|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
Looking for a good, large English-Japanese Japanese-English dictionary!! -
01-20-2011, 06:32 AM
Hi,
I am an intermediate learner of Japanese, and it has been very frustrating to find out that large publishing houses like Oxford and Longman have never come out with a large, physical (i.e. not electronic) English-Japanese, Japanese-English dictionary. My Oxford Beginner's Japanese Dictionary is very good, but it has too few words for me to express a full range of emotions and thoughts in Japanese. On the other hand, excellent resources like http://www.jisho.org literally yield thousands of translations. Many of these translations are outdated or not in common use, and I cannot find this out unless I speak to a nihonjin. I need something like the Kenkyusha's New Japanese - English Dictionary http://www.amazon.com/Kenkyushas-New...5505046&sr=1-1, but not for $500!!! Can anyone please shed some light on this situation?! Thanks, -- Mike 
|
|
|
|||
|
|||
|
01-20-2011, 08:19 AM
I have a suggestion.
There is a software for the Nintendo DS called 漢字そのままds楽引辞典 (kanji sono mama DS rakubiki jiten). It is essentially a kanji dictionary for Japanese people. It has many kanji quizes and functions that will not be useful for you. However, as almost a side function it has a very useful dictionary. The dictonary has various features like jumping and different uses of words in actual sentences. On top of that, due to the DSs touch panel, you can write kanji that you see-- it may be challenging sometimes because if your stroke order is not right, you will get a different kanji... however, there is a feature that reveals similar kanji, which is very useful. It also stores all of your searches until you turn off your DS. You can also save different words and even make flash card collections. I got this brand new while I was in college for about $50. I already had a DS, so it was a VERY good buy. I got years of use out of it. In fact, I still use it from time to time. My wife sometimes uses it to practice kanji! I can't recommend this software enough. However, I have to warn you that the interface might be overwhelming. The features might not all pop out at you or be obvious from the get go. I managed to figure most of it out during my intermediate years at college. There might be a guide/menu translation online somewhere. The dictionary is not as expansive as electronic dictionaries-- it might compete with the older ones, but definitely no with new ones. I never really had any big problems though. The touch screen bein as big as it is is a huge thing though. To get that function on an electronic dictionary raises the price quite a bit as far as I know. Needless to say, I used to carry it around everywhere with me in college. I used my original DS so much (because of this software... I considered selling it until I found out that this software existed!!) that a lot of the grey paint has worn off to reveal the white plastic underneath. If you already have a DS, this is a must buy. If you don't have a DS, I can still recommend it. Just get a cheap used DS and have at it. I'd bet you could get both the hardware and the software for under $100. One more warning- I recently got my wife a DSL, which has built in software. One of the built in softwares is a version of this software without any English dictionaries. I didn't realize this and was caught by surprise. But I still have my original software so it's just a matter of taking that out whenever we want to look something up with it.
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
01-20-2011, 08:54 AM
Steven,
Speaking as a teacher, nothing can really replace a good paper dictionary during the learning process. Yes, I have access to many very good 電子辞書, both on my iPhone and my DS, but this is not what I need. I need a comprehensive and up-to-date paper reference. Tonight, I have searched on Amazon Japan and found the Lighthouse English-Japanese (5th ed.) for ¥3045 and the Lighthouse Japanese-English (5th ed.) for ¥2,730. The price is decent enough, but shipping to Canada is about ¥3,000, which means that I have to pay about CAD $70 per book. Now I have to ask one of my Japanese friends (or an expat) to buy it for me and send it to me using the cheapest means possible (or I might just order the damn thing).
|
|
|
|||
|
|||
|
01-20-2011, 09:27 AM
I'm not trying to be offensive, but why do you think that a paper dictionary will be better than an electronic one? One of my favorite features of an electronic dictionary is the fact that they show a lot of words in context. I personally have never found a paper dictionary with that aspect. I've found a lot of paper dictionaries to be outdated-- that or they have very limited or misleading translations (this could just be that I've had bad luck with paper dictionaries though haha). That's not to say those same problems wont ever occur in an electornic dictionary. I guess some people might be more comfortable with paper dictionaries though.
Personally speaking, an electronic dictionary is way more useful. But that's just me-- is there something specific you want to accomplish with a new dictionary? That might help people make some suggestions. By the way, when you say 'intermediate', what do you mean? Does that mean that you have gone through intermediate textbooks? Or are you at a more 'advanced-intermediate' level? Are you better at speaking or writing? I bought a lot of stuff during my 'intermediate' years and didn't find it useful until recently. I personally found grammar dictionaries to be more useful than dictionaries up through my so-called 'advanced' textbooks in college. At any rate, I hope you can find what you're looking for. By the way, when I was searching for info on one of the dictionaries you found, I found this article-- http://ijl.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/4/295.full.pdf I didn't get all the way through it yet but what I read was quite interesting. It's a little outdated (1989) though. Here's the abstract if you're interested: The aim of this paper is to impart the recent efforts of dictionary making in Japan, focusing attention on English-Japanese learners' dictionaries currently used in secondary schools. A brief historical note on bilingual dictionaries leads to a discussion of some of the problems involved in their compilation. Lexicographical devices concerning entry words, arrangement and explanation of meanings, grammatical information are appraised. In respect of arrangement of meanings, two recent achievements are presented. As for meaning description, several examples are examined to support the belief that the translation complement is a useful device that makes a translation of the source word accurate and complete. The importance of grammatical information, namely U and C in nouns, and verb patterns, is discussed from the viewpoint of Japanese users. In the concluding remarks, grading the information into usable levels according to its degree of importance is proposed as a means of promoting effective usage of the dictionary.
