Ectaco Partner ER850 User manual

ECTACO®Partner®ER850
Hand-held Electronic Language Teacher®, Text Translator,
Talking Dictionary, and Audio PhraseBook™
USER MANUAL

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ECTACO, Inc. assumes no responsibility for any damage or loss resulting from the use of
this manual.
ECTACO, Inc. assumes no responsibility for any loss or claims by third parties, which
may arise through the use of this product.
ECTACO, Inc. assumes no responsibility for any damage or loss caused by deletion of
data as a result of malfunction, repairs, or battery replacement. Be sure to back up all
important data on other media to avoid data loss.
The contents of this manual are subject to change without notice.
No part of this manual shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
permission from ECTACO, Inc.
Partner®is a registered trademark of ECTACO, Inc., NY, USA.
© 1990–2008 ECTACO, Inc., New York, USA.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks
of their respective owners.
All rights reserved.

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FCC Statement
This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following
two conditions: (1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) This device
must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired
operation.
Warning: Changes or modifications to this unit not expressly approved by the party
responsible for compliance could void the user's authority to operate the equipment.
Note: This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B
digital device, pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules. These limits are designed to provide
reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation. This
equipment generates, uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed
and used in accordance with the instructions, may cause harmful interference to radio
communications.
However, there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation.
If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television reception, which
can be determined by turning the equipment off and on, the user is encouraged to try to
correct the interference by one or more of the following measures:
•Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna.
•Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver.
•Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the
receiver is connected.
•Consult the dealer or an experienced radio/TV technician for help.

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CONTENTS
GENERAL DESCRIPTION ...............................................................................................6
Introduction .....................................................................................................................6
General View .................................................................................................................. 8
Power Supply..................................................................................................................8
How to Recharge the Battery........................................................................................8
SD Card ..........................................................................................................................9
PC Communication .........................................................................................................9
Initialization .....................................................................................................................9
Keyboard ...................................................................................................................... 10
Display and Main Menu ................................................................................................ 11
Main Menu..................................................................................................................11
Sidebar ......................................................................................................................... 12
On-screen Keyboard..................................................................................................... 13
ECTACO C-Pen®.......................................................................................................... 13
Windows ....................................................................................................................... 14
Pop-up Toolbar ............................................................................................................. 15
Pop-up Menus............................................................................................................... 16
Parts of Speech, Gender Labels, Abbreviations ........................................................... 17
Pronunciation of Words and Sentences ........................................................................ 18
Online Manual............................................................................................................... 19
DICTIONARIES .............................................................................................................. 19
Dictionary...................................................................................................................... 19
Spell-checker Vector Ultima™ .................................................................................... 20
Adding and Deleting User Entries............................................................................... 20
Adding Entries to FlashCards ..................................................................................... 21
Options ....................................................................................................................... 21
WordNet Dictionary....................................................................................................... 21
Audio PhraseBook ........................................................................................................ 22
Basics .........................................................................................................................22
Categories: Subtopics, Useful words, You may hear..................................................23
Options ....................................................................................................................... 23
Speech Recognition.................................................................................................... 23
Text Translation ............................................................................................................ 24
English Idioms............................................................................................................... 24
Irregular Verbs .............................................................................................................. 25
Usage of Audio PhraseBook for Foreign Language Studies ......................................... 25

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LANGUAGE TEACHER®................................................................................................ 26
Language Teacher®...................................................................................................... 26
Alphabet ..................................................................................................................... 27
Words ......................................................................................................................... 27
Phrases ...................................................................................................................... 27
Dialogs........................................................................................................................27
FlashCards.................................................................................................................... 27
Creating New Sets and Adding Entries to FlashCards ............................................... 28
FlashCards .................................................................................................................29
Pockets....................................................................................................................... 29
Translation Test .......................................................................................................... 30
Spell It Right ............................................................................................................... 30
Hangman ...................................................................................................................... 30
USA Interview ............................................................................................................... 31
ENTERTAINMENT ......................................................................................................... 32
Audio Books.................................................................................................................. 32
Audio Player.................................................................................................................. 32
Voice Recorder ............................................................................................................. 33
Calendar .......................................................................................................................34
Agenda View, Day View, Calendar ............................................................................. 34
Adding Appointments.................................................................................................. 34
Viewing, Editing, and Deleting Appointments ............................................................. 35
Tasks ............................................................................................................................ 35
Adding New Task........................................................................................................ 35
Managing Tasks ......................................................................................................... 36
EXTRAS..........................................................................................................................36
Calculator...................................................................................................................... 36
World Time.................................................................................................................... 37
Size Equivalents ........................................................................................................... 37
Metric Conversion ......................................................................................................... 37
Settings......................................................................................................................... 38
Standard/Headset Settings......................................................................................... 38
Power Options ............................................................................................................ 38
Local Date and Local Time ......................................................................................... 39
Interface Language and Font Size.............................................................................. 39

