Postcrossing Blog

Stories about the Postcrossing community and the postal world

Blog > Dictionaries for Postcrossers (re-post)

  icon
Hello!

Do you know how to say “Hello” in French… or Chinese? Ok, maybe you already know those ones, but how about “Thank you for your card!” in Norwegian or “Goodbye” in Dutch? If you wonder how to write these and other sentences, then you don’t need to search any more!

Sebastian (aka BlueJay) from Germany has put together an excellent resource for us: Dictionaries for Postcrossers. He compiled together the translation of several common Postcrossers sentences in 30 languages – and it keeps growing!

And if by chance your language is not there yet, he accepts new contributions so don’t be shy! :)

Tschüss!

43 comments so far

squino, Italy

Good Sebastian, I'm glad to see that your project is still growing. I hope to see new languages soon. Ciao

on
Ghiscari, Belgium

Too bad there are quite a few mistakes.

on
islander61, Bahamas

Great idea! Will check it out. Always wondered how to write AIRMAIL so I can put it on my cards.

on
siobhan, Germany

@Enitnerolf: Every language has English and German besides the language in question. It has nothing to do with the Netherlands or Dutch. But it's a dictionary compiled by a German member, so maybe that's not so hard to understand. ;-)

@Ghiscari: If you find a mistake, Sebastian is happy to fix it. At least that's my personal experience.

on
luadprata, Portugal

Great job!

on
Lorelai, Germany

Fantastic idea! Be sure I take more than one look...

on
Mysteria, Germany

Amazing! This is really helpful! :)

on
jabajbaj, Poland

Wow...really great job! I don't even want to think how much time it took :)
I have just one notice - "Hej" in polish is more like "Hello" than "Bye". Better words to say "bye" are "Narazie", "Pa" or "Cześć" (and the last one means also "Hello" ;p )

on
Urkatu, Spain

I already do that! When I know the language of my destinatary I write some words in her/his language. It is a great idea to know more about any language!

on
emotis, United States of America

What a great resource!! :)

on
olekse, Belgium

It's realy good thing! Wonderful job! Thank you, Sebastian!

on
Riutsi, Finland

Wonderful work!!! This will give pleasure for so many people! It made me happy today...

on
manojkamat1857, India

Hats off .

on
izmya, Czech Republic

The Czech part is perfect..good job :) Danke :)

on
Geminiscp, Portugal

:D it's quite funny, to have our "dictionary"...

on
ericdeng, Taiwan

Thanks for your kindness!

on
elagipsy, Netherlands

Are you going to print it in a booklet tht we can buy?

on
Love0592, Canada

That's really helpful, thanks a lot!

on
YITICH, Taiwan

Is great to see this dictionary!!
It can help me to know more about language: )

on
IfMyWordsCouldSpeak, Germany

Hey Sebastian coole Idee. Danke :) Zu dem Ungarischen kann ich dir sagen, dass diese 'Grüße aus..' noch etwas komplizierter ist. ból nimmt man -wie du zuvor schon bei "ich komme aus.." geschrieben hast- bei "e" und "i" und ből eher bei "a" ud "o" in dem Wort. Und bei Städten (Grüße aus Frankfurt) würde ich eher wieder wie du das zuvor schon schriebst "-ben" und "-ban" nehmen. Ungarisch ist wirklich kompliziert.

So in english so others can read my comment.. cool idea. But I have to say that the hungarian language is more complicated. I have something to note as I wrote.
hungarian is really complicated.
so best wishes from germany :)

thank you very much! Danke dir!

on
WinnieThePool, Taiwan

Good job Sebastian! It's quite helpful:*)

on
bornokyo, Philippines

A good idea! Please add the Tagalog language as well.

on
rosenbusch, Germany

A great idea and really helpful. If you find a mistake, don´t be so fussy. Send Sebastian a message.

on
pucky, Netherlands

Fun! Also a great help to translate into one's own language what is written by the sender! It seems to me most postcrossers ask to write in the senders language, and not in the receivers one!

on
WhiteKnight, Germany

Mi ĝojas, ke vi ne forgesis la "internacian lingvon Esperanto".
Glad to see you didn't forget the "Internationa Language Esperanto". :-)

on
El_Jenso, Germany

This is so great! I've always thought about how nice it would be to use at least "Hello" and "Bye" in the recievers language but up to now I've been too lazy to look it up by myself. Thanks a lot for your work! :)

on
DeNNiSW, Türkiye

Fantastic idea and great job! Thanks a lot! :)

on
jmtamayo, Philippines

Great idea! I just sent Sebastian a message regarding my native language, Filipino.

on
Blogger, United States of America

wonderful!!

on
CrimsonLullaby, Ukraine

Thank you!!! This idea is just geneous! This is what I've been looking for =)

on
anny01, Ukraine

Thank you very much and good luck!

on
noetnik, Netherlands

Sabastian thank you for this perfect project. Succes!!

on
batschuscho, Germany

I love it when people get great ideas like this. And that they join it with others just to make them happy - wonderful! =)

on
Necmi, Türkiye

fantastic, thx Sabastian...

on
ChristyLv, China

It's wonderful!!!

on
proto31, China

Thx! Very Helpful!

on
ForAgo34, Russia

It is a very nice idea to create a dictionary for postcrossers! It's also a good way to improve your knowledge of languages.
Russian part is beautiful. Also, it was very nice to see Esperanto here :3

on
Christa, Germany

I can do the Danish translation if you like !

on
mysweetlife63, United States of America

What a nice thing to do, thank you!

on
bluejay, Germany

Hello.

At first I have to send a real big "Thank you!" to all the contributors for the Postcrossing dictionary. I'm only the assembler / publisher. The dictionary would not exist without the help of so many Postcrossers.

I received a lot of messages the last days, which is great. There will be some corrections and even some new languages! I was really busy the last week, so I had no time for answering the messages or a posting here. Yesterday I was busy to convert the current dictionary into a new publishing system. It was more work as I expected, but it will make updates or new entries much easier!

The new address of the dictionary is http://wiki.inacker.de/~english/postcrossing/dict/

I will create a redirection from the "old" to the "new" address, so visitors will be sent to the current version automatically.

But now I want to ask you for something:

If you find a mistake: Please let me know. I'm only the publisher and I don't even understand 10% of the currently available languages.

If your own native(?) language is missing: I and other Postcrossers would be glad if you could send me a translation.

If your native(?) language is available: I would be glad if you could proofread it...

If you have a recommendation for a new term or phrase: Please let me know, so I can include it at least for your language.

Many thanks (again) to everyone, who contributed or sent me an encourageing message.

Tschüss, Sebastian

on
Ssabalongo, India

something different yet aligned with the Postcrossing ! Amazing !

on
martymarty, Czech Republic

Hello Sebastian, it´s just an amazing idea and job! Thank you for compiling this plus creating it available online.

If you or anybody could help me how can I fix my PC so I can see i.e. Chinese characters (now I only have squares instead).... Thank you.

on
SaulyEsti, Spain

Congratulations! (Felicidades! In spanish) This project is fantastic. We practice english writting postcards. Grettings!

on

Back to top