Useful English-Japanese Handheld Dictionaries? 88
srothroc asks: "I've been interested in finding one of these, but I'm not too sure where to start looking. I've been around the block talking to students and my professor - most people either don't need one for some reason or the other or only use paper dictionaries. Online searches have been fruitless as well, so I turn to you, Slashdot. The ideal dictionary would be able to take hiragana/katakana input and give output in English, hiragana, katakana, and/or kanji. A lot of the ones that I've seen take English (romaji) input and spit out the same - not something I'd need. I would prefer options that wouldn't bust my wallet, as Christmas season is coming around. Any ideas, folks?"
Sharp, Sanyo, Seiko, etc (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Sharp, Sanyo, Seiko, etc (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sharp, Sanyo, Seiko, etc (Score:1)
Re:Sharp, Sanyo, Seiko, etc (Score:2)
Thank you for living up to your name.
Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:5, Informative)
(Or if you're technical, you can hack the dictionary software onto a Zaurus SL-C700, as I have.)
The built-in "denki jisho" (electronic dictionary) has four dictionaries: Japanese-to-Japanese (completely useless to me); Japanese-to-English (which takes input in hiragana, katakana, or kanji -- but not romaji); English-to-Japanese (almost completely useless to me, except I can copy the definition into a HancomWord doc or something and paste each individual kanji back into the dictionary going the other way); and Katakana to whatever (so you can tell that 'depaato' means department store, etc.)
Zauruses have excellent kanji handwriting recognition too, so you can just sketch out the character combination you're asking about and it reads it. Even if you make mistakes -- which is pretty impressive.
I hear the SL-C8-something (860?) is the same hardware as the C760 but with extra full-sentence-translation software. That software will probably soon be working on the C700 also.
A Japanese friend at the university has one of the higher-end standalone dictionaries. I don't know who makes hers, but on any search hers seems to have nearly double the definitions and meanings that mine does, or has many obscure words that mine doesn't have.
Expensive, but recommended.
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:4, Informative)
But quibbling aside, your description of the Zaurus handwriting input is innacurate. You can make SOME errors in input, but you must be able to draw the kanji in correct stroke order, and the strokes must cross each other in the correct pattern. This makes them suitable only for advanced students that can accurately copy any kanji in the correct stroke order. This is usually a skill that only develops somewhere around the 4th year of university level courses. That's when I bought a Zaurus. And the first thing the Zaurus taught me was that I'd been writing hiragana "na" incorrectly for years, it couldn't recognize my handwriting. I was, however, rather astonished to see the Zaurus could accurately read some cursive kanji. These devices are really designed for native Japanese users, so they are designed to accomodate errors or cursive simplifications typical to native Japanese users.
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:2)
Any proper education methods should have ingrained in you the radicals and proper concepts of stroke order such that you should be able to copy any kanji by halfway through second year of uni. I know most people were doing it prope
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:2)
Sure you start learning stroke order around 2nd year, but I'm talking about an INFALLIBLE, unerring, ingrained ability to reprodu
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:1)
Er... no, it's not. Jiten and jisho are essentially interchangeable, although jiten is slightly more formal, so people tend to use jisho in conversation.
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:1, Troll)
Dammit, now you've even got me doing it wrong. I always say it takes hours of listening to native speakers to undo the damage from one minute of listening to bad Japanese students. Go peddle your incorrect usage elsewhere, I have more important things to do than repair the damage you're doing.
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:1)
I have a dgree in linguistics from a Japanese university, I worked as an editor at a Japanese publishing company (among other things, editing J-E/E-J dictionaries), and I've lived in Japan for fourteen years.
Come back when you've got some real experience with the language, OK?
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:1)
I do translation on the side: the Amazon Japan listing for one of the books I've translated [amazon.co.jp] (E->J; check the translator's name against my nick).
