The best dictionaries out there cost money. If you're not willing to part with money, ALC's eijirou is a decent supplement to edict. But if you're serious about studying Japanese in the long term, invest in a good dictionary such as the green goddess.

Last edited by resolve (2010 May 11, 5:12 am)

Yahoo Japan gives results from a decent assortment of actual dictionaries, so far as I can tell. Most of them are J-J, though.

Edit: changed "eiwa" to "waei/eiwa"; thx to Jarvik.

resolve wrote:

The best dictionaries out there cost money. If you're not willing to part with money, ALC's eijirou is a decent supplement to edict. But if you're serious about studying Japanese in the long term, invest in a good dictionary such as the green goddess.

It's not just the money, but the convenience of having it online, and the fact that it is "English-based" (and not "Japanese-based").

(Not to mention that I can download it in a form that I can mess with it programmatically, e.g. search for stuff in ways that are not easy to do with the standard interfaces.  This last feature, however, is truly unique, and too mind-bogglingly awesome to be reasonably expected from any alternative.)

I'd prefer to shell out the bucks for a subscription to an excellent online waei/eiwa dictionary, accessible from anywhere, than to pay even less (in the long run) for a back-breaking 3000-page tome.

merlin.codex suggests a 電子辞書 which is certainly more portable than said tome, but still, if available, an online alternative, even for $$$, if far preferable, IMHO.  I'll see if I can find an online subscription service for 広辞苑.

Thanks!

P.S.  It's too bad (for me, anyway) that none of the waei/eiwa dictionaries that are usually cited among the good ones is aimed at speakers of English like me, but I suppose that just reflects harsh economic realities: in the market for waei/eiwa dictionaries, we are a microscopically small minority. 

Last edited by gfb345 (2010 May 11, 6:59 am)

Jarvik7 wrote:

Why do you even need an eiwa dictionary? I've never used one except when tutoring English.

Because I have a loooong way before attaining your level of nihongo awesomeness.

Jarvik7 wrote:

I wasn't born with awesome Japanese. I didn't use an eiwa dictionary when I was a beginner either, just j-e and then j-j.

Sorry, my mistake: I was using "eiwa" loosely as a generic term encompassing both e-j and j-e.

Last edited by gfb345 (2010 May 11, 6:59 am)

Mac OS X comes with 3 japanese dictionaries and a thesaurus.
It's what I use 90% of the time.

The other 10% is when I use my Canon Wordtank V300 (for words that I
need to handwrite).

chamcham wrote:

Mac OS X comes with 3 japanese dictionaries and a thesaurus.
It's what I use 90% of the time.

The other 10% is when I use my Canon Wordtank V300 (for words that I
need to handwrite).

The OSX dictionaries are pretty good, but the dictionary app isn't that great compared to コトノコ. Apple should have implemented EPWING instead of creating their own XML format. Also, If your mac is a reasonably new laptop you can handwrite through the Chinese IME.

Sebastian wrote:

Jarvik7 wrote:

Apple should have implemented [A] instead of creating their own [b] format.

If they did that, they couldn't enslave their users/fanboys.

Apple is all about open standards on closed platforms, so your criticism is invalid.

What dictionary would you all recommend for reading away from the computer?  I'm a relative beginner, so I need J-E, but I'm willing to pay for a dictionary that has pretty complete coverage.  Right now I'm reading relatively easy manga: Yotsuba and "Touch".  I can read Yotsuba pretty freely, but I need lots of help with Touch, even with the furigana.  I do like to read away from the PC -- I spend too much time in front of it as it is. 

I have the Kodansha Kanji Learner's dictionary, but increasingly I see its limitations -- sometimes I can't find a compound in it.  And of course it doesn't help me with kana-based words that I don't know.  I also use "Japanese", an EDICT-based dictionary, on my iPad; it's OK, but it suffers from the limitations of EDICT.  (I'm willing to put up with the iPad screen, as at least I can go outside to read with it.)  Should I just suck it up and buy the green goddess?

I'm also wondering whether I'm using dictionaries right, especially when I try to read manga without furigana.  Is the proper approach always to look at the first character in the compound?  Using "Japanese" on the iPad, I have to laboriously construct the kanji using components or hope that the system recognizes my handwriting.  Using the paper kanji dictionary is arguably faster, but it doesn't always show me the compound.  Any general advice here?

Groot wrote:

What dictionary would you all recommend for reading away from the computer?

An electronic dictionary. It's so fast that it doesn't take much away from the reading experience. It always recognises my handwriting, but usually I can guess at the reading of the kanji.

Groot wrote:

What dictionary would you all recommend for reading away from the computer?

If you have an iPad, then there is a version of the Wisdom dictionary made for it. Monokakido products usually have a well-designed interface and as such are a pleasure to use. The only drawback is that it's a 中 (chuu) size, so the coverage won't be quite as wide as EDICT.

If you require a very wide coverage, then the only 大 (dai) J-E dictionary I know of for the iPod is the well-respected Kenkyusha "Green Goddess". This is much more expensive of course, and the interface (by LogoVista) is designed for the iPod rather than iPad.

I use Weblio a ton these days instead of EDICT. Weblio then uses Kenkyusha I believe and a few other dictionaries.