Hello!

I'm looking to buy a printed Kanji dictionary.

First some background: I am a beginning Japanese student, but I know Hiragana and Katakana, and some Kanji. My current Japanese learning goal is to read manga (mostly those manga for junior high kids.... CLAMP, Yazawa Ai, Kakinouchi Narumi... etc.)

I've been looking for a printed E-J/J-E dictionary, that has no romaji, and furigana over all of the kanji. I've been eyeing the Kodansha Furigana dictionary for some time. From what I've read on the Amamzon reviews, I have gathered that this dictionary, while not having a lot of entries, is helpful in learning the connotation and nuances of words.

But there is a review on its page on Amazon that states that there are a lot of error in this dictionary.

Here is an excerpt of that review:

Amazon Reviewer Wrote:I've been using this dictionary for over 3 years now. The organizers started out with a great concept, which apparently went out the window in execution. BOTTOM LINE:: IT'S FULL OF ERRORS!!! A Dictionary! And the more I use it, the more I find. The result is, I don't trust it and have to verify EVERYTHING. So I end up using it as a starting point only. MY SUGGESTION:: buy a J-E-J dictionary (with Furigana) for Japanese students (Internet sites for J-products). You may not be able to read the explanations at first, etc. but use it just as a good dictionary. (As I wrote below, the explanations, etc. in THIS dictionary have errors in them anyway.) Use your textbooks for details of grammar. If you want to know specifics of what's wrong with it, please read below.

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The greatest features of this dictionary are that it frequently (appears to) provide generous usage examples and important notes. In addition, it (appears to) provide very useful appendices such as for verb and adjective conjugations, counters, etc. It's also nicely hardbound with good quality pages. That's where the pros end.

** = WAY = OUT OF DATE: Forget about blogging on Japanese language websites if you're going to rely on this dictionary. I can't remember finding even ONE modern term I needed in this dictionary while blogging in Japanese. Sad because that's a great way to learn the language. The copyright is 1999, so you'd THINK they'd have SOME of these terms. In comparison, my French dictionary not only has every such term you can think of, but it has drawings of Cell Phones w/ common contractions used by French people.

If you have used this dictionary, and are at a higher level, can you verify if this is true? The other reviewers only seemed to have complaints about text size and a low number of entries.

Regarding the low amount of entries: Is this dictionary useful if you are a beginner and intend on looking up words in a junior high/high school level manga, and reading Japanese websites?

Can you recommend any other dictionaries? What's important to me in a printed dictionary is: that it contains No romaji, and explanation of nuances, and hardcover is nice too!

Thanks,
Miaow

I don't think I'd trust the review that person wrote. Kodansha is a well known publisher and the reviewer gave no examples of the mistakes he says he found. He also can't seem to grasp that there are different types of dictionaries out there. More authoritative or entry-level ones tend to resist adding modern terms since they are in a state of flux and become obsolete quickly. If he wants modern technology terms and whatnot he should get himself a dictionary that is meant to have them. Being a furigana dictionary it's obvious that this is a beginner level reference and of course won't have every-word-ever-including-those-just-made-up.

That said I've never looked at this specific dictionary. Personally I find paper dictionaries borderline useless. The only time I referenced one in the past many years is when I took a translation certification exam that forbid the use of electronic devices. Using an EPWING format dictionary eliminates the need for furigana to be explicitly provided, lookups are much faster, and you don't need to lug around several kilograms of tree. For a beginner I recommend Kenkyuusha Shin wa-ei chuu jiten (研究社新和英中辞典). It's also of course available in dead tree if you really are allergic to electrons. You don't need an E-J dictionary.

I recently bought Kodansha's Furigana J-E Dictionary. It's about six inches high, four inches wide and an inch thick, paperback, with a dust jacket, and has 16,000 entries (each with at least one example sentence). Can't comment on its accuracy because I'm a beginner myself, but I find it strange that the reviewer in question didn't give a single example of any so-called errors. Perhaps s/he heard something in 関西弁 and didn't realise it? Regardless, I don't think 16,000 words is an especially low number of entries. Personally I don't see the point in an E-J dictionary, especially one which effectively doubles the price.

