The best free dictionaries for Kindle and Kobo: how to install and switch between them

· 3 min readTool GuideSoftware & Apps#dictionaries#kindle#kobo#language-learning#free

The built-in dictionary on your Kindle or Kobo is fine. Free community dictionaries are better — larger word databases, more example sentences, and bilingual options that Amazon doesn’t bundle. Here’s how to get them.

For Kindle: download and install

Kindle dictionaries are .mobi files. Installation is straightforward:

  1. Download the dictionary file (see recommended sources below)
  2. Connect your Kindle via USB
  3. Copy the .mobi file into the documents/dictionaries folder
  4. Eject, then go to Settings → Language & Dictionaries → Dictionaries
  5. Select your new dictionary as the default for its language

Kindle supports multiple dictionaries simultaneously. You can set a primary dictionary and switch between them by tapping the dictionary name in the lookup popup.

  • Oxford Dictionary of English — The gold standard. 350,000 words with usage examples. Search for “Oxford Dictionary Kindle mobileread” to find the community-converted version.
  • Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate — American English preferred. Concise definitions, good for quick lookups. Available on the same forums.
  • WordNet 3.0 — Free and comprehensive. Not as polished as Oxford/Merriam-Webster, but completely legal to distribute.
  • JMdict (Japanese→English) — The standard. 180,000 entries. Download from github.com/jrf/jmdict-kindle.
  • Spanish→English — Multiple options on MobileRead forums. The “Herman Martinez” conversion is the most popular.
  • French→English, German→English, Italian→English — All available on MobileRead’s Dictionary forum.
  • Chinese→English — The CC-CEDICT conversion by MobileRead user “Doitsu” is the most comprehensive free option.

For Kobo: download and install

Kobo uses a different dictionary format (.dic files in a zip). The process:

  1. Download a Kobo-compatible dictionary zip file
  2. Connect your Kobo via USB
  3. Navigate to .kobo/dict/ (hidden folder — enable hidden files in your file manager)
  4. Copy the zip file directly into this folder — don’t extract it
  5. Eject and restart your Kobo

Kobo dictionary files are harder to find than Kindle ones. The best source: github.com/jrf/kobo-dicts — a community-maintained repository of converted dictionaries in Kobo format.

For Kobo, you can also install custom dictionaries directly from the device if you enable developer mode (Settings → Device Information → tap “Version” repeatedly → enable developer options). This gives you a menu to install dictionaries without a USB connection.

Managing multiple dictionaries

On Kindle, tap the dictionary name in the lookup popup to switch between installed dictionaries. This is incredibly useful for language learners who want both a bilingual dictionary and an English definition dictionary active at the same time.

On Kobo, go to Settings → Language & Dictionaries to manage which dictionary is active for each language.

Community dictionaries are conversions of publicly available dictionary data (like JMdict and WordNet) that are licensed for free distribution. The Oxford and Merriam-Webster conversions exist in a gray area — they’re ubiquitous in the community and have been available for over a decade without takedown requests, but they’re technically copyrighted. Use them at your own discretion. JMdict, WordNet, and CC-CEDICT are completely free and legal.

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