After reading a post in the (BROKEN LINK) Low Budget thread about the suspect quality of Edict/Eijiro I decided I have had enough. I know there are a lot of people out there trashing these two resources. I want to know exactly why. Could you please provide hard examples as to why they are horrible/bad for learners? I think comments like this are often made by people offhandedly. I also think encouraging people to close the door on any potential resource can have a negative effect unless it truly is horrible. I honestly don't know. I have heard several people I really respect trash them but I really have trouble seeing why.

Jarvik7 Wrote:For vocabulary, just use an online dictionary that isn't EDICT or Eijiro/ALC based. They are both horrible if you want accurate definitions.

Could you (or anyone) please provide more detail as to why you think they are "horrible"? Maybe a few examples of "inaccurate" definitions? I tend to think that edict is a very passable dictionary, I would say that it needs better handling for cases like (上る、登る、昇る) but other than that I find it to be one of the more complete dictionaries. Not horrible for sure.

As for Eijiro, again, it has its faults but not horrible. I would like to know why you feel its so bad? I think one should not discount it. It has a massive number of accurate entries. Also, it is a for profit company with something to gain from maintaining a sense of credibility.

I don't feel like rehashing it again, but I've detailed my EDICT complaints in other threads. It has its uses (embedding into programs & services like this site), but it should never be used as a serious dictionary to learn words.

As for Eijiro, I don't have a copy and I don't like using www-based dicts for convenience sake, so I don't have as in-depth knowledge about it as I do for EDICT, so I am just passing along the general opinion of it. However, I have noticed how unnatural some of the sample sentences are though. Eijiro is good for terms that don't appear in some bilingual dictionaries, but I wouldn't rely on it as a primary source. Eijiro is glossary (not a dictionary) that was originally just made by a Japanese guy in his free time as he studied English. As it gained in popularity he started selling it (on burnt cds no less). That doesn't really compare to something like Kenkyuusha/Readers/Genius/Progressive's waei & eiwa dictionaries.

Believe me I am not making these comments offhandedly. I have access to a great many dictionaries here (I am a 4th year Japanese language / linguistics / translation major at a major university) and EDICT is pretty much laughably bad/vague/inaccurate/misleading/flat out wrong whenever I look something up with it.

Mostly I use Kojien 6th edition & Kanjigen for lookups, occasionally resorting to Kenkyuusha or Progressive's waei dictionaries.

I use the WWWJDIC Server quite a bit but never touch the example sentences. No complaints here.

And for a bit of banter,

Jarvik7 Wrote:Eijiro is glossary (not a dictionary) that was originally just made by a Japanese guy in his free time as he studied English. As it gained in popularity he started selling it (on burnt cds no less). That doesn't really compare to something like Kenkyuusha/Readers/Genius/Progressive's waei & eiwa dictionaries.

This suggests that things worked on in one's free time are inherently of lower quality than commercial products. Surely that's not what you mean.

synewave Wrote:I use the WWWJDIC Server quite a bit but never touch the example sentences. No complaints here.

And for a bit of banter,

Jarvik7 Wrote:Eijiro is glossary (not a dictionary) that was originally just made by a Japanese guy in his free time as he studied English. As it gained in popularity he started selling it (on burnt cds no less). That doesn't really compare to something like Kenkyuusha/Readers/Genius/Progressive's waei & eiwa dictionaries.

This suggests that things worked on in one's free time are inherently of lower quality than commercial products. Surely that's not what you mean.

Major dictionaries produced by large teams of professionals over many decades are indeed better than something a single guy assembled in his free time over a few years.

Fair enough

As far as the WWWJDIC Server is concerened though (not the example sentences), I haven't come across anything that has struck me as flat out wrong...although that might be saying more about my JP skills than the dictionary

Well, this worries me... I depend heavily on the dictionary in JWPce.

Uh oh, Jarvik7, be careful. Remember, "Remembering the Kanji" is something that "some guy" put together in about 6 months.

Eijiro is very hodgepodge. It's good for finding an expression you really want to say that can't be found in a regular dictionary, but whenever I use it, I use it with a good deal of caution.

The EDICT feature in JWPce is very fast, and handy, and I do use it from time to time, but the quality is not on par with a professional dictionary and if I'm looking up a word on the web, I use http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp. The interface is a lot more pleasing, the content is more professional, there's a 国語 dictionary, and the web address is a lot shorter. With internet domains as cheap as they are, I can't understand why WWWJDIC's address is what it is.


But like I've said before, the best policy is to use dictionaries as little as possible.

Ryuujin27 Wrote:Uh oh, Jarvik7, be careful. Remember, "Remembering the Kanji" is something that "some guy" put together in about 6 months.

And if you read some of my other posts you'll see what I think of much of the contents of the book It's the method that's good, especially when combined with SRS.

You wouldn't use RTK as a reliable reference book would you? I hope not.