@Jarvik7: it's a matter of preference. I find electronic dictionaries completely unappealing. Rikaichan is fine for computer-based lookups but sometimes it's nice to get away from a screen.

harhol: Have you used a professional EPWING dictionary? Rikai-chan is just an EDICT parser. EDICT is a gloss not a dictionary.

I used to have that dictionary. The format and entries are good, but it's just not complete enough. When trying to use it as a reference while reading simple manga, probably half the time I had to look up a word it wasn't in there. And that was pretty oftent. An electronic dictionary is really far better, based on word count alone. They also have room for more examples.

Why do you need a paper dictionary? If it's just to read manga, it would be much, much easier to either use a free online dictionary or a get a portable device to put one on.

You'd be spending like 5 minutes trying to find one word (which may or not be in the dictionary), whereas using a digital based dictionary would take 5 seconds.

Waste of money if you ask me, save up for a PDA or something like this.

Jarvik7 Wrote:harhol: Have you used a professional EPWING dictionary? Rikai-chan is just an EDICT parser. EDICT is a gloss not a dictionary.

I typed EPWING into Google and all I can seem to find are links to Japanese pages, downloadable J-J dictionaries and lots of jargon. Are we talking about the same thing? What is EPWING exactly? I'm thinking of a little portable device you hold in your hands and type words into. Do you mean some kind of PC software? If you do mean a little portable device, how much do they usually cost and where can I get one from? I typed in Kenkyuusha on Amazon but didn't get any results.

bombpersons Wrote:Why do you need a paper dictionary? You'd be spending like 5 minutes trying to find one word (which may or not be in the dictionary), whereas using a digital based dictionary would take 5 seconds. Waste of money if you ask me, save up for a PDA or something like this.

Hardly five minutes. Yeah it takes a little longer, but we're still dealing with a matter of seconds. And I'm not gonna spend $330 on a dictionary... :|

harhol Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:harhol: Have you used a professional EPWING dictionary? Rikai-chan is just an EDICT parser. EDICT is a gloss not a dictionary.

I typed EPWING into Google and all I can seem to find are links to Japanese pages, downloadable J-J dictionaries and lots of jargon. Are we talking about the same thing? I'm thinking of a little portable device you hold in your hands and type words into. Do you mean some kind of PC software? If you do mean a little portable device, how much do they usually cost and where can I get one from? I typed in Kenkyuusha on Amazon but didn't get any results.

EPWING are in general electronic versions of paper dictionaries. All of the major dictionaries have EPWING versions (or in other formats that you can convert to EPWING). They are just computer files that you can use on your computer, a pda, an iphone, etc. Denshi-jisho are a similar concept but they use proprietary formats and are ultimately less useful. They do give you more bang for your buck though (100+ contents for $300 etc).

I currently use コトノコ to read EPWING on my computer (Mac) and iDic to read them on my iPod touch.

Quote:

bombpersons Wrote:Why do you need a paper dictionary? You'd be spending like 5 minutes trying to find one word (which may or not be in the dictionary), whereas using a digital based dictionary would take 5 seconds. Waste of money if you ask me, save up for a PDA or something like this.

Hardly five minutes. Yeah it takes a little longer, but we're still dealing with a matter of seconds. And I'm not gonna spend $330 on a dictionary... :|

Oh but it can indeed be 5 minutes. Lets say you encounter a 4 kanji word that you don't know, and you don't know how to read it. You first have to look up each kanji, find the reading of each one (in a separate kanji dictionary), and then try looking up each possible combination of readings to find the word, if it's even listed (paper dictionaries have smaller headword counts unless you get a giant tome). Compare that to handwriting recognition or copy & paste. It very much is a case of seconds vs minutes. I don't even own any general lookup paper dictionaries anymore and I'm a pro translator. In fact I don't know anyone who uses one.

