शब्दनिधी (Shabdnidhi)

I was recently introduced to Shabdnidhi (http://myjavaserver.com/~hindi/shabdnidhi.jsp), a new English to Hindi Online Dictionary that I was very impressed . What's especially powerful about Shabdnidhi is that it provides contextual examples on how that word is used. And, the results are not (yet?) overcrowded like www.shabdkosh.com. Having said that though, I must give MANY kudos to shabdkosh for really pushing the Hindi Dictionary effort online. It has been an invaluable resource to me and all the GDL team here in Bagar for the last two years.

I sent an email to Debashish (one of the guys working on Shabdnidhi) with a few questions on how Shabdnidhi is different, and what, in his opinion, should people use. Debashish had a very candid and straightforward reply. Basically, he recommends using both Shabdnidhi and Shabdkosh.

My recommendation? Use Shabdnidhi if you're a general user. Use Shabdkosh if you can't find the meaning. Use Google Translator for what it's really most powerful: Translating entire web pages to get the gist of it. It's a game changing equation in some sense - it allows the Hindi user to at least get SOME meaning out of English language sites. However, like most online automated translators, it's nowhere close to a natural language translation. Ahhh, memories Babelfish and freetranslation from my Spanish class days.