Bought an electronic dictionary, how do I use it?

Bought myself the Canon Wordtank G55 because everyone recommended it. It's pretty cool but because all the instructions are in Japanese I have to work it all out myself. I've got most of it down pat however I can't work out how to look up kanji words when you don't know the pronounciation.

For example, imagine I'm walking around Osaka and I see the word 郵便局, how would I look it up? I was thinking maybe the kanji lookup feature but you can only do one at a time.

Incidentally, when I go to the Japanese-English dictionary and try to look up 郵便局 it doesn't appear. Only 郵便 appears, but when I click on 郵便 it gives me 郵便局. Ahh, this is all too confusing. How am I suppose to use this thing?

Another example, I have a form here that has the words レッスンカバー連絡票 (with "lesson cover form" in English) written on it. Using the kanji dictionary I got the pronounciations of all three kanji "renrakuhyou", but when I type that into the dictionary only "renraku" comes up with the definition "connect, make contact, communication, liason". Then when I look up "hyou" I get "a vote". what? How am I suppose to work out the meaning of "renrakuhyou" from all this rubbish information?

Yup, japanese words are made like that. renrakuhyou is the words renraku and hyou (label/ticket) pushed together. yuubinkyoku is yuubin with kyoku at the end.

You will never find this word in a dictionary:
環境問題調査機関最終報告発表予定表
you just have to look up the individual parts, and then add them to get the meaning.
環境 問題 調査 機関 最終 報告 発表 予定 表

KrazyKat said:

Yup, japanese words are made like that. renrakuhyou is the words renraku and hyou (label/ticket) pushed together. yuubinkyoku is yuubin with kyoku at the end.
You will never find this word in a dictionary:
環境問題調査機関最終報告発表予定表
you just have to look up the individual parts, and then add them to get the meaning.
環境 問題 調査 機関 最終 報告 発表 予定 表

Click to expand...

I think I would probably divide it up as:
環境問題 調査機関 最終報告 発表 予定表

I don't have the G55 so I can't give you very specific help, but I'll try. Looking up kanji is tricky. When you don't know any of the pronunciations, you usually have to rely on stroke count and the radical.

Stroke count is relatively easy to figure out. 郵 has 11 strokes. 便 has 9 strokes. There might be a box on your kanji lookup screen labeled 総画数 where you would enter this number. The problem is that on my dictionary, that yields 575 results, so unless you want to weed through 575 kanji, you have to narrow it down a bit more. The main radical is a way to do this but it's pretty tricky and requires some guesswork. In 郵 the main radical is that part on the right and in 便 it's that part on the left. On my dictionary (and hopefully yours is similar), there's a box labeled 部首画数. In here I would enter 3 (the number of strokes in the main radical of 郵) and then I would be provided with a small list of 3-stroke radicals and would select the right one. So if I search using the radical by itself I get 27 matches, and if I search using the radical and the total stroke count there are 5 matches, including 郵. Either way, much more manageable than 575.

Let's say you've found the character in your dictionary, then what? Probably you'll see in the kanji's entry a part called 常読 or 字音. This would have the character's on-yomi in katakana, and the kun-yomi in hiragana. This is where the guesswork begins, trying to piece together the readings of the kanji you've looked up to make a word. In the dictionary, you'll probably find that 郵 can be read as ユウ or ユ and 便 can be read as ベン, ビン or たよ・り. The correct combination, of course, is ゆうびん. This can all get really frustrating, and the best thing you can until you've got a lot of kanji under your belt is to expose yourself to reading sources with furigana so you don't have to guess or look up the readings.


Lastly, though I don't own the G55, I have used it briefly and I was also frustrated that it didn't have words with suffixes (like 郵便局) as headings. I guess it's just something you've got to get used to. Good luck

JimmySeal, thanks a lot, that's exactly the information that I was looking for. In fact, I actually assumed as much regarding the "guess the pronounciation then stick together the different combinations" method.

I got a chance to use my friend's G55 tonight, so here's a little more info.
Once you start entering stuff on the lookup screen, the arrow keys can only be used for selecting kanji, so to switch between different fields (reading, radical, stroke count) use the page up/page down keys.

There's also a feature called "parts" that you can use if you can identify a piece of the kanji other than the radical. So for example if you were looking up 徳 you could enter じゅう (十), こころ (心) or よこめ (sideways 目) under parts, and then those three strokes on the left as the radical, and you've found it.

Also, when you're looking at a kanji's entry, you can press the round button labeled 関連語句 to see a list of compounds beginning with that character. It works for finding 郵便.


Ah, and lastly 連絡票 doesn't show up in my dictionary, but 連絡 means make contact, as you correctly deduced. 票 (ひょう) can mean "ballot" (as in vote), but more generally, it can just be a piece of paper. I've received 連絡票 when I wasn't around to receive a package and so they left me a slip of paper to contact me. There's also 受験票, which is an exam admission card. These things don't come easily and sometimes y'just gotta ask people.

Jimmy mate, you're awesome. You've just opened up a whole new world for me and my Wordtank!