In terms of content quality, I think that Kenkyusha's dictionary is the best one to be found online.

https://kod.kenkyusha.co.jp/service/memb...e/form.jsp

You may be interested to read the email exchange I had with them regarding example sentences and phrases used in the dictionary:

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=554

Rather than pay for Kenkyusha, if you're feeling cheap, use excite.co.jp-- it uses one of the Kenkyusha dicts.

I don't have any specific criticism against the two. However I have Kenkyuusha, Readers, Genius, Edict, and Eijiro all loaded into my epwing viewer and I have many times asked myself why I even include Edict and Eijiro. I always settle on the entries from the other two.

cracky Wrote:I don't have any specific criticism against the two. However I have Kenkyuusha, Readers, Genius, Edict, and Eijiro all loaded into my epwing viewer and I have many times asked myself why I even include Edict and Eijiro. I always settle on the entries from the other two.

Hmmm, do you use the "Big Green Bible" edition of the Kenkyuusha dictionary ? Or do they call it the "Green Goddess". I am not sure... <_<

Jarvik7 Wrote:EDICT is pretty much laughably bad/vague/inaccurate/misleading/flat out wrong whenever I look something up with it.

You could always suggest amendments to EDICT when you find entries you don't like, you know...

Well, one very good reason to use eDict is that it's the Dictionary file you can load onto Rikaichan, which I can't live without.

Jarvik, with respect, I think you're slightly missing the point: the fact that you're an advanced student of Japanese and translation at a major university makes you LESS qualified to tell us beginners which dictionary is good and which is bad. Different people at different stages of learning need dictionaries for different things. At the moment, what I need from a dictionary is not really exquisite precision and academic brilliance. I just need a quick and dirty first approximation to what words mean. Edict does fine with that.

pm215 Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:EDICT is pretty much laughably bad/vague/inaccurate/misleading/flat out wrong whenever I look something up with it.

You could always suggest amendments to EDICT when you find entries you don't like, you know...

That would take a lot of time to submit changes to every entry I look up, especially since its not something I even need.. The glossary format also has fundamental flaws.

AndamanIslander Wrote:Well, one very good reason to use eDict is that it's the Dictionary file you can load onto Rikaichan, which I can't live without.

Jarvik, with respect, I think you're slightly missing the point: the fact that you're an advanced student of Japanese and translation at a major university makes you LESS qualified to tell us beginners which dictionary is good and which is bad. Different people at different stages of learning need dictionaries for different things. At the moment, what I need from a dictionary is not really exquisite precision and academic brilliance. I just need a quick and dirty first approximation to what words mean. Edict does fine with that.

Bad/wrong/vague/misleading/etc definitions are not good for learners at any level. Waei/eiwa dictionaries are meant for beginner and intermediate students. Advanced students generally rely on monolingual kokugo dictionaries.

I used to think that a "quick and dirty" definition of the word was just fine when I was a beginner too, like when I first picked up さびしい and かなしい. Then I went around using the words interchangeably, because according to the basic definition I was given, they both meant "sad." (To be fair, EDICT does list the proper difference between these words, but the glossary I had did not.)

That's when I realized that it's better to use a proper dictionary and get the definition right the first time, rather than use half-baked definitions, sound strange (or wrong, funny, etc.), find out my understanding was incomplete/wrong, then go back and relearn the correct and proper definition. And when I needed advice on what dictionary to get, I asked for advice from someone who was much more advanced than me in their Japanese studies, because they knew more than I did, and had more experience with the various dictionaries, thus making them able to give me accurate advice.

Seriously, skip the EDICT (although EIJIRO is really useful as a supplement...) as your main (or worse, only) dictionary from the beginning. I did. I was the only guy in my low-level Japanese class that did, and people thought it was overkill, but it saved me a lot of trouble in misunderstandings, looking silly, etc. After they realized I always had good definitions handy, half of them ended up buying their own when we went to Japan for study abroad.

Sorry if this post got a little long, but I've always had a bit of a strong opinion on this topic.

Does anyone have an example for what is inaccurate?

I'm currently looking up, well, every word I don't know. After all, understanding more is better than understanding less and it all goes towards increasing my reading vocabulary.　I don't wanting to be pronouncing words wrong because I didn't verify the readings, either.
The definitions usually suit the context I find the words in.

Edict is usually accurate, but it fails to provide definitions that are complete enough for the user to understand the subtle differences between words or to be able to understand their various uses. In many cases, Edict will not include idiomatic compound expressions where Kenkyuusha does; as a result, you may have to imprecisely guess their meaning from the general meaning of the words. Edict does occasionally have some obscure words that Kenkyuusha does not, but on the whole Kenkyuusha is more comprehensive.

Kenkyuusha also provides tons and tons of good example sentences. If you want to memorize words in the context of an example sentence, Kenkyuusha is very good for that.

Edict is nice for providing specific information about which words are actually written with their kanji; in contrast, Kenkyuusha fails to provide this information, but instead tends to avoid using the kanji for words that are often (but not always!) written purely in hiragana.