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GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Introduction
Congratulations on your purchase of the high-end class ECTACO Partner®ER850 Hand-
held Electronic Language Teacher®, Text Translator, Talking Dictionary, and Audio
PhraseBook™! The product you have purchased is the result of the combined efforts of
the ECTACO team of linguists, engineers, and programmers. You are now the owner of
one of the most advanced electronic devices ever produced for translation purposes and
language studies.
ECTACO Partner®ER850 features:
•Talking dictionary of 1,100,000 words in total. The dictionary database includes
specialized vocabulary: business – 25,000 words, finance – 57,000 words, law –
69,000 words, medicine – 34,000 words, oil and gas – 43,000 words, information
technologies and telecommunications – 24,000 words
•WordNet dictionary – 70,000 words with definitions
•Unlimited voice function based on TTS (Text-to-Speech) technology
•Phonetic transcription
•Instant reverse translation
•Look-up function
•Advanced word recognition and MorphoFinder™
•Professionally narrated Audio PhraseBook™ with more than 14,000 phrases,
ECTACO Speech Recognition system
•Vector Ultima™ spell-checker
•State-of-the-art Full-text Machine Translation Program
•English idioms and irregular verbs
•ECTACO Speech Recognition based tutorial with graphical testing system
•Linguistic games: FlashCards, Pockets, Spell it Right, Translation Test, Hangman
•USA Interview
•Audio Tours for the Louvre Museum, the Orsay Museum, Versailles, the Historic Paris
Walk

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•Audio Player with mp3 support
•Calendar
•Tasks
•Size Equivalents
•Metric Conversion
•World Time
•Voice Recorder
•Calculator
•Bilingual interface
•Russian Standard and Phonetic keyboard layouts
•Backlight
•SD slot
•mini-USB port
•Headset jack
•The device is compatible with the ECTACO C-Pen®hand-held scanner for text
recognition and translation.
Device is powered by AC/DC adapter (Travel Charger) and rechargeable battery (all
included in the standard package).
Note: Always use the original accessories manufactured by ECTACO, Inc.

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General View
The general view and essential features of ECTACO Partner®ER850 are shown below.
Power Supply
ECTACO Partner®ER850 is powered by a special Li-Polymer rechargeable battery.
When the battery becomes weak, the red LED signal starts blinking. In that case, the
voice function will be disabled in order to prevent excessive discharge of the battery and
a resulting loss of data in RAM. To restore full functionality of the device, recharge the
battery as soon as possible.
How to Recharge the Battery
•Make sure the battery is inserted in the battery compartment.
Note: Only a special rechargeable battery, special charger, and special USB cable may
be used with your ECTACO Partner®ER850. Use of an inappropriate external power
supply may cause failure of the device and will void the warranty.
•Connect the AC/DC adapter to your device via the mini-USB port (see General View),
or connect your device to your PC using the special USB cable. The red LED signal
shows that the battery is recharging.

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LED status: blinking blue – recording is in progress or data being transferred; blinking
red – SD card is being scanned, or the battery is critically low.
Note: Charge the battery overnight prior to the first use of the device.
SD Card
Before you start using your ECTACO Partner®ER850, please make sure the SD card
(included in the standard package) is installed into the SD slot of the device. If the card is
not installed, slide it into the slot located on the right-hand edge of the device – the
contacts of the card face up, label face down. Push the card gently until it clicks into
place. To eject the card, just push it in slightly.
PC Communication
The PC Communication function allows you to manage files and folders stored on the SD
card. For example, you may wish to add music files.
•Ensure the SD card is installed into the device.
•Turn the device on.
•Connect the device to your PC using the special USB cable and the mini-USB port
located on the device (see General View).
Please wait while your PC detects the device. On the device screen, you will see the
Device is ready to work with PC message.
•Navigate to the newly detected removable disk on your PC to browse through the files
stored on the SD card.
Note: Do not modify the content of the system folder. Do not delete system files.
•To disconnect the device, just unplug the cable.
Note: Always back up your important data! Neither the manufacturer nor the dealers
assume any responsibility for lost or corrupted data.
Initialization
In the rare event that the data on the screen is corrupted or a program is not responding
properly, you will need to perform a reset.
The Reset button is located on the left-hand side of the keyboard (over the key). It
can be accessed with any thin object like a paper clip. Never use a needle or a sharp pin
for this purpose since it can damage the device.
•Unscrew the removable cap of the stylus – it will serve you as a reset pin.

