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かんじの辞書がいりますよ!

bakaKanadajin

先輩
30 Apr 2007
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Yep it's that magical time in a person's life when they're compelled to purchase their lifelong companion in the struggle to learn Kanji. The Kanji dictionary!

Does anyone have any recommendations for something suitable for both a beginner and an advanced learner (later on). I don't want to have to buy one more than once.

A simple amazon.com search yielded way too many choices! 😌

Amazon.com : kanji dictionary
 
The kodansha Kanji learner's dictionary comes highly recommended and I had great success with it too.

Don't worry about it's suitability for an advanced learner because whatever electronic dictionary you eventually get (and you'll need to at an advanced level) will surely have an impressive kanji dictionary like 漢字源 on it.
 
Hmmm..which one's better? Or are they essentialy the same?

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And yes I'm really looking forward to an electronic one although I was a little tentative about buying one in Japan just because I couldn't understand how to use it at all. I was holding out to see if I could find an equally useful one that came in an English format. Any recommendations there? Or by the time I'm learning at an advanced level will I not care about all the buttons being in Japanese? (-_ -;)
 
nintendo DS!
I personally have the red kodansha kanji learners book and I'd say it would probably have more than the essential kanji dictionary; it's very thorough in combinations/readings etc. It's pretty good and all but I'd rather have a ds I can carry around since I encounter most kanji AWAY from my house anyway...

oh by the way, most electronic dictionaries I've found have english formats as well as japanese.
 
Kanji dictionaries!

I used to own the Kodansha's Essential Kanji Dictionary as well as this one.
Amazon product ASIN 0804820589
The Kodansha dictionary was very good, but the thing I didn't like about it was that there weren't a lot of kanji compound words in it. At least the ones I seemed to need were rarely in there.

The yellow Spahn one was great in that regard, but the problem with it is the fact that it uses an original radical system, so when you "graduate" to a full Japanese dictionary, you have to learn the real radical system after having learned the Spahn version.

When I was a student, Nelson was the most highly recommended, and although I've almost never used it, it certainly was used by the most people around me.
Amazon product ASIN 0804820368
 
Thanks for the input guys.
I think I'll probably buy a Kodansha as it comes highly recommended, and if I start to have trouble with compound words I may go for one thats rich in compound words such as the one Mikawa-san recommended. I've heard the radicals are important to know so, if the Kodansha has a standardized format that sounds safer.

ddrrll89, have you got a North American or Japanese market DS? I saw several kanji games when I was living there but I didn't buy any because I figured they'd be incompatible when I got home.
 
The DS is region free. As far as I know you can play a game from any country on any machine. I have numerous Japanese games for my European one.
 
Hmm interesting. I wonder.. do they have any 'Learn Japanese' games for gaijin? Because I'm just worried about being able to actually set the game up and navigate through the menu screens, etc.

I will definitely look into the DS, I saw them when I was there and I was sooo tempted to get one strictly for the kanji games.
 
Is that a kanji dictionary? I hate to be picky but it says "Japanese-English character dictionary" on the cover..whereas the other publications indicate they are specifically kanji dictionaries for looking up kanji, radicals, strokes, etc.

Thanks for your input, if its an actual kanji dictionary then I'll definitely look into it!
 
Baka-san!

The book's title, Japanese English Character Dictionary, is confusing. I guess he chose that title as the best title for a Kan-ei Jiten. (If he had said Kanji-English Dictionary, or Chinese-Character-to-English Dictionary, it would have been more confusing.

Nelson's book is definitely a Kan-ei Jiten, which is what you are lookiing for. It translates Japanese Kanji directly into English, without first translating them into Japanese. (A dictionary that translates kanji into Japanese is called a kan-wa Jiten.)
 
Thank you Buntaro san, I will add it to my shortlist of books to look into buying! It sounds very helpful for a beginner such as myself.
 
Question:
I saw the kanji dictionary for Nintendo DS before... I was wondering, where can you buy it? Is it only in Japanese? Or is it in English, too?

It would be great if I could get that!!!
 
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Got a new casio dictionary! It recognizes Kanji written with the stylus pen.👍
 
Got a new casio dictionary! It recognizes Kanji written with the stylus pen.👍

That looks like the top end model that has 480,000 J-E words/items listed. So much more than my Wordtank G-50. I'm jealous. :( I think my dictionary only has about 70K or 80k words--not enough! I'm always reaching for my Nelson hardback dictionary to look up words I can't find on the Canon. Well, sometimes the problem is just reading the kanji correctly. That's where a stylus input would be soooo convenient.

I'm thinking about picking up that Casio but I'm still leaning towards the Sharp Zaurus because it's kind of like a ultra portable mini-notebook with stylus input. Maybe Santa will bring me one--I've been good all year. :oops:
 
The Zaurus is hot--tons of memory, and you can even run Linux on it. I can't remember if it had wifi or not, but if it does, it would be quite awesome.
 
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