Alphabetization

[somethinorwatever]

How do you alphabetize 漢字　and ひらがな　and カタカナ　in the dictionary?

[dreamingxashley]

In my dictionary (which is a cheap one)...

ひ (hi) is listed under "h"

カ (ka) is listed under "k"

Kanji, I dont know... but my guess is that in a Kanji dictionary for the basic 1945 Kanji, it would be listed by number...? But thats my guess...

[Kodi]

stroke order first i think.

[Mugen]

everything is always based on stroke order. the fewer strokes first...

[hihlordjp]

Alphabetization for vowels is a, i, u, e, o. For consonants, it's k (g), s (z), t (d), n, h (b, p), m, y, r, w.

[Spaztick]

In the dictionary the kanji is listed by stroke order, and further listed by the stroke order in the radicals, starting from the left, then the top, then the right, then the bottom.

[somethinorwatever]

can u give like examples of just a random list of kanji, and then in "alphabetical" order?

[Shibakoen]

Are you talking about the Kodansha Kanji dictionary? It splits things up first into four categories: the first being kanji that can be divided right to left (so the first character for 'kanji' would fall into this category), the second category is for those that are divided between top and bottom (like ie, 'house'), the third is for those that are enclosed, whether completely (like koku, 'country') or just on two or three sides (like niku, 'meat'), and the final category is for kanji that can't be divided into any of the other three and basically stand on their own (ichi, 'one' is probably the simplest of these.

Anyway, from their it's divided according to the # of strokes. Atarashi for example is a 1-9-4. The character is in the first category (right/left) and the left side has 9 strokes and the right has 4.

If you're talking about a dictionary that's in kana, isn't that usually in the order of vowels, k~, s~, etc.? In romanji dictionaries it's usually just alphabetical order, right? Anyway, I hope something in this helps you out.

[Mukade]

Word dictionaries are always alphabetized in the order of the kana.

A,I,U,E,O,KA,KI,KU,KE,KO,SA,SHI,SU.... etc.

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Kanji dictionaries for English-speaking learners of Japanese will always have their own lookup system. You'll have to read the preface to understand how each system works.

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Japanese Kanji dictionaries will list kanji by:
1) stroke order of the dominant radical (knowing what this can be an art form)
2) the radical (the order of these may change from one dictionary to the next - check the index)
3) the count of the remaining strokes

So, with the kanji: 萩、文、茶、主
you would get: 文、主、茶、萩

The kanji dictionary for English speakers which matches the Japanese system the closest is "Nelson's Japanese-English Character Dictionary." It doesn't streamline the radical system to the extent that Japanese dictionaries do (for example, with 茶, from above, the "grass" radical on top on indexed by it's classical stroke count - 6, not its current stroke count of 3), but is closer than other dictionaries.

Make sense?:|

[somethinorwatever]

o ok, i think i understand.

Which verson way do you prefer to look up kanji? why?

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