Customer Reviews

Kodansha's Romanized Japanese-English Dictionary

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

 

 

I'd recommend this dictionary to any starting student in Japanese. The entries are in Romaji, so looking up colloquialisms is no problem. Plenty of illustrations of usage are included under each entry, and it's a rare occasion when I can't find what I'm looking for.

Of course, it's no subsitute for a kanji dictionary, but one of the burdens that students must bear in learning Japanese is that they will eventually need at least two Japanese-English dictionaries - one for looking up words they hear and another for kanji. If you select this dictionary for the first category you won't go wrong.

I've been looking for a Japanese dictionary that includes pronunciation (pitch accent) and this is the only one I've found. I already had the furigana version, which is also a good choice, but unfortunately that one doesn't include the accent.

The Kodansha Romanized Japanese-English dictionary is the right size and right resource for the beginner but serious student of Japanese. The entries are concise and provide very helpful sentence structures that reinforce the overall grammatical context.
As a matter of fact, this is my second copy of the dictionary. I keep one at work where I study my Japanese during breaks and keep the second one at home for home study!

If you can't read kanji, this is the (paper) dictionary for you. Look up anything in Roman letters. This was my main dictionary, then I got the $250 Casio electronic (great but not reading kanji limits functionality), and lastly I got a $20 dictionary for iPhone that is even easier while less comprehensive but it has everything I could ever want. Good item.

Useful, but if you are serious about learning Japanese buy the "furigana" versions. The introduction and grammar notes are also very good. I use the "furigana" version often (from what I can see it has exactly the same content as the romanji versions).