Quote:
Originally Posted by neothe1
Well, with all due respect, you guys may be the ultimate experts, but when I taught *English* to hundreds of Japanese students, I have seen first hand what it means to take thousands of words out of context. As far as I am concerned, jisho.org and the WWWDict project are the best electronic resources out there, but, time and again they have failed to guide me to a precise meaning in terms of mood, formality, or common usage.
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To be fair, you obviously did not look at YuriTokoro's link to Eijiro.
www.alc.co.jp does exactly what you're hoping for: It gives definitions, typically a crapton of sentences (i.e., usage), translations, and readings.
It is hands down better than any dictionary I've ever seen in any two languages. Now, obviously a purely Japanese dictionary will be best (just like the OED is the gold standard for 100% English inquiries), but Eijiro is as good as it gets for English to any other langauge and back.
The equivalent of the OED for Japanese is the Kojien, which has 240K words in it. Now, the Kojien will run you about 8400 yen (
Amazon.co.jp: , but then again the OED will run you US$1300 (
Amazon.com: Oxford English Dictionary: 20 vol. print set & CD ROM (9780199573158): J. Simpson, E. Weiner: Books.