)
Habe auch so was ausgedacht: sich auf einer Seite festbeißen/verbeißen.
Oder: sich auf einer Seite stecken bleiben/ hängen bleiben.
Oder was Ähnliches – wie deins.
Also wie wenn man einen Text liest und jeden Satz gefühlt so 5 mal lesen muss, weil das Gehirn die Taschen gepackt hat und in den Urlaub gefahren ist. Auf Englisch nenne ich das “a******e brain”.
Oh, das kenne ich. Das passiert bei mir bei Marketing-Texten und Kunstbeschreibungen. Nach einer Zeile ist sagt Gehirn “Aight, Imma head out.” und ich kann dem Text nicht mehr folgen.
Hmmm, das sind gute Vorschläge!
Glad you like the formatting. I’m still not satisfied with it, but I’m trying to have it clean and also fit on one mobile screen.
The database is set up such that the examples are actually associated with the idea, not the word. So I can number those, too, or I can give you the option just to display the ones for a certain idea.
I just didn’t do that yet, because I wanted to have them on there quick and I’m also working on a “save to deck” feature, which I think is more useful.
As for getting lost in the dictionary… you can totally still do that.
Just search for a letter and you’ll get a fairly random selection of words that loads dynamically as you scroll. The only difference is the initial “dictionary” screen.
But yeah..you a nerd out :)