Kodansha's Furigana English-Japanese Dictionary [Paperback]

Masatoshi Yoshida (Author), Yoshikatsu Nakamura (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1996 | ISBN-10: 4770020554 | ISBN-13: 978-4770020550

This companion volume to "Kodansha's Furigana Japanese-English Dictionary" is designed for English-speaking users and features pronunciation for all kanji characters in hiragana. It should prove useful for beginning and intermediate students who prefer reference in native Japanese script.

Product Details

• Paperback: 728 pages
• Publisher: Kodansha International (JPN) (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 4770020554
• ISBN-13: 978-4770020550
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.3 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,616,500 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Dictionary for Beginners, May 12, 2000

By 

"radagasty" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kodansha's Furigana English-Japanese Dictionary (Paperback)

Kodansha's Furigana dictionaries are simply a few of the best Japanese<->English dictionaries I have seen on the market, especially for students of Japanese. The English-Japanese volume of this wonderful dictionary is simply indispensable to beginners of the language once they have mastered the two kana scripts, viz, hiragana and katakana, as would be expected of any serious student, since the dictionary does not contain any Romanised entries.

The entries comprise a basic vocabulary of some 14,000 of the most commonly used words in English. The Japanese equivalent follows the head word, written in kanji and kana. One great feature about this dictionary particularly valuable to beginners who may not know many kanji is that all the kanjis, be they in the entries or the examples, have small kanas printed over them indicating their pronunciation, i.e., furigana. The definitions themselves are up-to-date, clear, being written for English speakers, and most entries contain illustrative example sentences indicating of usage. An appendix listing verb conjugations is included.

The book itself is physically well produced, with a soft vinyl cover. The paper is of good quality, and the print is clear without being too small. Moreover, the size of the book is neither so large nor so heavy as to become inconvenient to the user.

In summary, then, the Kodansha's Furigana English-Japanese dictionary is a great boon to any serious beginning or intermediate student of Japanese. For the advance learner, however, its limited scope of some sixteen thousand words makes it perhaps not quite as useful. Two of its features, i.e., doing away with romaji (Romanised script), which is very irritating to users familiar with kana, by using kana instead (as the Japanese would, in any case), and indicating the reading of all kanjis with furigana, sets this dictionary apart from others in the market, and I would not hesitate to recommend it to any serious student embarking on a study of the Japanese language.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars also good for advanced students, November 21, 2000

By 

IndigoKare "indigokare" (San Francisco-area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kodansha's Furigana English-Japanese Dictionary (Paperback)

let's face it, we all forget how to pronounce a certain kanji at one point. this dictionary is better than the rest because a) there is no romanji b) there is kana and kanji for every every listing c) the furigana (how to pronounce the kanji) is written above the kanji and d) it gives clear examples of how to use the word/phrase/expression in a sentence.

this dictionary really helped me throughout my travels in japan, especially when I couldn't remember how to pronounce a certain kanji that my electronic dictionary gave me. it has also helped me throughout my long years of japanese language courses. since the grammar patterns are included, my writing improved. i was not just learning new vocabulary and not knowing how/when to use it.

i should also mention that the cultural context within this dictionary is superb. many english to japanese dictionaries will simply give you the translation, but not include when one should use that phrase/word in japan. kodansha's furigana dictionaries clearly explain that.

maybe not a great dictionary for the true beginner (and especially someone who can not read kana or does not care to learn much kanji), but this is one great dictionary for true students of japanese.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Essential for Students of Japanese, March 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Kodansha's Furigana English-Japanese Dictionary (Paperback)

This dictionary is essential for students of japanese because it uses furigana (small hiragana and katakana characters that explain pronunciation and spelling) above the kanji characters in its definitions. Also, and perhaps more importantly, it thoroughly explains the usage of various words by a generous assortment of sample sentences. This is especially helpful with short words like "but" and "if" that receive very little treatment in standard pocket dictionaries. I have one major gripe with this dictionary, that I hope the editors will fix in the next editions. The dictionary is definitely not comprehensive, and there is FAR too much space wasted on translating "loan words" from english. For example, if you look up "helicopter", the loan word "herikoputaa" is listed. Although this might help the learner find the standard katakana-spelling, it is really wasted space in a dictionary of this kind, especially when the katakana spelling system is relatively easy to figure out for oneself. I suggest removing the majority of loan-words and replacing them with more Japanese vocabulary. When a certain word does not appear in the dictionary, then you can be reasonably confident that it has a katakana-english loan word. For this reason, this otherwise excellent dictionary loses a star. Still, its format and ease-of-use make it indispensible.