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•Press the Reset button.
On completion of the reboot, you will see the calibration screen with five targets,
appearing one after another as you tap them with the stylus. Press to accept
the new calibration settings.
Keyboard
The American standard QWERTY keyboard (combined with the Russian layout) allows
you to enter any word just in seconds. Each set of national characters is linked to its
language input mode. Language modes can be toggled by pressing the key.
The function and control keys are described below.
Note: Key1+Key2 here and further on signifies the combination of keys to use – first
press and hold Key1, then press and release Key2.
Key Function(s)
Turn the device on or off
Reset Re-initialize system
Use speech recognition (available in Audio PhraseBook)
Show or hide the pop-up toolbar
Use speech function / Listen to the pronunciation of the source item
in Audio PhraseBook, English Idioms, Irregular Verbs (press
+)
Close active window / Cancel
Delete character to the left of cursor
Switch focus between displayed controls (check boxes etc.)
+key
Press and hold this key down to type in uppercase or to enter
additional symbols1. Press this key twice to toggle the Caps Lock
mode.
+, Launch spell-checker
1Additional symbols are marked on the numeric keys.

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+
Switch between English, Russian, and Russian Phonetic keyboard
layouts. Russian Phonetic keyboard layout: a-а, b-б, c-ц/ч, d-д, e-
е/э, f-ф, g-г/ж, h-х, i-и, j-й, k-к, l-л, m-м, n-н, o-о, p-п, q-я, r-р, s-с,
t-т, u-у/ю, v-в, w-ш/щ, x-ь/ъ, y-ы, z-з. Press to enter letters
shown after the slash (/).
Switch language or translation direction
Execute
, , , Move cursor or highlight / Scroll lines
, Page Up / Page Down / Switch Main Menu sections
Enter space
Display and Main Menu
ECTACO Partner®ER850 features a touch screen (320 x 240 pixels) with a windows-
driven graphical interface. The Main Menu consists of four sections, which visually
organize access to the ECTACO Partner®ER850 applications.
Note: Tapping screen items is preferably done with the supplied pointing device known
as a stylus, which, when not in use, is kept in a special slot at the side of the device's
back panel (see General View).
Main Menu
•To display the Main Menu, turn the device on, and/or exit the currently running
application. The Main Menu consists of the following sections:
Dictionaries
Language Teacher®
Entertainment
Extras
At the top of the screen, you will see the battery life indicator.
The Main Menu sections are described below. The contents of the Main Menu depend on
product model.
•Use the Dictionaries section to access Dictionary, Audio PhraseBook, Text
Translation, English Idioms, and Irregular Verbs.

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•Use the Language Teacher section to access Language Teacher®, FlashCards,
Hangman, and USA Interview.
•Use the Entertainment section to access Audio Books, Audio Player, Voice
Recorder, Calendar, and Tasks.
•Use the Extras section to access Calculator, World Time, Size Equivalents, Metric
Conversion, and Settings.
To open a section, do one of the following:
•tap the section icon;
•press the numeric key that corresponds to the section number.
•When in a section, tap the desired application name. Alternatively, highlight it and
then press . The application will open.
•To close an application, tap at the upper right of the screen, or just press .
Sidebar
Twelve items of ECTACO Partner®ER850 have their permanent touch-sensitive shortcut
buttons on the Sidebar to the right and left of the screen.
Dictionary Toolbar
Audio PhraseBook Say
Audio Player Record/recognize

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Calculator Volume
Settings On-screen keyboard
Back Forward
On-screen Keyboard
The on-screen keyboard is a set of virtual keys displayed on the screen. This set of keys
simulates the conventional physical keyboard or part of it.
•In applications featuring text input, tap on the sidebar to activate the on-screen
keyboard.
•To hide it, tap once again.
The following keyboard layouts are available on ECTACO Partner®ER850: English,
Russian, and Russian Phonetic (see Keyboard).
ECTACO C-Pen2
With ECTACO C-Pen®you can acquire and then translate words or text portions from
paper media. It is capable of recognizing texts in languages based on Latin, Cyrillic or
Greek character set.
•Connect ECTACO C-Pen®to your device. Make sure the device is turned on.
•Press the Function key on ECTACO C-Pen®. You will see the Ready to scan dialog.
•Select the desired language and application.
2Optional accessory. Included in the ECTACO Partner®ER850 Deluxe package.

