Customer Reviews

Kanji Dictionary: Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You'll need a Nintendo DS or Nintendo DS Lite game console to use this. Kanji Dictionary: Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten is my best investment in a Japanese language study tool to date. It's so portable and user-friendly compared to the big kanji dictionary that I used to use. Using this, I can read much more challenging Japanese texts than I used to be able to. When a kanji character that I can't read appears in the text, I can just write it on the screen with the stylus, click on the Japanese-English dictionary option, and I am shown both the hiragana pronunciation and the English definition of the word, with example sentences. I can also look up words in the kana mode, in which I use the stylus to write the word on the screen in kana, and then I can see the kanji and the English definition of the word. It's great! And, although it's Japanese game software, it's completely compatible with the U.S. version of the Nintendo DS Lite console, which you need to be able to use the software.

I lived in Japan for 3 years and wish the DS and this dictionary were developed earlier! They would've made my life easier and helped my Japanese tremendously.

I looked at many options for an affordable, portable dictionary that accepted writing input, but nothing met my needs. The dictionaries from Casio, Seiko, and others cost upwards of $300 and almost all of them didn't have stylus inputs. I tried a Sony Clie PDA, but the included dictionary was minimalist and terrible as a study tool, providing only basic translations and occasionally, examples.

The biggest problem for students of Japanese is seeing a word and not knowing how to pronounce it. Not knowing the yomikata means you have to count strokes and look up by radical, which is often a giant and time-consuming pain in the butt. Writing is invariably faster, and this software is a godsend! It provides plenty of example sentences and usage, and I recommend this highly. If you already have a DS, this is the cheapest and most functional electronic dictionary on the market hands down, in my opinion.

If you don't have a DS, buy one and buy this dictionary. It will pay for itself very shortly in time saved and language skills acquired.

The handwritten kanji lookup feature of this dictionary is extremely convenient - much easier to use than multiradical or SKIP-code lookup, and it copes well with poor handwriting. Additionally, the detailed word dictionaries contain entries that I've not been able to find in free resources (for example, pataashi).

I bought this game in the middle of a year of study abroad in Japan and immediately my life became so much easier. Japanese dictionaries will often have long, technical definitions, but Rakubiki Jiten does not hesitate to display, for example, questionable morals in their example sentences if it will get the gist of the word across. Some of the more obscure words will appear in only the Japanese-Japanese dictionary, but you can just look up the words you don't understand from that definition right there.

Pros
- Cheap: even if you do not already own a DS this is largely cheaper than getting an equivalent standalone electronic dictionary
- Look up words by writing the kanji or inputting the kana. Also, English to Japanese.
- Kanji recognition is very good, provided you know the stroke order
- Large word selection & also some standard phrases / word combinations

Cons
- Does not have many onomatopoeias or psychonyms
- Sometimes gives only a contextual example and not a definition.
- English to Japanese only gives kanji, not the reading

I originally bought this for my Mom to use but I started to tinker with it myself. It would of been great if they added a feature that read the Japanese words like they do for English words. But overall it's a great tool for learning both English and/or Japanese. I'd recommend it !

When you consider how much a dedicated electronic dictionary from SHARP or CASIO costs, this is a great bargain. Use the Nintendo DS you already have and turn it into a Japanese dictionary. Writing kanji using the stylus is very natural.

I've had a Cannon Word Tank for about four years now, and while it's still great, there's a lot that it can't do. Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten was the fix for me. I had been drooling over the ¥30,000 electronic dictionaries, but since I had a DS and I found this game for about ¥3,000 at Yodobashi, it was a much cheaper option. I've used it more than enough to pay it back.

It has a quiz mode, which is good for studying for JLPT. And my Japanese students love the English pronunciation function. I also found it was a great help when talking to co-workers. If you don't know the word, just pull out your DS. You can find the word, and you've got a topic of conversation!

I've had this a few weeks now and I am so amazed by it. On my desktops I use JWPce, StarDict, and so on, but it's frustrating even with all those tools at times to look up stuff. Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten is so amazing, it even recognizes my poorly written kanji, almost every time! I have had to rewrite a couple, but no big deal and hooray for practice. And so many of the dictionary entries have voice files that play! Neat! I am absolutely delighted with this product.

In fact, I am seriously considering buying another DS just to run this program. It would be much cheaper than a handheld electronic Japanese dictionary, and then I could use it to look up stuff in my other Japanese software. That's my only real beef, that I can't swap between this and my other DS software while they're running!

Oh, and if you do a search on the Web, you can find the instructions in English, very helpful!

Again, this is an excellent software/tool/resource. I'd highly recommend buying this & the DS even if you don't want any other games, just to have Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten, if you're into studying Japanese. Now I'm using it to look up all the kanji on the screen!

This is a great product for anyone studying Japanese. It's much more convenient than carrying a book and cheaper than buying a electronic dictionary.