English-Japanese and Japanese-English Dictionary
 

I am hoping to teach myself some Japanese. Not for any particular reason, except that it interests me. I don't need it for work, and there is no realistic prospect of ever visiting Japan.

In any case, I am going to have to buy a dictionary. Rather than rushing out and buying the first one I see, I would welcome any advice on what I should look for in a dictionary. I would like it to have the Japanese kana, as well as have the romaji letters to make it easier at first. But what do Japanese dictionaries do in terms of ordering the entries? Are they in hiragana and katakana mixed together, with a separate place for kanji? Or are the words all written in hiragana? The kanji, in particular, scare me, because I don;t understand how I could look them up in a dictionary.

This is all a bit confused. :o In brief, what should I look for in a dictionary for a beginner? Any ideas or thoughts would be wonderful. Thanks!

In general all the words are arranged in order in Japanese, regardless of which system is used to write it.

the japanese dictionary orders all the words based on 1) the sound the word makes at the begining, and 2) based on where that sound lies in the hiragana/katakana table.

example:
the word 私　(watashi)

in hiragana, it would be spelled わたし. so the dictionary will alphebetize it based on "wa-ta-shi" and not "w-a-t-a-s-h-i".

next, here's the basic table of hiragana. i'm using the basic table cause the other tables won't be used.

あ　　　い　　　う　　　え　　　お
か　　　き　　　く　　　け　　　こ
さ　　　し　　　す　　　せ　　　そ
た　　　ち　　　つ　　　て　　　と
な　　　に　　　ぬ　　　ね　　　の
は　　　ひ　　　ふ　　　へ　　　ほ
ま　　　み　　　む　　　め　　　も
や　　　　　　　ゆ　　　　　　　　よ
ら　　　り　　　る　　　れ　　　ろ
わ　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　を
ん

if you notice with the chart above, "wa" or わ is located WAY at the bottom. so all of the words starting with わ will come AFTER everything else. keep in mind that the list goes from left to right, and then the next row left to right. it's just like an english dictionary, but with different sounds / alphebet.

EDIT: forgot to mention that all of the words will be in hiragana/katakana/kanji where applicable. if the word has a kanji to it, then it will be listed under hiragana first. if it's only in katakana, then it will be listed in katakana, but still be treated the same regardless and will be listed in alphebetical order.

I'm a novice myself so I don't know if it's great quality, but I bought the Oxford Pocket Kenkyusha Japanese Dictionary. It's Japanese-English and English-Japanese. I didn't feel the need to get myself one of those huge, expensive, complete language dictionary at this moment in time. It's small, light, and gets the job done. ^^

The Oxford dictionary lists things by romaji, and it supplies hiragana, katakana, and kanji when applicable. However it doesn't list by kanji, so you'll need a kanji dictionary to do that. EG) If you were looking up the word 'watashi', you would just go to the W tab, search through, and find the word. Watashi will also be written next to the romaji as わたし and 私 since it can be written as both.

I hope this helped. *^^*

alright. so now i'm a bit confused on what you're asking >_<

i thought you were asking how the japanese dictionarys work

That's certainly what I was asking. :) And your earlier posting answered my questions perfectly. Thanks very much! It's very helpful if the words are in the order of the basic 46 hiragana characters (or the corresponding katakana symbols).

I think a dictionary in the Japanese order would ultimately be more useful (though harder at first) than one in romaji order with the real Japanese script afterwards.

One day it will all make sense to me!

ok. so i'm not totaly useless >_<

Oh, oops. :P I'm sorry, I misunderstood the question. XD My bad~

Au contraire, as they are unlikely to say in Japan. It's very helpful to know that the words are generally transcribed in hiragana with the kanji to follow. I'll have a look at the pocket Kenkyusha thing.

If you're reading something in Japanese and there is a kanji you don't know the meaning of, how would you go about finding its meaning? Is there some way of putting them in order to make it easier to look them up?

Umm, my best guess would be to get a kanji dictionary. I haven't run across any 'regular' dictionaries that also list things by kanji. In the kanji dictionary, it should sort by A) stroke number, and/or B) grade level in which the kanji is taught. The kanji dictionary should have both the on and kun readings, so you would get the pronounciation of the kanji, then get the 'regular' dictionary and search for the correct entry. DX Inconvenient!

EG) say you didn't know the word 中間, for example. You would get the kanji dictionary and search for the character 中 (4 strokes). The reading is chuu/naka. Then search for 間 (12 strokes), whose reading is kan/ken/aida/ma. I still haven't figured out how you're supposed to tell if you read it as on or kun reading (maybe it's based on the actual word the kanji is used in?), but most likely the word 中間 is pronounced with the on reading. Now that you know the reading of 中間, you would go to your 'regular' dictionary and search for the word chuukan, with the correct kanji listed next to the romaji. =]