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
01-20-2011, 01:40 PM
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. Not so with paper dictionaries--not even with Oxford's Pocket Kenkyusha. Although this may be lost on most people of my generation, paper dictionaries allow the following:
Anyway, this is probably a slow lead-on to a flame war, so I'll stop here. TO each his own. I suppose I need to look for my answers elsewhere.
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
01-20-2011, 01:45 PM
I honestly prefer to have both. My paper dictionary has more ways to use the expression and how to use it in context, and my electronic dictionary has more words and expressions in general. There is no need for conflict here - it's good to have both if you have the resources to do so.
My paper dictionary is the Oxford Beginner's Japanese Dictionary, so unfortunately my recommendation won't be of any use to you. - As a side note, you can make Denshi Jisho only show common words, which is what I do when using it unless I'm looking for something obscure.
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
01-20-2011, 01:53 PM
How about this?
“dictionary”の検索結果（283 件）：英辞郎 on the Web：スペースアルク You can erase the word “dictionary” in the box and write both an English or Japanese word you want to know. And then, click 「英和・和英」button. This is very useful. If you have questions about my post or Japanese customs, don't hesitate to ask. I  YamaP 
|
|
|
|||
|
|||
|
01-21-2011, 02:26 AM
Quote:
For me, a combination of the DS electronic dictonary, WWWJDIC, Seichi Makino & Michio Tsutsui's Japanese Grammar book series, some linguistic books, some Japanese grammar books written for Japanese people, a handful of "communicative styles of Japanese"-type books, and a whole lot of real life interaction have gotten me past that "intermediate" hump. I think that is the nature of language to be honest. It's a multi-dimensional thing, especially when considering two languages as culturally different as English and Japanese. From my perspective as a native English speaker, I see the spoken/written forms of Japanese as being only half the battle. I think the DS dictionary is not as overwhelming as a lot of the more expensive and more advanced electronic dictionaries go. The option to narrow search results that MissMisa talked about sounds like something would be interested in, Mike. That's something that I'd never heard about before actually... I always did feel a little overwhelmed whenever I borrwed a friend's or colleague's electronic dictionary. To be honest though, judging by what MissMisa and you have said about paper dictionaries I'm beginning to think I've just encountered a lot of shitty dictionaries. I've had a few pocket dictonaries, a few novel sized paper back dictionaries, a fairly large sized paper back dictionary, and some small phrase books. I didn't buy all of them, some of them were given to me or kind of just ended up in my possession. I think I have a dictionary for every decade since the 70's (my earliest one being '73). I've also seen a lot of dictionaries used by Japanese schools and those might be some of the worst ones I've encountered (which is rather unfortunate). The more I advance, the less I trust dictionaries. I would never trust one as a companion to produce Japanese with... I think they're fine for interpretation though. I've used a couple of Random House dictionaries and felt like they were kind of lacking-- is that a characteristic of them? I feel like maybe I just don't know a good dictionary when I see one.
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
01-21-2011, 02:50 AM
A fair evaluation indeed, Steven, and perhaps an indication for the big publishing houses to get off their butts and write a comprehensive dictionary. Hey, my first language is Russian and we've got some pretty comprehensive English-Russian Russian-English dictionaries (and in many ways the two languages are as different as night and day). How come the best thing that Oxford could come up with for Russian is a 500,000-word, 1,344-page behemoth (last published in 2007), but the best thing they have for Japanese is a measly 45,000-word Kenkyusha with English headwords? ...and then there's that Japanese-published $500 J-E Kenkyusha, again. Argh.
Look, I don't know. I'd say that I've surpassed most native speakers of English in terms of usage and variety of vocabulary, and English is my fourth language (after Russian, Hebrew, and French--though my French isn't as good anymore). Very often, the only way for me to figure things out was to burrow into my large Webster and research definitions and *their* definitions. I cannot do this with Japanese. Meanings fragment and multiply, and even if I do get a great example sentence database, I have to learn the context or the vocab of the whole sentence to get to the nuance of a single word. I cannot express in words how frustrating this has been. Anyway, I think I'm going to bite the bullet and order the two J-E and E-J Lighthouse dictionaries I'd linked up earlier. That should set me back at most CDN $140 (shipping from Japan included)...so it's not USD $450, at the very least. If anyone cares about this situation, I will keep your guys posted. (BTW, yes, I agree, the Oxford Beginner's Japanese Dictionary *is* very well written...it's just that I have exceeded many of the things it has to offer, in terms of thoughts, opinions, and emotions). To be continued?
|
 |
| Thread Tools | |
|
|