If you still don't believe me (and don't come up with some lame excuse like "You just searched for somebody whose name matches your nick"), come onto #slashdot on irc.slashdot.org; my nick there is the same as my
Why don't you just accept that (a) you were wrong and (b) other people knowing more than y
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:1)
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:1, Flamebait)
Face it, you're an old Japan burnout that sneers at everyone who arrived in Japan one day after you and calls them "fresh off the boat." You've "gone native" and try to out-Japanese the Japanese, declaring yourself an authority over the judgement of native Japanese PhD linguists I cited. I've seen a hundred old burnouts like you. I used to pity them, now I just avoid them.
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:1)
*PLONK*
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:1)
Denshijiten: 300,000 links [google.co.jp]
Denshijisho: 544,000 links [google.co.jp]
Now, shut up about things you don't really know about, hmmm?
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:1)
Furthermore, every kanji writing recognition system I've used has been somewhat forgiving about com
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:1)
As for stroke order, don't go around scaring prospective japanophiles please.
Stroke order is easy (Score:2)
Re:Stroke order is easy (Score:2)
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:2)
In support of what you said: it turns out Jisho is correct [mspencer.net], but that denshi [mspencer.net] jiten [mspencer.net] is also right. No wonder Japanese exchange students were looking at me funny, but not correcting me, when I said "denki jisho". It's a shame nobody said anything to me before you did, but thanks for the correction. *memorizes denshi jiten*
Strange, though, but the default menu option for the dictionary calls it Jisho [mspencer.net].
Yo
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:2)
BTW, I used to use my Zaurus when chatting with exchange students, every single one of them had electronic dicts with keyboards (cheap Seikos usually) and once they saw the Zaurus, they all said they wanted one.
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:1)
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:2)
But for a very few characters that are particularly tricky (like "kanarazu": it's not "kokoro" with a slash through it), just about all others are easy to guess after about a year of study I'd say. This is because the majority of kanji are comprised of repetitive components that follow simple rules (like "kuchi", "yama", "ito" and the like).
Mind you, my university course contained one shuji class a week, which he
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:2)
Nooo! I meant to type KAKIJUN.
Serves me right.
Re:Get a Zaurus SL-C760 (Score:1)
A 760 is expensive, but of course there are ot
Make your own! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Make your own! (Score:2)
Just type j-e oyasumi in to my location bar and up comes a translation.. meccha benri na..
PDA (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:PDA (Score:1)
I've been very impressed with PAdict [sourceforge.net] which is free, and RoadLingua [absoluteword.com] which is not and requires a hack such as CJKOS [dyts.com].
When I looked at the hardware denki-jisho (and to some extent the dead-tree variety) I found the ones using kana/kanji were aimed heavily at Japanese (usage examples, etc.) and the foreigner targeted ones, without exception, used romanji. I failed to find a dedicated device that would fit your (or my) needs. Sorry.
Looks like there's a gap in the market!
My advice... (Score:5, Funny)
... is to forget about the gizmos and just take a crash course in learning the language. But taking a class can be expensive and boring. That's why you want to spend time watching hentai instead. Most of them have handy subtitles on the screen so you can match the words with what's being said. You'll learn all sorts of handy Japanese phrases that will help you in everyday life such as:
and so on. Trust me, a few hours spent boning-up, I mean, studying-up on the Japanese language using these video materials and you'll impress everyone you meet!
Hope this helps,
GMD
The ultimate handheld dictionary (Score:2)
Re:My advice... (Score:1)
Re:My advice... (Score:2)
Re:My advice... (Score:2)
J-List may have what you want... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:J-List may have what you want... (Score:2)
I've got a Canon IDX-9600 which is suitable as a Japanese-English dictionary (for Japanese people), but it can be switched to have an english menu and it can translate English in Japanese too (as all those dictionaries can), but it also shows you the Hiragana reading of japanese Kanji (which most electonic dictionaries don't do, as Japanese can read the Kanjis).
