As you probably already know, a dictionary allows you to look up a word, and see it’s meaning. In Python, a dictionary is even more flexible that that - it allows you to map anything (called a key) to anything else! Here’s a dictionary that links text-speak words to their meaning:

textSpeakDictionary = {
    "lol"   : "laugh out loud" ,
    "idk"   : "I don't know"
}

So, in the dictionary above, the key “lol” maps to the text “laugh out loud”, and the key “idk” maps to the text “I don’t know”. You should use a colon (:) to map the text-speak keys to their meanings, and put a comma between each dictionary entry.

Getting information out of the dictionary is easy; you just need to add the key after the dictionary variable name, in square brackets. Here’s a short program that shows how this works:

textSpeakDictionary = {
    "lol"   : "laugh out loud" ,
    "idk"   : "I don't know"
}

#print the entire dictionary
print( "Dictionary =" , textSpeakDictionary )

#print just the entry for "lol"
print( "\nlol =" , textSpeakDictionary["lol"] )

#the entry for the user's input
key = input("\nWhat would you like to translate? : ")
print( key , "=" , textSpeakDictionary[key] )

This program prints 3 things: the entire dictionary, the dictionary entry for “lol” and finally the dictionary entry for whatever the user inputs.

Run this program, which splits up a sentence into individual words, and then translates each word (if it exists in the dictionary):

textSpeakDictionary = {
    "lol"   : "laugh out loud" ,
    "idk"   : "I don't know"
}

#get the sentence to translate
sentence = input("Enter a sentence to translate: ").lower()

#this splits up the sentence into a list of words
wordsToTranslate = sentence.split()

translatedSentence = ""

#loop through each word in the list
for word in wordsToTranslate:

    #add the translated word if it exists in the dictionary
    if word in textSpeakDictionary:

        translatedSentence += textSpeakDictionary[word] + " "

    #just keep the original word if there's no translation
    else:

        translatedSentence += word + " "

#print the translated sentence
print("==>")
print(translatedSentence)

Each word is taken in turn, and the program checks whether the word to translate is in the dictionary. If it is, then the translated text added to the translatedSentence variable, which is printed at the end of the program. If the word isn’t in the dictionary, then just the original word is added to the translatedSentence variable.

Notice that whenever a word is added to translatedSentence, a space is also added (+ " "). What do you think would happen if this space wasn’t added?

Just like with your ‘compliment generator’ program, it would be nice to allow the user to add and remove words from the dictionary. You can do this, by creating a menu system:

def displayMenu():
    print("txt spk cnvtr")
    print("=" * 13)
    print("Menu:")
    print("  c = convert a sentence")
    print("  p = print dictionary")
    print("  a = add a word")
    print("  d = delete a word")
    print("  q = quit")

#-------------------------------------------------------

def convertSentence():
    sentence = input("Enter a sentence to translate: ").lower()
    translatedSentence = ""

    #this splits up the sentence into a list of words
    listOfWords = sentence.split()

    for word in listOfWords:
        #add the translated word if it exists in the dictionary
        if word in textSpeakDictionary:

            translatedSentence += textSpeakDictionary[word] + " "

        #just keep the original word if there's no translation
        else:

            translatedSentence += word + " "

    #print the translated sentence
    print("==>")
    print(translatedSentence)  

#-------------------------------------------------------

def addDictionaryItem():
    txtToAdd = input("Enter the text-speak to add to the dictionary: ")
    meaning = input("What does this mean?: ")
    #add the new translation to the dictionary
    textSpeakDictionary[txtToAdd] = meaning

#-------------------------------------------------------

def deleteDictionaryItem():
    txtToDelete = input("Enter the text-speak to delete from the dictionary: ")
    #delete the translation from the dictionary
    del textSpeakDictionary[txtToDelete]

#-------------------------------------------------------
# main program starts here!
#-------------------------------------------------------

textSpeakDictionary = {
    "lol"  : "laugh out loud" ,
    "idk"  : "I don't know" ,
    "jk"   : "just kidding" ,
    "bc"   : "because"
}

running = True

displayMenu()

#repeat until the user inputs 'q' to quit
while running == True:

    menuChoice = input(">_").lower()

    #c to convert
    if menuChoice == 'c':
        convertSentence()

    #p to print
    elif menuChoice == 'p':
        print(textSpeakDictionary)

    #a to add
    elif menuChoice == 'a':
        addDictionaryItem()

    #d to delete
    elif menuChoice == 'd':
        deleteDictionaryItem()

    #q to quit
    elif menuChoice == 'q':
        running = False

    else:
        print("Invalid menu choice!")

Although this is a loooong program, you’ve seen most of this code before in other programs. The new bits are just the code to add an item to the dictionary:

txtToAdd = input("Enter the text-speak to add to the dictionary: ")
meaning = input("What does this mean?: ")
#add the new translation to the dictionary
textSpeakDictionary[txtToAdd] = meaning

…and the code to remove an item:

txtToDelete = input("Enter the text-speak to delete from the dictionary: ")
#delete the translation from the dictionary
del textSpeakDictionary[txtToDelete]

The code for each of the menu options is also in it’s own function, to make the code much easier to read.

You’ve already done lots of testing to improve your program, but there’s one more thing that you can fix, to make your program even better. Look what happens when you test your program with the following sentence:

It doesn’t get translated properly. Try it out for yourself.

Why doesn’t your program convert the ‘lol’ in this sentence? It’s because your program splits up the sentence into words, like this:

words = [ "hello" , "lol!" ]

It then looks up the key "lol!" in your dictionary (with the exclaimation mark), and can’t find a translation for it, because "lol!" doesn’t exist! One simple way to avoid this problem is to remove some punctuation from the sentence before it is translated. Add this code to your convertSentence() function:

def convertSentence():
    sentence = input("Enter a sentence to translate: ").lower()
    translatedSentence = ""

    #take out some punctuation from the sentence
    for char in '?!.,':
        sentence = sentence.replace(char,'') 

    #this splits up the sentence into a list of words
    listOfWords = sentence.split()
    ...

This extra code loops through each of the punctuation marks ?!., in turn, and replaces them in the sentence with… nothing! This removes the punctuation from the sentence.

After adding in this code to take out the punctuation, try translating "hello, lol!" again, to check whether you’ve solved the problem.