Anyone know of an Iphone app that allows you to view PDF files/jpgs with an inbuilt Japanese dictionary or one than can access another app and allow you to switch quickly between the two?

I don't know of any (maybe Aozora Bunka or iBunko HD?).

But the iPhone has multitasking. So you can just switch between apps.
IMHO, the best PDF reader is iAnnotate (which allows you to add notes to
PDFs, highlight text, underline text, and even tag documents).

As for dictionaries, my recommendations are:
Daijisen (japanese-to-japanese, has in-built japanese kanji handwriting recognition)
Daijirin (japanese to japanese, another popular dictionary, definitions are easier to understand).

Kenkyusha 7th edition (intermediate college-level japanese-english dictionary)

These are all paid apps. Nearly all of the free apps use Jim Breen's WWWJDIC dictionary.
It's not as high quality as the paid dictionaries, but, in many cases, it's good enough.

For reading manga and light novels, I'd suggest "CloudReaders".

I currently use OS 3.2, so no multitasking just yet. I might get around to upgrading one of these days though - I'm just being lazy really.

I use Goodreader at the moment and I have to say it is pretty awesome. The new image engine really does a number on some of the pdfs I have on it.

Dictionaries wise I'm using "Japanese". I like it because of the tags features, exporting of lists, and conjugated word look up ability. I'm not quite at monolingual just yet, but I have a few others as well (getting there).

IBunko HD does actually have multitasking dictionary look ups. It looks like it uses Daijisen, but the video was too grainy to be sure. Although, it's only available for IPad right now, sadly.

I guess I'll have to get less lazy and upgrade in the weekend.

Also, any other users have any ideas? Something similar to IBunko HD, but for the iPhone.

iBunko is for the iPhone.
iBunko HD is for the iPad.

Cranks Wrote:Bunko HD does actually have multitasking dictionary look ups. It looks like it uses Daijisen, but the video was too grainy to be sure. Although, it's only available for IPad right now, sadly.

It uses anything that has a URL scheme. Currently, "Japanese" doesn't support this, so try e-mailing the guy to request it (I've been meaning to do it too). I wouldn't do too much reading if you don't have a 4G device though, unless you don't mind blurry text-induced headaches

Blahah was raving about this web browser slash e-reader because of its Lingoes-like functionality (pop-up definitions) as well as vertical reading and rubi support: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wakaru/id351047145 - You can always save the .pdf as .txt and use this program, which looks good. I'll try it out soon.

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...#pid123077 - You can also paste text, as MakiSushi notes.

To be honest, I find Wakaru a bit buggy. I prefer iBunko. That said, I would deem it a most useful tool if it exported word lists into plaintext instead of html. I am too lazy to write a script to make it importable.

And yes, the iPhone version of iBunko has dictionary multitasking.

Edit: any idea of whether you can link the two via the URL thingy? That would be nice; I'd have both an awesome reader and (potentially) easy card creation.

astendra Wrote:To be honest, I find Wakaru a bit buggy. I prefer iBunko. That said, I would deem it a most useful tool if it exported word lists into plaintext instead of html. I am too lazy to write a script to make it importable.

And yes, the iPhone version of iBunko has dictionary multitasking.

Hmm buggy how? I may not get it. What does 'dictionary multitasking' mean? Or 'multitasking dictionary lookups'? Is there a screenshot of iBunko's definitions?

nest0r Wrote:Hmm buggy how? I may not get it. What does 'dictionary multitasking' mean? Or 'multitasking dictionary lookups'? Is there a screenshot of iBunko's definitions?

Mostly UI oversights, like not being able to paste in the notes field of an item in the studylist.
The first (?) version always took you to the first card in the list, no matter which one you selected. They fixed that though, good lord.

In iBunko you hold touch over whatever you want to look up, adjust string length and position if necessary, and click the button for your desired dictionary. This will 自動的に switch the active app and perform a search in said dictionary. Also, a button labeled 'go back' will appear at the top of the dic window, which is handy.

I guess my beef is not so much with it as a reader, since I didn't really try that part out after failing to load some potential novels due to encoding issues. iBunko has easier importing overall, and again, I'm lazy.

Hmm okay thanks. I hadn't intended to use the studylist. Maybe I'll try them all!!!! iBunko! Wakaru! All the dictionaries in the world!!!`!~

Anki supports that feature as well. I made a post on how to do it with 大辞林 here if anyone's interested. Like I said, we need to hound the codefromtokyo guy to get him to add URL scheme support! I hope more developers start using it. It would be awesome to go from something like 共同ニュース to Japanese, add a word to my vocabulary list, and go straight back.

for 共同ニュース do you need a reoccurring subscription to continue to use the app?

Ive never been able to get iBunko to work with the dictionary on my iphone (Kotoba)

@astendra I tried your advice but I wasnt able to get any buttons to appear at the bottom of the screen, instead I get a pop up window asking me if I want to look up the word on Google, Yahoo or Wikipedia.

Thoughts?

mygbmygb Wrote:for 共同ニュース do you need a reoccurring subscription to continue to use the app?

I think it's something like £1.70 every three months. When the subscription runs out, the app shows renew buttons when you open it, and allows you to do it easily through the app store.

dusmar84 Wrote:Ive never been able to get iBunko to work with the dictionary on my iphone (Kotoba)

@astendra I tried your advice but I wasnt able to get any buttons to appear at the bottom of the screen, instead I get a pop up window asking me if I want to look up the word on Google, Yahoo or Wikipedia.

Thoughts?

AnkiMobile 1.6 has Kotoba in its lookup list. Just copy that link and format it like the other ones in iBunko.