This makes it perfect for using as a non-Japanese speaker. The only drawback of that IDX-9600 is the slow speed (turn it, on, wait 1 second, push
Re:J-List may have what you want... (Score:1)
Nope. Sorry. I'm in Japan and have been looking for a good one for 4 months. There are a lot to choose from, but all of them are in Japanese. Unless you can read the language to start off with, it's not much use. Asking for the definition of any Japanese word will return the definition in Japanese. Nearly all of the devices here are for Japanese native speakers.
Not quite but... (Score:2)
Canon Wordtank (Score:1)
Of the handful of E-Japanese/English dictionaries that I've seen friends using and/or in stores, the Canon Wordtank seemed to rise above the rest in my rusty recollection.
Fanatic's site:
http://www.wordtankcentral.com/ [wordtankcentral.com]
Ebay - Canon Wordtank [ebay.com]
Ganbatte ne!!
Re:Canon Wordtank (Score:1)
Re:Canon Wordtank (Score:2)
Get realistic here (Score:5, Informative)
So what I'm getting at is, dictionary needs are different for beginners than for advanced students. A beginner who isn't skilled at writing kanji will not get along with a Zaurus, an advanced student will be frustrated with a WordTank model that would satisfy a beginner.
I usually tell beginners to buy a Wordtank, and advanced students to get a Zaurus. But no electronic dictionary is a substitute for a paper dictionary. I use my Zaurus mostly when writing, to doublecheck the kanji when I know the reading. I use my Zaurus mostly when reading, to quickly look up an unknown kanji for the reading & definition. But I usually end up using the electronic lookup as the entry point for the huge 2100 page Kenkyusha New JE Dictionary, on paper. If I want more specialized data like etymology, I pop in my Kojien CD. If I want classical Japanese lookups, I use a paper kogojiten (haven't found a good electronic kogojiten yet).
But I have found that I use my portable dictionaries less and less. Free online dicts like WWWJDIC and the goo.ne.jp dictionary have made portable devices less useful to me.
Ultimately, portable dictionaries are a crutch. I often think of a news story I saw with someone demonstrating an electronic "speaking translator" in Spanish. It could say basic phrases like "Can you direct me to a nearby taxi stand?" They used this device, and that exact phrase, on a Spanish-speaker, who immediately understood the tinny little voice, and shot back a rapid fire answer, in Spanish of course. Which was completely incomprehensible to the person with the device. The answer would have to be given back through the device, the person giving the answer would have needed to learn how to input his answer and spit it back out through the device.
So what I'm basically trying to tell you is that electronic dictionaries are not going to do much good for beginners, they're more useful for advanced students who really don't have that much need for dictionaries generally. Even some of the basic skills needed to effectively search for words are beyond most beginners, I know I wasn't taught how to use a paper dictionary until I was in 2nd year classes. So save your money for good TEXTBOOKS, you'll learn to speak Japanese without having to consult a dictionary every two words.
Re:Get realistic here (Score:1)
Re:Get realistic here (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Get realistic here (Score:1)
Re:Get realistic here (Score:2)
Native Japanese speakers (Score:1)
Re:Get realistic here (Score:2)
Advantages of Zaurus (Score:2)
In what ways is the Zaurus better for advanced students than the WordTank? (I've never used a Japanese Zaurus, so I'm not arguing, I'm asking.)
I rarely have trouble with stroke order, BTW, but I still frequently need to look up Japanese words and kanji or find a good translation for an English word. The easier and faster, and the more info, hypertexting between dictionaries, examples, jukugo, furigana, etc., the better.
Re:Advantages of Zaurus (Score:2)
It also has furigana only in the kokugojiten (gives definitions in Japanese). Since there are no furigana i
Re:Get realistic here (Score:2)
: : You give vague guidelines for what you're seeking, like for example, you want to input kana and have it output kanji. You must be a beginner, because you don't seem to realize there is no one-to-one correspondence between words written in kana and kanji.