You don't need to drop $330 on some hobby machine like the Pandora (which doesn't even have an EPWING reader yet I'm assuming). A quick search reveals a Canon C50 electronic dictionary for $179 on White Rabbit Press. I don't personally like Canon denshijisho, but anything is better than a paper dictionary.

I have these dictionaries (the J-E and the E-J separately). While I encountered no problems in using them, I don't think they're worth buying. Electronic dictionaries (including the internet-based ones) are much better. Also, I soon started using J-J dicts, so those became obsolete (I can't believe that Amazon Reviewer guy has been using them for 3 years... hasn't he made any progress?).

If you don't want to buy an expensive electronic dictionary you could consider the other option, i.e. the nintendo DS with a dict soft. I've used (and still am using) it a lot.

In any case, it may be better to wait a few months until you can make the jump to J-J dictionaries before buying one. It will certainly serve you longer.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Oh but it can indeed be 5 minutes. Lets say you encounter a 4 kanji word that you don't know, and you don't know how to read it. You first have to look up each kanji, find the reading of each one (in a separate kanji dictionary), and then try looking up each possible combination of readings to find the word, if it's even listed (paper dictionaries have smaller headword counts unless you get a giant tome). Compare that to handwriting recognition or copy & paste. It very much is a case of seconds vs minutes. I don't even own any general lookup paper dictionaries anymore and I'm a pro translator. In fact I don't know anyone who uses one.

Yeah, in the case of novels or newspapers or academic papers a paper dictionary is gonna be annoyingly difficult to use. But we're talking about a beginner reading manga, which obviously has furigana, so an entry level furigana dictionary of 16,000 words will be suitable in most instances.

That said, I've downloaded & installed EBWin and also found a torrent for the Kenkyuusha EPWING that you mentioned. So when that's finished downloading I'll give it a whirl. I honestly had no idea about anything to do with EPWING so thanks for the heads-up (to me, the term "electronic dictionary" simply meant some kind of overpriced PDA device). But what exactly am I missing out on if I just stick to using WWJDIC and Sanseido?

EDIT: haha wow, this dictionary is great. Can't believe I never heard about this app before. I love how it gives you subtle differences between similar words in the same entry (e.g. for eat you also have feed, try, feed on, live on...) and the little <<usage notes>> are also extremely helpful. I guess it's a proper dictionary... like you said! So yeah, many thanks for mentioning EPWING. Amazing how there's so much useful stuff out there (SRS, Heisig, this) and you can have absolutely no idea about it.

I have this dictionary and I think it is very helpful for a beginner. True, the coverage could be better, but it goes up to about JLPT L2 level of vocab, so it should last you several years before you outgrow it.

Why buy anything when you can get it for free?

Rather than use WWWJDIC, which is based on the dodgy EDICT, I'd rather just use Firefox, and add the Kenkyusha/Excite, Yahoo, Goo, ALC, and Sanseido search bars to my browser via Mycroft. (All free, all professionally done by real dictionary people... well, except maybe ALC... ALC is just weird, but I use it anyway, with the knowledge that it's 微妙.)

Actually, one neat thing-- if you're using Yahoo, it actually has 2 J->E E->J dictionaries built in.　(Progressive and New Century.) When you look up a word, in the upper right, just above the definition, you'll see a blue link like this:

「ひょうじょう」をニューセンチュリー和英辞典でも検索する

Click it, and it will look up the word in the other JP->EN dictionary. (Note that it does it by kana, not by kanji! So make sure you have the right word by checking the kanji-- if not, check the list on the far right and pick the right entry.) To go back to the other dictionary, click the link that looks like this:

「ひょうじょう」をプログレッシブ和英中辞典でも検索する

If you want to "draw" the kanji you're searching for, then just use the toolbox in the JP language toolbar, select the IME pad, then select Hand Writing, and draw the kanji you want to look up. It sticks the 宀　radical in there by default, you can clear it out by hitting the clear button.

