Japanese-English electronic dictionary recommendations?

December 3, 2005 5:53 AM

A friend of mine would like to buy an electronic Japanese-English dictionary. What model do you recommend?

She says that the following three things are essential: (1) Japanese -> English; (2) English -> Japanese; (3) Furigana. Although not required, a very welcome bonus would be a dictionary that also had Japanese: Japanese definitions. Unless this is completely unrealistic, she would ideally like to spent US$300 or less.

What models would you recommend? What would you recommend against? Why? Are there any features in an electronic dictionary that she should look out for (she's never used one before and doesn't know what makes the best stand out)? In case it makes a difference, she will be buying this in Japan.

posted by teem to Technology (8 answers total)

She should try to get one--these are at the upper end of the price scale, unfortunately--that has handwriting recognition for kanji. It's so much faster than trying to look up by radical and stroke count. The Canon V70 and V80 have that, but-- they're fairly pricey.

Any dictionary will at least have Japanese-English, English-Japanese, and Japanese-Japanese.
posted by Jeanne at 6:01 AM on December 3, 2005

Here. Quinlan Faris writes very detailed reviews.
posted by planetkyoto at 6:47 AM on December 3, 2005

Most of the affordable electronic dictionaries have screens that don't allow for furigana. However, there is a feature called 'jump' that will allow selection of a word or phrase so that the pronunciation can be found.

A good Kanji search method is also essential. The handwriting recognition method for Kanji is great, but one must have perfect stroke order for it to work consistently. Canons have a great Kanji lookup method where you can type the "parts" of a Kanji. So, if I wanted to look up how to say '妬心', then I could just type 'onna' (女) and 'ishi' (石) into the "parts" field and get my character and all of its compounds. My boyfriend and I have gone through a dozen electronic dictionaries and we like the Canon Wordtank G-50.
posted by Alison at 7:42 AM on December 3, 2005

I like JEDict, and you could find an iBook on eBay for less than $300 that could be updated and do other things. Downsides: bigger, less batter life, and longer startup time.
posted by scottreynen at 9:56 AM on December 3, 2005

Response by poster: Alison: have you tried the Wordtank V80? Does the G-50 still come out on top? My friend also says a Kanji dictionary would be great -- is this what you mean by the Kanji lookup method the Canons have?
posted by teem at 4:47 PM on December 3, 2005

I have a Canon Wordtank (IDF-4100) that sees extremely heavy use. What Alison is referring to -- and that most half-decent electronic dictionaries have -- is a kanji dictionary that allows you to search by radical, by stroke count, by pronunciation, or by component characters (not just the radical). Be aware that in many models the kanji dictionary is entirely in Japanese (i.e. no English definitions or anything).

Models that allow you to write kanji are nice, but in my experience overrated. If you have a certain level of Japanese skill you can quickly get used to finding kanji with the above method. What I also do is search for a word I know uses a particular character, then search on that character in the kanji dictionary to find other readings (excellent for finding verb and adjective readings).

What I recommend varies widely on the learner's skill level, but it is never a bad idea to plan ahead. I bought the one I'm using three years ago, and I'm only just beginning to hit some limitations as far as E->J and J->E word variety goes. The best thing for your friend to do would be to go to Bic Camera, Yodobashi Camera, Sakuraya, or any of the dozens of big electronics stores in Japan and play around with a few for herself. (She may want to go with a bilingual friend to help ask questions of the employees.) You can also easily see how much you'll pay for a certain level of complexity and features.
posted by armage at 5:20 PM on December 3, 2005

I forgot to mention: as Jeanne said, most models will have J-J, J-E, and E-J dictionaries. My (rather old) one also has an Oxford E-E dictionary as well as kanji and katakana. It also has a thesaurus (a weird mishmash of English and Japanese) that I rarely use.
posted by armage at 5:21 PM on December 3, 2005

Hmmm...the V80 looks pretty good, but it has the Genius Edition dictionary which is a big minus. It has a lot of usage notes, but it is very thin in the number and coverage of entries. My current electronic dictionary has the Genius Edition, and I don't recommend it. Most of the time I end up using the Japanese-Japanese dictionary instead.

My boyfriend is a professional translator and recommends the Canon G55.

Also, make sure that whatever dictionary you have has plenty of example sentences. They are essential to using a new word correctly.
posted by Alison at 8:50 PM on December 3, 2005