The Ideal Electronic Dictionary

[hamsterfreak4evr]

itd be really nice if a person could input verbs or adjectives that have been conjugated and it will say "did you mean [plain form]?" http://www.jisho.org works like this and i find it really useful sometimes!!

[sushi4ever]

How about getting an Asus Eee PC and installing some dictionary software on it?

I'm really thinking about getting one, since I could also run Anki on it and carry around my scanned textbooks for constant review

[thesettingsun]

4. Vocabulary lists and Kanji lists based on the 4 JLPT tests and by Grade and possibly, by chapter for some of the major Educational texts, like Genki.

I agree with this. A database of JLPT grammar (with example sentences) and JLPT kanji (with common compounds) would be ideal.

[Totakeke423]

These have probably already been mentioned, but what really matters is the amount of people that want something.

Anyway:

1) It needs to have some kind of touch screen. I know those aren't cheap, but handwriting recognition is essential. Even the DS Japanese browser has handwritten kanji lookup.

2) It needs to have good sample sentences, and sentences where words and characters are used in context.

3) It needs to have some kind of memory slot for either a flash drive or the infinitely more convenient (and about the same memory size, usually) SD card. Maybe a USB port for charging/uploads. I don't think I'd like to carry my dictionary around with a 32 gigabyte flash drive sticking out (yes, I am the only person on Earth to purchase a 32 gigabyte flash drive. )

4) It should be as Earth-friendly as possible. Yes, I hug trees... because trees don't pollute or try to sell me expensive gasoline.

5) It should be rechargeable, which means having it's own battery pack, like a cell phone or the Nintendo DS.

6) If it'll have a USB port (probably mini USB) then it should have some kind of computer connectivity.

7) It needs to have as much on-board memory as possible since a lot of these things mentioned, in my post and otherwise, take a lot of memory. Unfortunately the more flash memory you have the more expensive things become.

I'll add more in a later post if I can think of anything else.

One more thing. Is it possible to disclose this major electronics country? Regardless, it's awesome that you get to shape the future of a Japanese-learner's dictionary. Unfortunately it'll probably be years before production starts.

[shimewaza]

I'd like to see a fairly complete dictionary of Japanese idioms and kotowazas

[Sairana]

its so great for the Japanese if u want to learn English just truss yourself to learn spike English...

... she's trying to tell us something..... I just don't know what it is.

[Mattias]

I'm not sure if somebody mentioned this, but for J-J, how about Super Daijirin?
I have it on my current Canon Wordtank G90 (which is not perfect) and Super Daijirin is great on it.

And maybe also something similar to "The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary" which is awesome!

[fuzzycuffs]

afaik, there are no denshijisho that have furigana. I've gone into all manner of Bic Camera, Sakuraya, Laox, anyone in Akiba, and everyone says that they don't exist. You have to use the jump function to look up kanji when you MAY get the right way to say it. As an English speaker learning Japanese, the most difficult thing is "how do I say this in Japanese," not "what does that Japanese mean?" Well, at least that's the most difficult thing for me to manage while using an electronic dictionary.

However, all is not lost. I have found that Kotoba, an app for the iPhone is damn great. It's based on WWWJDIC and you can even use the Chinese input to draw kanji (although you of course need to know stroke order for it to work, as that's how kanji recognition really works). Also, it's free, and offline. Works great.

But I agree, I would like a typical electronic dictionary where I could type in things. I have an older Wordtank G60, and my wife finds much better use out of it than I do.

[Miaow]

Just thought I'd put my vote in for furigana over all kanji, and example sentences and some detail about connotations and nuances of a kanji or compound. A built-in SRS (like Anki) would be great as well!

Is development underway for this dictionary?

[mbridge]

I want it to also have Korean equivalents, if they exist...

[Endo]

Mini flashcards like they have in the sonomama rakubiki jiten on DS, I just love that function: look up a word and with a tap save it and you can practise it as a flashcard.

[katafei]

Clay, I've got the Ex-word XD-GP9700, but I'm having trouble finding the kanji dictionary.
Surely it's in there.....?
Can you help me out?


Edit: question answered in another thread. Thanks!

[FrozenFlame]

How about ATLAS dictionary ?

[Pork Chop]

I just got an iphone recently and have been trying to set it up to replace my seiko electronic dictionary.
So far everything's going really well.
It may in fact be my ideal dictionary, especially considering it's entirely customizable & updates will be forthcoming (not to mention usually free).