It's cheaper than a 電子辞書 (doesn't get cheaper than free), uses excellent Japanese sources, and did I mention it was FREE?

Of course, I also have a 電子辞書, and yes, it's really that useful, because I don't lug my computer with me everywhere. I'd say it's important to do the research to find one with the dictionaries you want/need, with a good input method. If it doesn't have a stylus, to be honest, I wouldn't bother, but that's my preference. But yeah, it's expensive, and a lot of importers will try to gouge you on older models. The best place to get them is in Japan.

Check here for a good comparison of the best prices/current models in Japan:
http://kakaku.com/kaden/ic-dictionary/

Just beware that some of the companies with the best prices are asking for payment methods that are only available in Japan, or require cash, or some combo.

harhol Wrote:I recently bought Kodansha's Furigana J-E Dictionary.

How are you liking it? What types of reading material are you using it with?

Quote:it? Regardless, I don't think 16,000 words is an especially low number of entries. Personally I don't see the point in an E-J dictionary, especially one which effectively doubles the price.

True, though I'm a sucker for hardcover books. Especially for reference books!

Quote:@Jarvik7: it's a matter of preference. I find electronic dictionaries completely unappealing. Rikaichan is fine for computer-based lookups but sometimes it's nice to get away from a screen.

Exactly how I feel. I want to be able to read Japanese without having my PC on.

I did recently buy a Canon WordTank G50 and am overwhelmed! It didn't come with an English manual, but I found a PDF of a manual online. Maybe I just need to get used to it - and make a cheat-sheet of the Japanese icons, but it has me wondering if I should get a beginner's paper dictionary until my Japanese skills are better.

I also have the Kanji Learner's Dictionary, but the romaji bothers me and I get this strange sense I'm "cheating", so I don't enjoy using it much.

The Kodansha dictionaries will do you just fine for a while, but you'll probably find you'll quickly outgrow them. My main beef with the Furigana dictionary is that the hardcover edition is ungodly expensive for what you get. (I think I wound up paying around $60 for mine. Ugh.) It's not a bad beginner's dictionary, but the price is ridiculous for what you get, and after my first two semesters of Japanese, I never used either dictionary again. (I got an electronic dictionary, and both of them now gather dust.)

Force yourself to get used to the WordTank first before dropping unnecessary cash you may need later for better books/resources. (Seriously, there are tons of better books out there.)

Miaow Wrote:How are you liking it? What types of reading material are you using it with?

I'm still on RTK so I haven't started using it yet. But there's a frankly ridiculous number of example sentences which I'm looking forward to SRSing.

By the way, for anyone who is interested I now have the following EPWING dictionaries:

Kenkyusha 5th (J-E/E-J) - the most comprehensive with 480,000 entries, $350 on Amazon.
Kojien 5th (J-J)
Eijiro 95 (J-E)
Genius (J-E/E-J)

[& other assorted stuff like the Tanaka Corpus and Jim Breen's name dictionary]

I'm happy to upload them to Rapidshare or Megaupload if anyone wants them.

Look on demonoid, someone's uploaded a 12GB torrent of EPWING Japanese dictionaries.

Yeah I got them from a different torrent. I was just offering to upload them because I know a lot of people have technical issues and other problems with torrents. Do you really need anything other than Kenkyusha & Kojien anyway? 12GB seems unnecessary.

I've been SRSing for over a year and half now, and I can say it's a hell of a lot easier to SRS with material that's in electronic form than material in printed form. If you're just going to mine dictionaries, stick to the ones with either EPWING or online versions you can just cut/paste into Anki. Saves a lot of hassle, and you'll reach a point where you want as little of that as possible.

I still mine printed materials, but I usually use a flatbed scanner and OCR software, or a handheld pen scanner and OCR software for it, depending on how the material is laid out.

