HowTo ... look up a word really fast

When you need to look up a word quickly - what do you do?

(We're assuming for a moment that you're at your computer. If not, then add an extra step: Go to you computer.)


You could open your paper dictionary (which you keep next to your computer, of course), you could surf to a dictionary website (like MDBG.net or zhongwen.com - which would be even faster if you've bookmarked it), or you could phone a friend.


So here's how I do it ...

I might be at work, sending an email which contains the word "fortunately", and (at the back of my mind, because the front of my mind is for work only) I challenge myself. I can remember that the word in Mandarin is "xìng hǎo" (see the WordPack post on this) - but suddenly I can't remember how to write "xìng" in Chinese.

For a quick lookup, I use:

• {apple}{tab} (switch to Firefox)
• {apple} T (open a blank tab)
• type: m xing hao {enter}

And that's it! Just a few keystrokes which take less than 3 seconds. The listing appears like this, and it's easy to see in the results which hanzi I'm looking for. It's just like magic (but without the annoying background music).


HowTo ... do it

• (I use a Mac, but it's easy to make this work on Windows)
• Switch to Firefox (and if you're not already using it, tsk tsk)
• In your Bookmarks Menu right at the top, there is probably one called "Quick Searches" (create it if you don't have it)
• Create a new bookmark in that folder with the following characteristics: Name="MDBG", Location="http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddictbasic&wdrst=0&wdeac=1&wdqb=%s", Keyword="m"
• Don't type the inverted commas above, just the content.

HowTo ... use it

From now on, when you begin a URL with the letter m, Firefox will send everything that you type after that into the URL you have entered, in place of the %s that appears in the address. So here are some examples of how you might use this:

• m xing hao
• m shi3
• m shuō
  
• m milkshake
• m on good terms
  
• m 纯文字页
• m 开*
  

Variations

• You can use different keywords instead of m (like 'lookup', 'dictionary', etc.) - but a single letter is the fastest.
• Other browsers probably have a similar functionality to Firefox, so if you have the details on how to do it for them, please make a note in the comments below.
• You can use other Net dictionaries, although in order to do this, the word or phrase that is being looked up must appear in the URL. For example, it doesn't work with zhongwen.com. If you have the location-text for a different dictionary, please leave it in the comments below for others to use.

OK, so your work here is done. Now go look something up.