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•Place the tip of ECTACO C-Pen®before the first character of your text. The leg with
the touch trigger should be below the text line and the other leg above the text line.
•Keep the touch trigger pressed onto the surface and move ECTACO C-Pen®over the
line of text. You can move ECTACO C-Pen®either left-to-right or right-to-left over the
text.
•Lift your ECTACO C-Pen®.
•In the Ready to scan dialog, tap OK.
The text will be transferred to the selected application.
Windows
Every application, pop-up menu, or dialog box used in ECTACO Partner®ER850 appears
in its own window. A window is displayed as a framed screen area with two main
elements: the title bar and the close button ( or OK).
•To move an overlapping window, tap on its title bar and drag the window to another
part of the screen holding the stylus down.
The scroll bar is shown when the contents do not all fit on the screen. The slider shows
the position of the displayed contents relative to the rest of data.
On the scroll bar:
•tap a scroll arrow ( or ) to advance or go back one line;
•tap and drag the slider to browse information;
•tap the scroll bar below or above the slider to jump to the corresponding portion of
text.

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Pop-up Toolbar
A toolbar is a set of horizontally arranged buttons shown at the bottom of the relevant
window.
•To activate the pop-up toolbar, press .
•To perform an action, just tap the corresponding icon. Alternatively, select it by using
or and then press .
Toolbar buttons have the following functions:
Activate spell-checker
Display History
Select options
Switch language
Add to Flash Cards
Find in WordNet
Display Help
Search
Adjust microphone sensitivity
Translate in Dictionary

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Delete/Clear
Reset statistics
Start new game
Rescan the card
Hide
Edit
Clear date
Clear to date
Switch to Agenda View
Switch to Day View
Switch to Calendar View
Add new item
Sort
Filter
Turn the sound off
Turn the sound on
The contents of the toolbar depend on the current application.
Pop-up Menus
With the help of pop-up menus, you can quickly choose an action to perform on the
selected item. For example, you can copy a text onto the clipboard. To paste the text you
have copied, place the cursor in a text input field and then select Paste in the pop-up
menu.

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Note: Pop-up menus may vary from application to application.
•To activate the pop-up menu, highlight the desired item and hold the stylus down on it
for a second.
•When the pop-up menu appears, lift the stylus and then select the desired action. You
can close the pop-up menu by tapping anywhere on the screen, outside of the menu.
Parts of Speech, Gender Labels, Abbreviations
In the Dictionary, translations or definitions of a headword are shown with their parts of
speech:
A– adjective
ABBR – abbreviation
ADV – adverb
ART – article
AUX – auxiliary
CONJ – conjunction
ID – idiom
INTRJ – interjection
N – noun
NPR – proper noun
NUM – numeral
PART – particle
PHR – phrase
PREF – prefix
PREP – preposition
PRON – pronoun
SUFF – suffix
V– verb
Russian nouns are marked with gender and number labels:
F– feminine
M– masculine
MF – common gender
N– neuter
PL – plural
Certain words and expressions in the Dictionary may be marked with specific
abbreviations.