Scanning seems a bit excessive, no? It only takes 10-15 seconds to type in a sentence. Plus I think there's an added cognitive benefit from typing something in as opposed to copy-pasting. Obviously I intend to mine from electronic sources as well, but I don't think printed sentences are as troublesome as you make out.

EDIT: not to mention that every sentence in the (three) books I've bought comes with a reading, whereas something like Kenkyusha doesn't. I couldn't imagine anything worse than SRSing an accidental mistake for months on end!

mullr Wrote:I used to have that dictionary. The format and entries are good, but it's just not complete enough. When trying to use it as a reference while reading simple manga, probably half the time I had to look up a word it wasn't in there. And that was pretty oftent. An electronic dictionary is really far better, based on word count alone. They also have room for more examples.

What simple manga did you try to use this dictionary for, and what was the age group written for?

My guess is that words like "wassup", "whoa", "eek", "meh", "aaargh", "bleurgh", "bah" etc. wouldn't be included. Or any other slang. The back cover says, "This dictionary's comprehensive 16,000 word vocabulary comprises a generous & balanced selection of native Japanese words, kanji compounds and foreign loanwords. No mention of colloquialisms, idioms or onomatopoeia. In terms of nouns, verbs, adjectives & adverbs it won't let you down, but certain (common?) expressions may cause problems.

harhol Wrote:

Miaow Wrote:How are you liking it? What types of reading material are you using it with?

I'm still on RTK so I haven't started using it yet. But there's a frankly ridiculous number of example sentences which I'm looking forward to SRSing.

By the way, for anyone who is interested I now have the following EPWING dictionaries:

Kenkyusha 5th (J-E/E-J) - the most comprehensive with 480,000 entries, $350 on Amazon.
Kojien 5th (J-J)
Eijiro 95 (J-E)
Genius (J-E/E-J)

[& other assorted stuff like the Tanaka Corpus and Jim Breen's name dictionary]

I'm happy to upload them to Rapidshare or Megaupload if anyone wants them.

Please do =D

PS: Does anyone know of any good Epwing readers for Linux?

harhol Wrote:Scanning seems a bit excessive, no? It only takes 10-15 seconds to type in a sentence. Plus I think there's an added cognitive benefit from typing something in as opposed to copy-pasting. Obviously I intend to mine from electronic sources as well, but I don't think printed sentences are as troublesome as you make out.

Cut/Paste takes 2 seconds, and involves a lot less typing. If you enjoy typing that much, then by all means, do what you love. I tried typing in stuff for all of two weeks before I started looking for alternatives. That was a year and a half ago, and I haven't looked back.

Typing in stuff from paper dictionaries is a waste of time, to be honest, when there are dictionaries that are just as good, if not better, out there. Yahoo.jp has two J->E dictionaries, each of which usually has far more examples than the Kodansha Furigana Dictionary, plus it's free, and you don't have to type them in. And yes, the examples come with full English translations, too.

Most importantly, cut/paste from an accurate dictionary doesn't make mistakes. You do.

Waste less time typing, and use the time for things like studying, reading, listening. You know-- things that are FUN.

Whether typing improves your cognition, who knows? I haven't seen any hard evidence yet. Somebody show me some.

Even if it does improve cognition marginally, I don't see how it could be better than actively studying sentences. To me, it's a matter of cost/benefit analysis.

As for OCR, I use it, and it does save some time. Flatbeds are more efficient than handhelds, usually, but both save wear and tear on your wrists.

I only type in as a matter of last resort. There's just no need to otherwise.

rich_f Wrote:I only type in as a matter of last resort. There's just no need to otherwise.

I sometimes feel that typing things out help me remember the words, even if you can copy and paste.

bombpersons Wrote:PS: Does anyone know of any good Epwing readers for Linux?

I use ebview 'cos it's in debian and works ok. there're others but epwing is a japanese format so most software only has japanese docs