How should I fix or replace my electronic dictionary?

September 22, 2006 12:10 PM

How can I fix dead lines on the screen of a Canon Wordtank IDF-3000 electronic dictionary? Or, can you suggest an affordable (sub-$120) kanji-enabled Japanese-English electronic dictionary as a replacement?

I've got a Canon Wordtank IDF-3000 Japanese-English electronic dictionary. Suddenly the screen has a ton of vertical dead lines in it. I didn't drop it or anything, but it has been some months since I used it last. I tried replacing the battery and pressing the reset button, but nothing seems to help. This isn't an American item, and it is a few years old, so I doubt I can get a warranty replacement. Does anybody know of anything else I can try? I really don't want to pay $150+ for another one of these!

Barring repair, do you have a recommendation for a cheap replacement? It doesn't have to be a Canon, but it needs to display kanji (not just kana), and it should have a kanji dictionary and a Jump feature. I would like to find one for under $120 including shipping to the US. Thanks for any help you can give me.

posted by vorfeed to technology (5 comments total)

Unfortunately I can't recommend a cheap replacement - but myself I have moved away from electronic dictionaries and now use this dictionary software with a Nintendo DS Lite game console. It seems to be a lot more flexible for searching options, and also allows you to write in the kanji (and it's pretty forgiving about dodgy writing). It will add about another $100 to your cost - but might be something to consider in the future because you aren't locked into a specific device.
posted by gomichild at 3:00 PM on September 22, 2006

gomichild, that looks extremely tempting -- especially since I've been thinking of getting a DS, so I could easily excuse the extra cost! I have some questions about it, though.

I looked up 漢字そのまま on Nintendo's site, and it appears to have English-Japanese and kokugo dictionaries as well as the Kanji ones. How are they -- do you think this dictionary would be OK for someone working on JLPT level 2? Does it compare favorably with a basic denshijisho like the one I had before? Please elaborate a little on the features, look and feel, etc., as Amazon doesn't have much info.

Also, would this game work with an American DS? It'd be much cheaper for me to buy one here than to import one.
posted by vorfeed at 3:41 PM on September 22, 2006

You can pick up a low end palm pilot and put PADict on it.
posted by matkline at 6:09 PM on September 22, 2006

Yes I think it would be fine for someone at that level. It's aimed at native Japanese speakers but of all ages but after playing with it for a while you should have no problems.

You can select which way you would like to search for a word - say by alphabet, kana or kanji. I found that as far as English meanings go it was a big improvement over the basic electronic dictionary I had - which would often not be able to give me a word at all. As I mentioned earlier the touch screen seems a lot more senstitive than the one on my dictionary - and even if you get close enough it gives you an option to quickly scan through until you see the one you meant. For English and kana a little keyboard comes up and you just tap the screen.

Also it doesn't just give you the word but also examples of it being used in context. So there is quite a lot of information there to get at.

It also has a stack of quizzes of varying levels to play around with too. Plus you can save words and build your own study lists to review later.

On the negative - it did take me a while to work out a flow of sequence for searching in a particular way, and the jump through feature although it is there, is not very intuitive.

So there will be a bit of a learning curve - but now I wouldn't go back to a specific dictionary device. The DS is so much more versatile. When you get fed up with kanji study you can pop in another disk and play Super Mario Bros for example.....

Apparently the nintendo ds has no regional coding. Yay! So it should work - although of course the instructions and so on will be in Japanese because the software is.

Oh yeah - you'd be better off getting one there - the buggers are almost impossible to find here at the moment (i had to queue to get mine on the first day of release of the black one).
posted by gomichild at 10:23 PM on September 22, 2006

gomichild, thank you so much! I have decided to order the DS dictionary (through YesAsia.com, my old import-but-not-import-shipping-prices standby). And yes, Mario Bros. and the like was the deciding factor over matkline's equally fine PDA idea. :)

Anyway, thanks to the both of you for your suggestions!
posted by vorfeed at 12:17 AM on September 23, 2006