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みなさんこんにちわ！So, I recently just got back from Japan. YAY! (Well actually BOoooo because I’m not there anymore.) So, something I found to be really helpful with learning new kanji and their meanings when I absolutely had no clue what a kanji was, especially in books and shows with furigana, was to buy a Japanese English dictionary. I bought mine at a recycle shop near where I lived and whenever I came across something I didn’t understand but it had the furigana for it, I would just look it up and, PRESTO! I understood it! Plus, I would write down all the words I looked up so I could remember them later. Also super helpful when you are speaking with Japanese people. It only cost me about $5 and it was a pocket edition, so I highly recommend getting one if you know someone, or if you yourself are currently living in Japan. Anyway, thought I would share that. がんばって！
could you take a please take a picture of your dictionary and share it with us as reference?
I managed to pick up a Pocket Kenkyusha dictionary on sale from my university bookshop. Not too sure why it’s called a pocket dictionary, though, because it’s a ginormous brick. I’ve barely looked at it, though, because I’ve mostly been using Kotoba on my iPhone.
I’ve also got Spahn and Hadamitzky’s Learner’s Kanji Dictionary (i.e. the concise Joyo kanji version – the full dictionary is even bigger than the Kenkyusha) and the first volume of Makino and Tsutsui’s Dictionary of Japanese Grammar.
On an unrelated note, how was Japan? Did you take photos? Write a blog? Show us? =D
P.S. こんにちは =)
Joel, the full size Kenkyusha 5th Edition (aka The Green Godess) is about 3000 pages!
It’s expensive, but a fantastic dictionary. I have it in electronic form and it’s far better than Edict based dictionaries like Kotoba.
I’ve always wanted to get to the point where I could study using a Japanese-made dictionary.
That’s one of the ways I became fluent in English. Every day at school while I had down time, I would pick up an English dictionary (the biggest one I could find), and just pore over it non-stop. I’d go from A to Z “collecting” as many words as I could. Then I’d try to use those words wherever I could.
I’d love a real dictionary so I could maybe try that. I have plenty of electronic dictionaries, but I vastly prefer the paper kind for this, because I don’t have to “search” for anything, just soaking up random words. Like a game of “Vocab Pokémon” and I’m catching ‘em all. :3
Granted, I’d have to be far better at the actual language for that to work the way I did it with English. I could already speak it, but was just expanding my vocabulary. Plus, it works better if I can read the definitions in the target language.
Intransitive verb, I choose you!
In any case, I’ve been reading the grammar dictionary from cover to cover, practicing my Japanese by covering over the translations of the example sentences. It’s actually quite an interesting read. I’m up to “~to ieba”. =)
And yeah, I guess the full-size version does sound a bit bigger than this one, Elenkis. Still, probably “abridged” is a better word to use than “pocket”. Maybe I’ll try reading it once I finish the grammar dictionary. =D
The Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series is my favourite resource, and yeah, I enjoyed going through it from cover to cover too. I recommend getting the Intermediate and Advanced ones as well, I consider them essential. The index at the back of Advanced covers all three volumes too, so it’s easy to look things up.
As you would expect, the example sentences get increasingly complex in each volume too, which is nice.
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This reply was modified 12 years, 10 months ago by
Elenkis.
Oh, I do plan to get the intermediate and advanced volumes at some point. Not sure when. Guess I should just put my foot down and do it. =)
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This reply was modified 12 years, 10 months ago by
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