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So as I’ve been talking about on a few other threads I’ll be going to Japan soon. Yay.
I’d like to pick up a great electronic dictionary, if such a thing exists, and I was wondering if there were any thoughts on which ones to look at or avoid?
My dream one would not require wireless/Internet access ($15 a day in Japan for a data plan), and would have a touch screen for writing kanji, and radical lookup.
If you’ve used one like that or heard of one please share!
http://whiterabbitpress.com/electronic-dictionaries.html do a range of electronic dictionaries. I’ve never used one so can’t tell you how good they are, although WRP prodcuts are usually to a high standard. They are however, quite expensive.
Before deciding to splash out all that money on one, I think you should watch this video Koichi made a couple of years ago about electronic dictionaires. It might change your mind. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AejPoyWqoFk
Thanks Kanjiman8! I feel like you’re my personal guide to all things Japanese lately! ;)
I feel like I’m starting to take advantage. I wish I could pay back your help somehow.
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This reply was modified 12 years, 6 months ago by
Interesting video.
D’oh, I have a Droid, and I’ve found several dictionaries for the Droid, but all the ones I’ve found require an Internet connection.
I guess the followup question to my fellow Droid users is have you had any better luck than I have? Or is the Droid under performing in the Japanese language market?
I have an iPhone, but it looks like JED is the most popular, free, offline Japanese dictionary for Android.
Thanks Hashi you’re my hero!
I’m also looking into other Droid apps. I’ll test them and update this thread my with experiences.
I need to start pulling my weight around here. ;)
Here is my 5 minute review of the Android offline Japanese dictionary “Kabuto Japanese Dictionary”:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gakusoft.kabuto
It works. That’s important. Most importantly it works offline. I confirmed this by turning off my cell and data on my phone, and then did a word search, “kanji text” search, kenji radical search, and kanji stroke search.
The UI for the app is straight forward, and clean, and it seems to be very fast and accurate. I can’t speak to long term use, but my brief experience says it will be hard to beat a free offline dictionary like this.
It doesn’t have an option to write your kanji by touchscreen, so far as I could tell, though, so I’ll keep looking.
@ hey
Just glad I can help people on here :).@ hashi
Just downloaded JED. It’s a great dictionary. Thanks for sharing that.My 5 minute review of JED.
For some reason at first glance I didn’t realize it was offline, but it is offline, and it work well!
It’s basically the same deal as Kabuto, but it has a few different features, and misses a few minor features kabuto has. In my brief time with each it’s hard to say which is better. Overall I suspect it’s JED, but if you’re still looking for a good Droid offline dictionary I would suggest grabbing both, and see which works best for you. Odds are in favor it’ll come down to which UI works best for you.
Something I like about JED is that you can tag a bunch of words and then export them as an Anki deck. So if I come across some new words I want to drill into my head, I’ll tag them and export. Then I can open up AnkiDroid and the new deck will be there for me to study.
When you feel ready to make use of a better J-E dictionary you should consider getting the Kenkyusha 5th edition in EPWING format, then use it with the EBPocket Pro app on your Android phone. Expensive but superior to any other J-E dictionary you’ll find, and still cheaper than buying a denshi jisho with the same dictionary would be.
I’ve downloaded JED and Kabuto. Both are pretty good. I’ve also just downloaded Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.nick.wwwjdic&feature=search_result and a Kanji Recognizer that integrates with the WWWJDIC app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.nick.kanjirecognizer&feature=search_result. Both are pretty good. The Kanji Recognizer also has a kanji handwrite function.
Just FYI kanjiman, all of those dictionaries you mentioned probably use the same (Jim Breen) dictionary, just packaged differently. See my dictionaries guide on Tofugu:
http://www.tofugu.com/guides/japanese-dictionaries-guide/#edict
Thanks Hashi. Interesting article. I’ve added it to my Tofugu bookmarks :D
I am surprised no one mentioned Aedict. As Hashi just said, it has the same content as the others just in a different package. In my search for a Android dictionary it seems more people like Aeidct over JED. I have both but have not tried Kabuto. I will give it a try.
@hey Also check out an app called “Kanji Recognizer”. You can draw kanji and it will show you the reading and meaning.
Also Kanjidic is cool. It doesn’t allow you to draw but you can look up Kanji by their radicals. May come in handy if you want to look up a kanji that you don’t know the stroke order of.
EDIT: I see kanjiman8 beat me to the punch! :D
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This reply was modified 12 years, 6 months ago by
Daniel.
Most people I’ve seen recommend Aedict seem to be unaware of JED. Personally I find Aedict is slower to search and doesn’t have the export functionality of JED, which is pretty much the only thing I’d ever use an edict based dictionary for anymore.
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This reply was modified 12 years, 6 months ago by
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