Might as well describe how I got to where I'm at.

First thing's first, I had to set it up to allow proper input.
Under:
Settings -> General -> International -> Keyboards
for Japanese, I added QWERTY and Kana
in order to support handwriting recognition, i went down to Traditional Chinese and turned on Handwriting.

The first dictionary I wanted was 研究者's green goddess dictionary, but the basic app is $30, with follow ups at $84 and $30, for a total of over $140; so I decided to ditch that idea.

Instead, I went with iEijiro - cheaper at 8.99, with more entries. It's a little weird though as it seems to be a dictionary of sample sentences not a dictionary of words with samples in the definition.

I also added EDict/wwwjdic-based dictionaries:
Japanese, Kotoba!, JDict, WWWJDic
This was total overkill, but each program has some benefits.
Japanese - large kanji list, JLPT study guide, subject matter based look up, vocab lists (all offline), the most expensive one I bought at 15.99 but came highly recommended; should've used it more before buying anything else from this list (didn't realize it was an EDict clone).
Kotoba! - tabs for Dictionary, Examples (certified & others), and word lists (all offline)... oh and did i mention it's free!
JDict - just a straight up search window with similar options to the wwwjdic site, but all offline, though probably a waste of 4.99 at this point.
wwwjdic - this one's basically just an iphone optimized mirror of the normal website, but it requires an internet so it can go slow. at least it's free though.

Next I looked into ALC, because i use their site for sample sentences all the time.
They have 3 iphone apps available, but they're all in the Ultimate English Listening series (究極の英語リスニング) and they're all around $12 apiece.
Instead, I just created a bookmark in Safari to the http://www.alc.co.jp website for those times I need some more sample sentences for a word.

One of the devices I'm hoping to replace with my iPhone is my Nintendo DS. On my DS I've gotten the most play out of Tadashii Kanji Kakitori-kun, the game that helps Japanese elementary school kids practice their kanji. Luckily I found iKanji Touch from ThinkMac. This game is like Tadashii Kanji Kakitori-kun, but better in that I don't have to run to another source for English definitions. It also has the added benefit of being broken up not only by Japanese Elementary School grade level, but by JLPT level as well. It has tests for stroke order, combinations, and meaning - everything I love about the DS game. I got it for $8 on sale. Kanji Pop is another one that looks good.

Not sure if any of you use iKnow and smart.fm lists, but there's an iKnow app for the iphone. Now you can download all your Japanese vocabulary lists to your phone and go through flash cards at your leisure. Spaced repetition helps with memorization. It's also been on sale for $0.99 for the holidays.

Lastly, I picked up some phrase lists, just for the heck of it. J Phrases and Idioms. They're nice because they have a lot of functionality like quizzes and reviewing options. Probably should've gotten Kotowaza instead of the Beginning Phrases one, but at least I'm supporting the site.

If anybody else has any (preferably free) suggestions for improvement, I'd be more than happy to hear them.

[pmt7ar]

I have bought a CASIO ExWord XD-GF6500 from Amazon via Rabbit Express. I got a good price 50% on amazon so I had to take it while it lasts.
It's not the latest model, but it fills my needs quite well.

It made my life better, really, specially while reading. just 2 seconds to find a word, mark it (to learn them in detail latter) but I can continue with my reading without stopping 2 or 3 minutes per word like before on paper dictionaries, making a single sentence long 10 minutes to read.

@Totakeke423 , look for ExWords dictionaries, they have all you mentioned: double touch screen (main screen and input pad with 2 boxes for kanji / 5 for romaji); sample sentences (there's even a dictionary of only sentences); it has 50mb of internal memory, but microSD slot and USB port (I actually have some AozoraBunko essays in TXT and some audio trading CD's copied on the microSD to hear them on the dictionary -need special software to convert-); earth friendly, but it uses batteries. anyway, it's optimized to rechargable eneloop bateries, and will last you years (also, mine was a R再生商品 item, some kind of recycled version)


My favourite dictionaries on the ExWord are Kôjien, the Sin Kangorin (a must, it isn't like Kanji Advanced Learners Dictionary, but it supply it very well). Meikyô (jp-jp), NHK accent (all with audio pronunciation), koji kotowaza jiten, Oxford en-en, progressive waei chuujiten (jp-es), and a kazoekata jiten that its really helpful (I always had trouble with counters). also the eijirô (en-jp) that I installed to it, that helps me a lot with sentence examples.