As for Eijiro, I have never actually found it useful. If you enter an English idiom, what you will obtain is not normal-sounding Japanese but rather an explanatory translation of the idiom that is not suitable to be used. In general, Eijiro is intended be a glossary of English terms and expressions that are hard to find in dictionaries, and so it does not have Japanese that a native speaker would ordinarily produce.

In short, if you want to use a J-E dictionary, I highly recommend Kenkyuusha over Edict. It is not so much that Edict is itself flawed; rather, Kenkyuusha will simply save you so much time that there is no reason to consider the alternative.

edit: fixed grammar in one sentence

ok, let me put this differently: is there a better alternative dictionary file for Rikaichan? or a better alternative to Rikaichan? Cuz, really, it's Rikaichan that keeps me on Edict.

Where to start? I guess I will start with the type of statement I originally took a bit of a dislike to:

jarvik7 Wrote:EDICT is pretty much laughably bad/vague/inaccurate/misleading/flat out wrong whenever I look something up with it

For example? I understand that you are a 4th year Japanese language / linguistics / translation major at a major university. That is all fine and good, but how can you discount the work of a professor with well over 4 years under his belt. I am sorry, you can take issue with Edict if you want, but to call it all those things above comes across as, well, a bit haughty.

I don't want to clutter this thread with the comparison, but I have put up a comparison lookup of all the words in the first paragraph of an Asahi article using both Kenkyusha and Edict. I didnt have the stamina to do Eijiro too but I suspect similar results. The short version is that the Edict definitions are more than adequate but the Kenkyusha ones are far more comprehensive with excellent usage examples. I also found the time taken to lookup up the words to be much shorter via the WWWJDIC interface.

I agree with the posts that say there are good for profit dictionaries out there. I agree that, in the case of Kenkyusha, the examples are extremely valuable tools for a learner. I agree that the URL for WWWJDIC is a real pain. If you have the money to buy a high quality dictionary I say go for it. If you have the confidence to surf Japanese websites I say save the money and go with excite's online dictionary as someone else mentioned in this thread. If you are looking for a dictionary to use with your website or application I say use Edict with confidence. In fact, I say use Edict with confidence anytime. I also think using Eijiro is fine, but I would exercise the same caution as JimmySeal.

EDIT: grammar

mystes Wrote:In short, if you want to use a J-E dictionary, I highly recommend Kenkyuusha over Edict. It is not so much that Edict is itself flawed; rather, Kenkyuusha will simply save you so much time that there is no reason to consider the alternative.

I'd be happy to take your recommendation, but the on-line Kenkyuusha seems to have a Japanese interface, as do the other dictionaries recommended in this thread. As a relative beginner, I need an English interface, which is a big plus for WWWJDIC for me. Is there an on-line dictionary that get's the collective thumbs up and has an English interface?

dilandau23 Wrote:I don't want to clutter this thread with the comparison, but I have put up a comparison lookup of all the words in the first paragraph of an Asahi article using both Kenkyusha and Edict

I think your comparison illustrates something that JimmySeal mentioned earlier on. Edict is certainly superior in terms of speed and convenience. However, you really shouldn't be using a dictionary to blast apart every single word that you read. Dictionaries should be used sparingly and they should ideally be used to better understand the word that you look up rather than as a desperate attempt to give you some leverage in understanding a sentence. If you don't understand the vast majority of words in a long sentence and given the choice, I think you should read something else.

Sometimes you don't have the choice though (like when I signed a legal contract last week) and when you're a beginner there's a great temptation to look up just about everything you come across. A short, one or two word definition from edict would therefore really appeal but seeing a list of examples from Kenkyusha is far more valuable I think.

So IMO, given the free excite resource, edict should only be used in those rare situations where you have to understand a large amount of difficult material quickly. eg. a long email requiring a prompt reply.

Tourne Wrote:I'd be happy to take your recommendation, but the on-line Kenkyuusha seems to have a Japanese interface, as do the other dictionaries recommended in this thread. As a relative beginner, I need an English interface, which is a big plus for WWWJDIC for me. Is there an on-line dictionary that get's the collective thumbs up and has an English interface?

Please believe me when I say that you do not "need" an English interface. The application process and your first steps with the dictionary may take a while and be a pain in the ass but after a couple of days you won't have any bother at all. Honestly, it's very simple, you bookmark the search page, put the word you want to look up in the box and press enter.

If you need help with the application process, feel free to ask questions in this forum. Also, if you email Kenkyusha, they'll happily reply in English.

wrightak Wrote:...you really shouldn't be using a dictionary to blast apart every single word that you read. Dictionaries should be used sparingly and they should ideally be used to better understand the word that you look up rather than as a desperate attempt to give you some leverage in understanding a sentence.

I agree completely, my point was to challenge the idea that edict is somehow inaccurate/wrong by looking up a random assortment of words and then crosschecking with a respected dictionary. A paragraph from a news article seemed easiest.