Customer Reviews

Japanese Character Dictionary With Compound Lookup Via Any Kanji (English and Japanese Edition)

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This is an excellent Kanji dictionary. Not only can you look up characters by either their radical or their reading, the dictionary provides a comprehensive list of compound words in which that character appears. This means that you can often find the meaning of a compound word by looking up only one character (even if you know neither of the character's readings) which saves a lot of time and frustration. The dictionary also includes older versions of characters and characters which have become obsolete (and are not found in most dictionaries). Highly recommended both for students and professional translators of Japanese.

I got my copy back in 1992 and it has been my number one reference for looking up complex Kanji compounds eversince. So comprehensive yet so easy to use. You'll be hard pressed to find another Kanji dictionary that has more entries than this one. I studied Japanese at university for 4 years and have been working in Japan for 6 years so far. I always have this book at my side. The only thing that might be better would be one of those modern palm-sized electronic dictionaries. But you have to be in Japan to get one and you need to be able to read Japanese to use it; not to mention the expensive price. Think you're a hardcore Japanese student or strive to be one, get this book. It'll make your Kanji studying life a lot easier, I guarantee it.

This is dictionary is extremely comprehensive and remarkably easy to use.

One of my big concerns before buying a kanji dictionary (I got this one second-hand from a university graduate studying Japanese) was that it would take ages to look up a kanji. Surprisingly, looking up a character with this wonderful book, takes me not much longer than looking up an English word in an English dictionary. Kanji can be located by their radicals, readings and/or number of strokes making this so easy to use for anyone. Compounds take just a second longer and can be looked up by their first or last character.

There are 7,000 main character entries with a whopping 47,000 entries including compounds. The book is built well and despite being second-hand and receiving quite a lot of use, is not falling apart as other dictionaries of mine are.

If you're not willing to limit yourself to the 1945 Jouyou kanji, and/or if you're staying in Japan, this is the mother of all kanji dictionaries for English-speakers. There are very very few characters that I haven't been able to find in here.

Plus, it has a reduced set of radicals, so is easier to find things in, even if you do know at least one way to pronounce it.