Hey. I just bought a year's subscription to Kenkyusha online dictionary. I've read in a lot of places that it's actually an awesome dictionary, and like, The dictionary for translation.

But now that i'm looking at it, i don't really get it. I'm searching the whole dictionary, but actually, Weblio and ALC's dictionaries seem to be more complete, and have more examples of ways to phrase things, with the added bonus of having a ton of example sentences.

Have I wasted my money, or am I missing something?? Am i using it wrong?? Because, if this is it, I'm probably going to have to ask for a refund, because it's too expensive if the free dictionaries are actually better. But if i'm going to actually need to use this for something, i may as well keep it now... is there some specially beneficial thing to it that i might not have seen with the few searches i've done?

some examples:
資金需要
http://ejje.weblio.jp/sentence/content/%...8%A6%81%22
http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E8%B3%87%...0%E8%A6%81

Kenkyusha:
資金需要 demand for 「funds [finance]; capital requirements; credit 「demands [needs].
●資金需要判断DI the demand for 「funds [finance] DI [diffusion index]; the capital requirements 「DI [diffusion index]; the credit 「demands [needs] DI [diffusion index].

運転資金
http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E9%81%8B%...7%E9%87%91
http://ejje.weblio.jp/sentence/content/%...9%87%91%22

Kenkyusha:
運転[運用]資金 working funds.
●株式運用資金 stock trading capital.
運転資金 working capital
･運転〔回転/準備〕資金 working 〔revolving / reserve〕 funds
運転資金[資本] working 「capital [funds]; operating capital.
●貸し渋りで運転資金にも事欠く中小の企業が多い. With the credit squeeze, there are many small and medium-sized businesses that are hard-pressed even for working funds.
・短期のつなぎ運転資金 stopgap funds.
運転資金[資本] working 「funds [capital [u]]
r´unning c｀osts
━pl 運営費, 運転資金.

(which, incidentally takes about 8 mouse clicks to view all those).

and a common term like 力を尽くす：
http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E5%8A%9B%...F%E3%81%99
http://ejje.weblio.jp/sentence/content/%...3%81%99%22

Kenkyusha:
lend, exert, lay, lend oneself, serve

I'm not a user of Kenkyusha online so I don't know what they have to offer.

However, I do know that ALC is based on Eijiro, and Weblio uses the Tanakus Corpus which are not not entirely free from mistakes. I'd imagine that, like the Kenkyusha paper dics, the Kenkyusha reference is professionally edited and, as far as possible, error-free (which is probably half of what you are paying for).

I use both my top-end Ex-word and Eijiro for my look-ups, and I have never found myself needing anything more.

Is it possible to get this dictionary in a non-online format? I have it as an app for my iPod but will be moving to Android soon and anyway I'd like to use it on my main computer, especially when I don't have internet access.

I have several of the main dictionaries set up to work with Atok and ideally this one would also, but it's not an option on the Atok website. Is the Kenkyuusha dictionary (even just the intermediate one which is the one I have) sold anywhere in downloadable format or on CD?

Incidentally, I do find it a really useful dictionary for translation. The example sentences are high quality, I think better than the free dictionaries, and it seems error free. It does seem to miss some slang words that Edict has though, which is why it can't be the only dictionary I use.

I think the Kenkyusha results are short because they come under the entries for 需要 and 運転.

The other two sites you listed search a sentence database for all sentences containing those words. So for example the sentence "公債の発行が,民間の資金需要を圧迫すること" will also show up as a result for 公債, 発行, 民間, 圧迫 etc.

In Kenkyusha all the entries are written individually by a professional team. As such, while 資金 and 需要 have lengthy entries, 資金需要 just comes under both of them without its own detailed entry.

In the case of weblio a lot of the sentences are from the Tanakus Corpus database which FWIW has the following warning: http://www.manythings.org/corpus/warning.html

One of the things I like about the Kenkyusha is the organisation of entries and how it covers each particle in turn. So 需要 will have examples for 需要が, then 需要と, then 需要に, then 需要の、 then 需要を for example. Though I guess it doesn't do that for combination words like the ones you were searching for.

karategirl09 Wrote:Is it possible to get this dictionary in a non-online format? I have it as an app for my iPod but will be moving to Android soon and anyway I'd like to use it on my main computer, especially when I don't have internet access.

There's an EPWING version which is easily *findable*.
And there are EPWING readers for all major OSs.

nooooo don't say that Bokusenou ><!!!

well, i shoulda known i guess. Still, i suppose it doesn't hurt to pay for things occasionally...

