Hi, everyone.

What would you recommend and why?

1. Daijisen (A) or Daijirin (B)?

2. Is there an option to activate Furigana or something like that?
I can't really read Kanji much.

Thank you.

No furigana option for definitions that I'm aware of. If you want to use JJ dictionaries then you need to be comfortable with kanji. They are made for Japanese natives afterall.
That said though, I like the daijirin.

No furigana on either one. They are both pretty much the same, though if I had to choose one, I'd say I like Dajisen more because the example sentences are more contemporary, instead of from literary sources, and everything just seems laid out better. That said, I use Daijisen, Daijirin, Meikyou (usually the easiest), and Koujien regularly, and find that it's best not to reply on just one dictionary. This page does a good job of comparing all of them, but I wouldn't use kokugo dictionaries a lot until you can at least get the gist of most of the definitions without a dictionary.

I like 大辞林. There are some old sentences, but they tend to be for old usages of words. Many words or definitions of words have concise examples, like「―がつく」or something where ― is the word, that I find really useful and add to my vocab cards. You also have the advantage of pitch accent codes, which 大辞泉 doesn't seem to have.

Why do you want a JJ dictionary?

大辞林 (on iOS) has an excellent interface so it's definitely the one you'll want to use if you're wanting a mobile dictionary.

Otherwise I like 広辞苑 the most because you get a stronger sense of the evolution in meaning over time. Perhaps not as useful for lower level learners who just want a simple meaning though.

In reality I use 大辞泉 the most because it's the easiest to access from work, where I do most of my looking up of stuff (unless it's 専門用語, in which case I use 英辞郎J-E).

yudantaiteki Wrote:Why do you want a JJ dictionary?

The major reason being me having the tendency of expressing things in a rather abstract and compressed way... Therefore I would like to learn how to define and explain things the way a dictionary does...


Thank you everyone for your useful answers. They are of great help.

First, I have to learn some Kanji, I think, though...

Yeah, using EDICT should be fine until you have the vocabulary to use kokugo dictionaries. EDICT is great for beginners because it lists a lot of things like whether something is a transitive or intransitive verb, etc that just make it really helpful for beginners.

Personally I don't think it's very useful to learn how to talk like a dictionary; when native speakers explain words in real life they don't talk like dictionaries. "Compressed" describes the typical JJ dictionary definition pretty well.

Depending on the dictionary that you want to get will determine how in depth the definitions will be.

I find having a Japanese dictionary to be very helpful in understanding the meaning of unknown words. Also, many Japanese dictionaries do give useful example sentences or phrases. My view is the Japanese dictionary is very beneficial.

I am unaware if the have any digital versions of elementary students dictionaries, but the hardcover versions are very useful for beginners.

広辞苑 or similar dictionary are very informative when you can (leaf through it) do random search.

Bokusenou Wrote:Yeah, using EDICT should be fine until you have the vocabulary to use kokugo dictionaries. EDICT is great for beginners because it lists a lot of things like whether something is a transitive or intransitive verb, etc that just make it really helpful for beginners.

EDICT is never fine as a beginner reference.
Use a proper J-E dictionary instead of an extremely flawed (if occasionally useful) gloss

Jarvik7 Wrote:

Bokusenou Wrote:Yeah, using EDICT should be fine until you have the vocabulary to use kokugo dictionaries. EDICT is great for beginners because it lists a lot of things like whether something is a transitive or intransitive verb, etc that just make it really helpful for beginners.

EDICT is never fine as a beginner reference.
Use a proper J-E dictionary instead of an extremely flawed (if occasionally useful) gloss

Which do you recommend? Kenkyusha?

Jarvik7 Wrote:EDICT is never fine as a beginner reference.

I disagree. For quick lookup - it's the best. For rigorous research use a more serious dictionary. EDICT's format (only a few words) is ideal for pop-up definitions while reading a longer text, it doesn't distract too much. Yes, exactly because of the simplicity of the definitions it can't be 100% accurate, and there are many simply erroneous articles, but thanks to its openness it could continuously improve, but only if people use it and file bug reports. Advanced learners like yourself could help even more than beginners, but it seems you just give up on it. (I've read several similar comments from you in the past). EDICT is very large, some 200,000 articles, however, if 200 volunteers (American Japanese teachers, Japanese English teachers, etc.) revised only 1000 articles each, (compare with other dictionaries etc.), EDICT would become vastly more correct and useful.

Tori-kun Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:

Bokusenou Wrote:Yeah, using EDICT should be fine until you have the vocabulary to use kokugo dictionaries. EDICT is great for beginners because it lists a lot of things like whether something is a transitive or intransitive verb, etc that just make it really helpful for beginners.

EDICT is never fine as a beginner reference.
Use a proper J-E dictionary instead of an extremely flawed (if occasionally useful) gloss

Which do you recommend? Kenkyusha?

I tried to use Kenkyusha before I could read well and had to use Rikaichan on it regularly because a lot of the distinctions between word meanings were in Japanese. Kenkyusha's great when one has the vocabulary to handle it, but it wasn't beginner friendly enough for me to use daily when I was starting out, so that's why I reccomended EDICT.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Use a proper J-E dictionary instead of an extremely flawed (if occasionally useful) gloss

How is EDICT/JMDict "extremely flawed"? Sorry for reviving an old thread, but this criticism struck me as unfair (prompting me to register for an account). The dictionary file has improved in leaps and bounds for the past years. The number of entries are ever-rising while at the same time, many dubious entries from the early days are being deleted. Many common words which were previously only defined by a single English gloss have been thoroughly expanded and now include as many different senses as the kokugo dictionaries. There's still work to do, of course, but characterizing the whole project as "extremely flawed" seems more likely to be based on the state of the project in the early 2000's than in 2013.

I agree that the formatting/structure is better in Kenkyusha's dictionaries than JMDict's, considering they include usage examples etc., but JMDict is, as of now, a lot more comprehensive than at least 新和英中辞典 in most fields (has 167k entries vs. 新和英中辞典's 187k, which includes 90k example sentences).

Every dictionary has its own ideal usage. When I'm reading a Japanese news article, I wouldn't want any other wa-ei than EDICT/JMDict. If I'm on the other hand translating the same article into English, I'd make sure to use Weblio's various references (which includes both JMDict and 新和英中辞典) and Eijiro, which is a great resource. When I want to fully understand an important word I'm not sufficiently familiar with, or a word that strikes me as odd in a certain usage, or one that's too obscure to have yet been translated into English by any of the aforementioned sources, I'll look it up in a kokugo.

If you're instead using EDICT to do reverse look-ups (i.e. using it as if it were an E-J), I could understand why you'd reach the verdict that it's flawed - WWWJDIC in particular is absolutely horrible if this is what you're attempting. But otherwise, if you understand its limitations and what it was built to do, I really don't get how you could judge it so harshly.