dbh2ppa
Member
From: Costa Rica
Registered: 2009-05-05
Posts: 120
kanji-based bilingual dictionary?
is there such a thing? it seems all i can find are ローマ字 dictionaries, or dictionaries that, although with correct カナ and 漢字 usage, organize the entries by readings, which doesn't help you at all when what you're reading (as is usual) has little to no furigana. yes, you can use online dictionaries to look stuff up without knowing the readings, but who wants to/can be in front of the computer all day?
so, is there such a thing as a printed bilingual (be it jap-eng or jap-spa... maybe even jap-ita or jap-por) radical-based-lookup dictionary?
Jarvik7
Member
From: 名古屋
Registered: 2007-03-05
Posts: 3946
Even J-J dictionaries order by reading and not kanji. There is no practical way of sorting kanji for easy lookup. You might have luck with a kanji dictionary that has compounds listed, but they aren't very exhaustive, especially in a bilingual one.
Buy an electronic dictionary or at least the sonomama dictionary for DS. Paper dictionaries are obsolete (other than a certification test that required it, I haven't used one in years).
Last edited by Jarvik7 (2009 June 07, 2:50 pm)
Ampharos64
Member
From: England
Registered: 2008-12-09
Posts: 166
Although I'm only a beginner, and so can't read much (er, anything really), I've found the Kanji Sonomama dictionary for DS useful, and it's pretty good at working out which Kanji I mean when I write it in (Ok, thus far, I've mainly only used it to discover info. about a new Metal Gear Solid video game. But, it worked). It won't always have an entry in the Japanese-English dictionary (intended more for Japanese people learning English), unfortunately, but at least it will tell you the reading so you can look it up in yet another dictionary. Guess a full electronic dictionary (with handwriting recognition) would probably be the best solution.
