Are there any good free, online Kanji dictionaries that actually go through and explain the meanings of a character instead of just providing a list of possibly misleading single words? For example, http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/ has really good 漢字項目, but sometimes I can't understand it cause it's in Japanese.

Me too! And I also have a bit of trouble with some entries.

MeisterLlama Wrote:Are there any good free, online Kanji dictionaries that actually go through and explain the meanings of a character instead of just providing a list of possibly misleading single words? For example, http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/ has really good 漢字項目, but sometimes I can't understand it cause it's in Japanese.

I'm feeling really thick but where exactly is 漢字項目 on Yahoo?!

I know it's not what you are asking for, but you simply cannot beat the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary or NTC's New Japanese English Character Dictionary for looking up the meaning of the characters. They are both paper dictionaries only.

See this post.

mafried Wrote:I know it's not what you are asking for, but you simply cannot beat the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary or NTC's New Japanese English Character Dictionary for looking up the meaning of the characters. They are both paper dictionaries only.

See this post.

I second the Kodansha KLD recommendation. It's an amazingly useful resource.

The best kanji dictionary is 学研漢和大辞典 (even better than 漢字源), but it's also Japanese-Japanese. The best English one is NTC. There is an electronic dictionary of NTC and I've seen indexed scans of the Kodansha learner dict online.

Jarvik7 Wrote:There is an electronic dictionary of NTC.

Where? If this is true, you've just made my day!

[Katsuo]

Kodansha Kanji Dictionaries