That's completely normal. That's how Japanese people do it. You press keys on your keyboard that indicate kana, hit the space bar, and it suggests a kanji. If it suggest
Re:Get realistic here (Score:2)
Ever used a Japanese cell phone? That's exactly what they do.
Dokusha (Score:2, Informative)
all I need is (Score:2)
Hire a kogal (Score:1)
Get a Palm! (Score:1)
I have a Japanese Palm m505 which I picked up used in Tokyo. As a dictionary, it rules. One of the things on the CD that came with it was a nice, handy Japanese-English dictionary--it does J->E and E->J lookup, and lets you look up a kanji by a clever dictionary-switching interface.
The Palm lets you write Japanese in romaji (which is way more confusing than you'd think), or, alternately, it has a program called, "Rakuhira [jtt.ne.jp]", which lets you write in hiragana in the Graffiti area, the way Kami-sama in
Made in Japan (Score:2)
Japanese-English dictionaries are all designed for Japanese people, as they massively outnumber English speakers trying to learn Japanese. As such, the dictionaries assume that you know kanji. This is problem number 1.
So, you type in an English word, and you mostly get kanji in return. Some of the Canon wordtank models give you a list of search "hits" in hiragana/katakana, but then once you choose your hit, it takes you to the word definition page, and you're all in kanji again.
But, most models have
Re:Made in Japan (Score:2)
I was so much quicker at the romaji that I always switched modes on them. My host sister when she used it also used the romaji input (it was a qwerty-style keyboard too).. *shrug*
sounds like you want an import.. (Score:2)
Seiko makes a number of models, which rage from around $170 (USD) to $285. Check out the Seiko JP-Dict [seiko-jpd.com] website for more info.
As for places to purchase in the US, I found an ad in "US Frontline [usfl.com]" (a US magazine for Japanese expats) about "Bargain Japan [usfl.com]", which appears to be a reseller of Japanese products in the US, and is a subsidiary of Frontline
Chinese Mandarin Pinyin Dictionaries (Score:1)
Has anybody seen a suitable one?
JWPce (Score:2)
Re:JWPce (Score:2)
I have JWPce running on my Jornada 420 (don't laugh) and on my XP box at work.
I use it a lot when trying to read one of the many Japanese magazines or books I have. It accepts kana or Kanji input when looking for the meanings of Japanese words. I've never used romaji, and normal English searches for English in the definitions. And almost all the definitions are accompanied by Kanji, kana and English. Very handy!
Input using the stylus is easy if you have kana - you type the romaji for the ka
And for Linux... (Score:2)
gjiten [sf.net] + kanjipad [gtk.org] + im-ja [sf.net] for a good dictionary system (you just have to convert Jim's dictionary files [monash.edu.au] to UTF-8, iconv(1) is your friend).
What other Japanese-related software slashdotters like?
Canon WordTank (Score:2)
Canon has more than a decade of history providing Denki Jisho to the Japanese market.
Canon Wordtank (Score:1)
The Wordtank models are single purpose (unlike a PDA) and do the job they were built for well. Look up Japanese (kana and kanji) from English, English/Kanji from kana. Menus are available in English. I used a Wordtank constantly for the first 3-4 years of Japanese study. The Wordtank dictionaries have probably improved, but I never trusted the definitions in the Wordtank as being more than a best estimate. You will end up using a paper dictionary i
I'm lost! (Score:2)
With so many people talking about learning Japanese here, can we get some pointers where to start? Mostly, I'd want to be able to read techinical documents [servicing imported machines for work..oh and add german too. ha, ha], websites, and of course [and most importantly] to understand enough japanese so I can watch the unedited import anime!
thanks!
Re: Starting with Japanese (Score:2)
2) After that you're going to have to start learning grammer and memorizing kanji. This is where the hobby starts to get expensive... dictionaries can be $
big honkin spreadsheet dictionaries (Score:1)
Re:big honkin spreadsheet dictionaries (Score:1)
Moo (Score:2)
One of what?
JWPce (Score:1)