About the Author
EIICHI MAKINO, Ph.D. in Linguistics, University of Illinois. Professor of Japanese and Linguistics, Princeton University. The author of
A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar (with M. Tsutsui),
Japan Times, 1986;
A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar (with M. Tsutsui),
Japan Times, 1995;
Uchi to Soto no Gengo-Bunkagaku, ALC, 1996;
Nakama: Japanese Communication, Culture, Context Vol. I (with Y. Hatasa & K. Hatasa), Houghton Mifflin, 1998.
SEIICHI NAKADA, Ph.D. in Linguistics, University of Michigan. Professor of English, Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition, Aoyama Gakuin University. The author of
Recent Development in Linguistic Theory and Implications for Second Language Teaching (coauthored), Bunka Hyooron Shuppansha, 1980;
Aspects of Interrogative Structure: A Case Study from English and Japanese, Kaitakusha, 1980; "Aspects of Contrastive/Comparative Syntax and the Teaching of Japanese to Speakers of English" in
On Japanese and How to Teach It (ed. by 0. Kamata & W. Jacobsen),
Japan Times, 1990;
Proceed Japanese-English Dictionary (with M. Hashimoto et al.), Benesse Corporation, 1988.
MIEKO OHSO, Ph.D. in Linguistics, The Ohio State University. Professor of Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language, Nagoya University. The author of
A Study of Zero Pronominalization in Japanese, unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1976,
Japanese for You: The Art of Communication (with Y. Koyarna), Taishukan Publishing Company, 1988;
Gairai-go no Keisei to sono Kyooiku (with H. Quackenbush), National Language Research Institute, 1990.
WESLEY M. JACOBSEN, Ph.D. in Linguistics, University of Chicago. Professor of the Practice of the Japanese Language and Director of the Japanese Language Program, Harvard University. Author of
The Transitive Structure of Events in Japanese, 1992, Kurosio Publishers; "Agentivity and aspect in Japanese: a functional perspective," in
Directions in Functional Linguistics (ed. by A. Kamio), 1997, John Benjamins; "Aspects of hypothetical meaning in Japanese conditionals" in
Function and Structure (ed. by A. Kamlo and K. Takami), 1999, John Benjamins.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Preface
This is an English-Japanese dictionary primarily for students and teachers of the Japanese language, but anyone who is interested in the basic vocabulary of the English language and its corresponding vocabulary in the Japanese language should find this dictionary useful. We have chosen approximately 4,500 basic English words as entries, so that the user will have access to a Japanese vocabulary sufficient for the purposes of speaking and writing about most topics arising in daily life.
The following are some of the unique features of this English-Japanese dictionary.
(1) Although it has the appearance of a regular English-Japanese dictionary, this dictionary is actually a bilingual dictionary in the sense that the index of basic Japanese words provided at the end allows it to he used as a Japanese-English dictionary as well.
(2) Each entry in English is followed by a description on of its basic meaning and a set of Japanese words which fall within the range of meaning of the English entry. Each of these Japanese words is in turn followed by a description of its basic meaning, allowing one to see readily what the crucial differences are in meaning between the English and Japanese words.
3) Unlike typical English-Japanese dictionaries intended for use by native speakers of Japanese, the present dictionary provides numerous example sentences written in both Japanese script (i.e., hiragana, katakana, and kanji) and romanization.
(4) Noteworthy information on the grammatical behavior and correct usage of Japanese words and of important differences between Japanese and English are provided throughout the dictionary for the benefit of those studying the Japanese language.
More than ten years have now passed since one of the writers, Seiichi Makino, initially proposed the idea of a new type of English-Japanese dictionary to Mr. Shinji Ichiba of Kodansha International, who very kindly accepted the proposal. For the first few years there were only two of us, Seiichi Makino of Princeton University and Seiichi Nakada of Aoyama Gakuin University, working on the dictionary, but owing to the busy schedule of Seiichi Nakada, we decided to ask Mieko Ohso of Nagoya University to join its in the project.
Makino wrote the initial draft for half of the entries and Nakada and Ohso the other half, but we have carefully checked each other's drafts and corrected them wherever necessary. So in effect every part of this dictionary has been written by the three of us.
Naturally we owe a great deal to our predecessors in the field of English-Japanese dictionaries, but the notion of basic meaning, which we rely on crucially owes itself to Professor Shiro Hattori's original notion of sememe (igiso). We would like to express our deep gratitude to Mr. Shinji Ichiba, the former editor-in-chief of Kodansha International, who has been so understanding of our project and has been so patient with the slow pace of our work, and to Mr. Hitoshi Wakayama of Kodansha International, Mr. Taro Hirowatari of Parastyle, Inc. and Ms. Midoriko Iio of Parastyle, Inc. who have given editorial advice and ideas, and done the actual editing of our work. And last but not least, our thanks to Professor Wesley M. Jacobsen of Harvard University, who kindly provided a native check of our manuscripts. Without his most conscientious native check, the dictionary would not have seen the light.
Since this dictionary is the first of its kind we are aware that there is ample for improvement. It is our hope that you as users of the dictionary will forward to us your comments, suggestions and criticisms so they may be incorporated in future editions of the work.
