No longer will the definition link on Google’s search results page redirect to you to Answers.com, instead you’ll be taken to Google Dictionary (google.com/dictionary).
Its minimalist design is a double-edged sword. It’s less cluttered with ads, but there’s also less info (the stuff you want). There’s no wiki, less idioms, a weak thesaurus, and the pronunciation sound clips are hidden! The clips only appear when selecting translations from the drop down menu, for example when translating “answer” into Spanish (google.com/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=es|en&q=answer&hl=en). Apparently Google (wrongly) assumed native speakers already know how to pronounce all words in the English language or that they can just use the intuitive pronunciation key (answer = /’ɑːnsəʳ, ‘æn-/). Even more strange, Japanese has not been included in Google Dictionary while languages like Chinese have! (Are those guys even allowed on the internet?)
Fortunately Japanese was included in Google’s other new feature, “translated search” which can be accessed through the “show options” link on the search results page. Being able to search the ENTIRE internet without language barriers is certainly a great feature but I can’t help but wonder why hasn’t it been integrated with Google News?