After a day of using it, i still haven't made up my mind. It had an english translation for 「売上高経常利益率」, which i wouldn't have found in ALC or Weblio (edit: wait, it is in Weblio), but no entry for ぶつかり合う, which is pretty bizarre. It's slower to search for words when they're missing or part of a phrase, but quicker when they're there, as the entries are more organised than the sentence corpuses.

@Elenkis, i hadn't noticed that!! That is really helpful. I had been typing in whole phrases before, and getting annoyed that they're not there, but it's often just that the search function is lacking. So you can search for part of the phrase, but only find the phrase as word+particle inside one of the entries.

As for the Tanaka Corpus being unreliable... yeah it is, and so is Eijiro. But actually, if you're a native english speaker, and using them to translate J-E text you got from a native Japanese speaker, it's not going to matter. You know which translations sound silly, so you can just ignore them. It's if you're trying to translate E-J with them that you're going to run into problems...

@Squarezebra: what's ex-word?

@IceCream Well, to be fair, the online version is supposed to be continually updated, so it has words and edits which haven't made it to the latest print/EPWING versions yet. ^-^;

I tried searching for all the words you searched for in my EPWING version:

資金需要　demand for funds [finance]; capital requirements; credit demands [needs].

運転資金[資本]　working capital [funds]; operating capital.
貸し渋りで運転資金にも事欠く中小の企業が多い.　With the credit squeeze, there are many small and medium-sized businesses that are hard-pressed even for working funds.
・短期のつなぎ運転資金　stopgap funds.

力を尽くす had nothing, but there was something similar under 尽くす:

2 〔すべて使い切る〕 use up; run out of…; 〔すべて表す〕 express completely; 〔全うする〕 fulfill; carry out; 〔極に達する〕 do everything; do to the utmost of one's power.
手[手段]を尽くす　try [exhaust] every means; try everything; do everything in one's power [at one's disposal]
・全力を尽くす　make an all-out effort
・百方力を尽くす　do everything in the book
・力を尽くして戦う　fight as hard as one can

Nothing for 売上高経常利益率 or ぶつかり合う.

So I guess they added a few things to the online one.

Oddly enough, the Daijirin and Daijisen J-J dictionaries also don't seem to have ぶつかり合う.

@ IceCream,

an Ex-word is the CASIO line of electronic dictionaries. I recently bought the D10000 and it has everything. No idea how much content you get wth a Kenkyusha subscription though : /

Seems like what you're complaining about Kenkyusha's online dictionary is lack of the function to search example sentences for Japanese words and phrases. If it doesn't allow Japanese words for 例文検索 or similar search functions, or if it doesn't search example sentences in the first place, it seems like a very poor implementation; if it only allows a simple headword search, it isn't that different from paper dictionaries.

It was many years ago when I tried Eijiro, so things might have changed since. But when I used it, it wasn't what we call a dictionary at all. It was just a bunch of bilingual sentences with some definitions for words thrown in to make it usable as a quasi-dictionary. As long as you know there are many errors that learners may not be able to catch easily, it was very good for what it is; it's a ton of translations that may not be accurate. If that's what you need for your learning purposes, that will work better than even the best dictionaries out there, especially if you can't search example sentences in those dictionaries.

Also, there are words a dictionary deliberately avoids to define. For example, most of the proper nouns such as the names of flowers and famous figures are typically not defined or "poorly" defined in a traditional dictionary. You don't look in a dictionary to know what the United Kingdom is. The kind of book you need for that purpose is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary. By the same token, technical or scientific terms are not treated very well because they're not within the scope of traditional dictionaries.

Unlike monolingual dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries seem to try to accomodate many words and phrases that are more suited for encyclopedias and glossaries for practical purposes. But they're still dictionaries, so a bulk of translations like Eijoro may be better in this regard too.

I'm fairly certain that even the humongous and authoritative Oxford dictionary doesn't have "operating capital" as a headword. But if you can search the example sentences, it might be somewhere in the dictionary. A bilingual dictionary might define it if the editor thinks learners need to know the standard translation of the English "word," though I kind of feel like it's very unlikely. So, if what you need to know is the standard translation and actual uses of one specific meaning of a particular word/phrase that is typically not found or tread well in a dictionary, probably you're better off searching a bunch of translations taken from newspapers, economy textbooks, and so on. But if you want to learn about the word "capital" such as its core meaning, figurative usages, gramatical functions, and etymology, a good dictionary is better.