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anat. – anatomy
bact. – bacteriology
biochem. – biochemistry
biol. – biology
bot. – botany
chem. – chemistry
comm. – commerce
comp. – computers
econ. – economics
el. – electronics
fin. – finance
jur. – law
mech. – mechanics
med. – medicine
opt. – optics
pharm. – pharmacy
physiol. – physiology
psychol. – psychology
stomat. – stomatology
vet. – veterinary
акуш. – obstetrics
амер. – American
анат. – anatomy
арифм. – arithmetic
арх. – archaic
археол. – archaeology
архит. – architecture
астр. – astronomy
бакт. – bacteriology
библ. – biblical
биол. – biology
биохим. – biochemistry
бирж. – stock exchange
бот. – botany
брит. – British
бухг. – bookkeeping
вет. – veterinary
воен. – military
вулг. – vulgarism
вчт. – computers
геол. – geology
геом. – geometry
горн. – mining
грам. – grammar
греч. – Greek
груб. – vulgar
детск. – nursery
др.-греч. – Ancient Greek
др.-рим. – Ancient Rome
ж.-д. – railways
иск. – art
ист. – historical
карт. – cards
кино – cinema
книжн. – literary
кож. – tanning
комм. – commerce
комп. – computers
косм. – cosmonautics
кул. – cooking
лат. – Latin
лингв. – linguistics
лит. – literature
лыжн. – skiing
мат. – mathematics
метал. – metallurgy
метео – meteorology
мех. – mechanics
мин. – mineralogy
миф. – mythology
мор. – nautical
муз. – music
неценз. – obscene
опт. – optics
охот. – hunting
перен. – figurative
полигр. – printing
полит. – political
поэт. – poetic
психол. – psychology
радио – radio
разг. – colloquial
рел. – religion
римск. – Roman
ритор. – rhetorical
с.-х. – agriculture
сл. – slang
собир. – collective
спец. – special
стих. – versification
стомат. – stomatology
строит. – building
театр. – theater
текст. – textile
тех. – technical
типогр. – printing
уст. – obsolete
фарм. – pharmacy
фехт. – fencing
фиг. – figurative
физ. – physics
физиол. – physiology
филос. – philosophy
фин. – finance
фон. – phonetics
фот. – photography
фр. – French
хим. – chemistry
церк. – ecclesiastical
шахм. – chess
шотл. – Scottish
шутл. – jocular
эк. – economics
эл. – electrical
энт. – entomology
юж.-аф. – South African
юр. – law
Pronunciation of Words and Sentences
One of the most exciting features of ECTACO Partner®ER850 is the TTS (Text-to-
Speech) technology which allows you to listen to the pronunciation of words and phrases
in English and Russian.

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•To hear the displayed or highlighted headword pronounced, press the key.
Note: Certain words have several pronunciation variations. So the pronunciation of the
TTS engine and the given phonetic transcription may be different. In this case, consider
the version given in the dictionary as the basic one.
•To hear the translation or definition pronounced, highlight the desired portion of it by
using the stylus, and then press the key.
•TTS is able to generate the pronunciation of any text, not limited to dictionary entries.
Simply type a word or phrase in the Text Translation input field and then press the
key to listen to its pronunciation.
Note: The Volume options (found in the Settings section) allow you to adjust speech
volume.
Online Manual
ECTACO Partner®ER850 user manual is compiled in an electronic format and is stored
on the SD card. The content of the manual is only available when the card is installed into
the device.
•Press the key to activate the pop-up toolbar, and then tap on the toolbar.
The application will open.
•To see the table of contents, tap Contents.
•Tap the scroll arrows in the upper right and lower right corners of the screen to scroll
through the displayed content.
DICTIONARIES
Dictionary
ECTACO Partner®ER850 contains the most advanced electronic dictionary available on
the market.
•In the Main Menu, tap or press 1to open the Dictionaries section.
•Tap the application name. Alternatively, highlight it and then press . The
application will open.
•To translate a word, start entering it from the conventional keyboard. Alternatively,
use the on-screen keyboard.

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Note: The MorphoFinder™ function helps you find the source words (headwords) for past
participles, gerunds, plural and adjective forms. For example, if you enter "distributes" you
will get "distribute" as there is no translation or definition for "distributes" because it is a
form of "distribute".
•When the desired word is displayed, select it (tap the corresponding line) to see its
translation(s).
•Within a translation, where applicable, tap <...> to see the entire text.
•To look up the highlighted English entry in the WordNet Dictionary, select on the
pop-up toolbar.
Spell-checker Vector Ultima™
The spell-checker Vector Ultima™ is one of the most advanced on the market. When you
are unsure of a word's spelling, Vector Ultima™ allows you to enter the word as you hear
it and choose a spelling variation from the list.
•Type the word board as you hear it: bord.
•Activate the pop-up toolbar, and then select . Alternatively, activate the pop-up
menu and tap Spellcheck.
•A list of suggested similar words will appear. If the spell-checker is unable to suggest
any variants, the No variants! message will be shown.
•Select the word board to see its translations.
•To reverse translate an entry, simply double-tap it, or hold the stylus down on it and
then select Translate in the pop-up menu.
•To change the translation direction, tap on the pop-up toolbar or press .
•To list the words or phrases you translated, tap on the pop-up toolbar.
Alternatively, select History in the pop-up menu.
Note: The maximum number of entries stored in the History list is 7.
Adding and Deleting User Entries
ECTACO Partner®ER850 allows you to create your own vocabulary which automatically
links to the Dictionary.
•Hold the stylus down on any dictionary entry in the list and then select User words /
Add in the pop-up menu. You will see the Add user word window.
•Type your word or expression and its translation. Specify the part of speech.