Electronic dictionaries

[moyashi]

Even though the net with various translation sites have popped up quite a bit recently, I still find my electronic dictionary quite handy.

I have a Canon WordTank that does English <-> Japanese translations, and it you can use it to LOOK UP Kanji y radical, sound or stroke count.

If you're studying Japanese I'm sure you'd find one of these puppies helpful!

 

[Maciamo]

I also have a Canon, probably the same as you (IDF-3000) and for the same reason, I can jump to the kanji to find their readings and meanings. I wanted to buy one with the Oxford Concise dictionary inside (English-English); there is only the Seiko SR-9200 (about 36.000yen, not cheap !) and you can't jump to kanji in the ei-wa dictionary. As it seems that the Seiko ER-6000 (Oxford Concise + thesaurus, but no Japanese at all) is not available in Japan, I had to order it on an English site (74 pounds > 14000yen delivery included, good deal).

 

[moyashi]

My Canon is pretty old. It's like a ID-9500 or something like that.
I wish I had a newer one like yours Maciamo. More vocabulary. I never bought the expansion cards for mine.

I just saw a scanner pen type today in the newspaper. Hmmm, I'm really lazy ....

 

[Maciamo]

Mine was one of the cheapest actually ; under 10.000yen. I wonder why as it has more than 110.000 words from English to Japanese and about 80.000 the other way. The average is 80.000 both ways. I also have the "kokugo" (Jp-Jp) and kanji dictionary on it. The IDF-4500 or 4100 are even better as they have a En-En Oxford Advanced learner in it, but cost more than double (about 25.000yen).

 

[moyashi]

I paid 30,000 yen for it back about 8 years ago and the funny thing is that yours is probably better than mine.

 

[Scott]

Hmm I'm looking to purchase one of these electronic dictionaries and I seem to have come across the CANON WordTank IDF-3000, which I think is the same one that you have Maciamo. I'm interested in purchasing it but I'd like to hear your opinions on whether or not I should buy it, or if there are other models out there that would be a wiser choice.

 

[kinjo]

My friend recomend to me a great place to buy Japanese electronic dictionaries on the interent. The companies name is Aiko Trading Co. I decided on buying the Canon Wordtank IDF-4500. It is unbelivable! The shops url is http://shop.store.yahoo.com/wordtankpro/

The IDF-4500 replaced my old IDX-9600 I bought about seven years ago. The difference between both is night and day.

 

[dswbg]

i've been wanting to get one of those dictionaries for quite sometime now, the only thing that stopped me was the
output language.... is any of these dictionaries can give
me the output in kana (or romaji for that matter)....?
or one has to master Kanji perfectly to use them....?

 

[mdchachi]

The Canon Wordtank puts kana above all kanji entries. Entries contain kanji but you can use the jump feature to look up the word and, thereby, get the kana. I've been using various models of Wordtank for over 8 years now. It's certainly made my life a lot easier.