Langenscheidt's Pocket Dictionary Japanese/English English/Japanese [Turtleback]

Langenscheidt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2001 | ISBN-10: 1585730386 | ISBN-13: 978-1585730384

This Pocket Japanese-English, English-Japanese Dictionary has up-to-date words, examples of usage, idiomatic expressions, and romanization of all Japanese characters. Also the Japanese - English section is arranged alphabetically according to pronunciartion. Over 40,000 references.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Since 2000. Hammond, American Map, Langenscheidt Dictionaries, Insight Travel Guides, Delorme – the famous names in the Langenscheidt family. These represent the most authoritative, up-to-date, and extensive travel and reference products available. In January 2003, the renowned Berlitz Publishing became part of the Langenscheidt Group. The Langenscheidt Publishing Group, the premier group of map and travel companies, offers over 4,000 North American and international street maps, road maps, atlases, language-learning, bilingual dictionaries, and travel-related products covering countries, cities, and languages in every continent.

Product Details

• Turtleback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Langenscheidt Publishers (February 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585730386
• ISBN-13: 978-1585730384
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 3.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #626,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compact & Useful Everyday Dictionary, January 23, 2005

By 

Hong M. Sharon "@SweetStoryCafe" (Singapore) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Langenscheidt's Pocket Dictionary Japanese/English English/Japanese (Turtleback)

I am a self-study student of Japanese and this pocket dictionary was the first Japanese dictionary I bought to aid me in my studies. The compact size of this dictionary makes it very easy and convenient to carry around, and it’s perfect for people on the go. (That is, no more suffering under the weight of a full dictionary!) ^^

The English-Japanese, Japanese-English dictionary format makes it handy to look up and translate words both ways. And the dictionary also comes with a pronunciation guide, hiragana and katakana table, which is also handy for beginners. I absolutely love the Jouyou Kanji table where you can look up the Kanji characters and pronunciation, but you’ll need to have a little bit of knowledge in Chinese characters as you’ll need to count the number of strokes a character has to be able to look for it, since the table sorts the Kanji characters by strokes.

Also, this dictionary is arranged according to romanization, making it easy for beginners to lookup a word by “pronunciation”. The inclusion of Hiragana, Katakana & even Kanji (depending on the word itself), alongside the romanji and meaning of the word is another major plus since you can check how to write a particular word in Japanese.

It’s also easy to look for phrasal verbs and vocabulary with the same “words” you’re looking for. For example, you can find under “watch” the noun and verb form (and explanation), as well as “watch for”, “watch out”, “watch out for” and so forth. This is extremely useful and convenient especially when looking out for common, everyday words. There’re also some informal words like exclamations (e.g, oh! ah!) and Internet or technical references such as website, email address and so forth.

Although I wouldn’t say this is a perfect dictionary for fluent Japanese speakers as it doesn’t provide as much words and extensive information as a complete dictionary do, it is, nevertheless, an excellent dictionary and guide for everyday use and people on the move as it covers useful and commonly used words. If you're tired of browsing through “thick” dictionaries just to find that simple, everyday word you want, give this a try. :)

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The only J-E dictionary I would have..., June 9, 2002

By 

Shawn Wilkes (Black Tower, Andor) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Langenscheidt's Pocket Dictionary Japanese/English English/Japanese (Turtleback)

Sometime back, I picked up the "want" to learn about the Japanese culture and language. So to get myself started, I bought this handle little dictionary. Now, while it is not precisely pocket size (or mayhaps my pockets are too small), it's size is still convenient, especially when you consider all of the content. It has a complete listing of Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Each word is spelled out in romanji as well as the characters. A rather in depth Japanese - English dictionary as well as vice-versa. Now, while not a complete source for all words, it is more then you can expect from a dictionary this size. 5 Stars.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One notable flaw, October 26, 2005

By 

Doug (Wilmington, DE USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Langenscheidt's Pocket Dictionary Japanese/English English/Japanese (Turtleback)

I realize that no pocket dictionary can be all-encompassing given the space limitations. However, I think it's a serious oversight that verb categories are not indicated in this dictionary. If you are unfamiliar with a verb whose dictionary form ends in "ru", you need to know whether this is a "ru-verb" or "u-verb" before you can conjugate it (in some cases this can be determined from the vowel preceding the "ru" syllable, but not always). Since this salient piece of information is omitted in both the Japanese-English and English-Japanese entries, the user is forced to look elsewhere (outside of the dictionary) to identify the verb category. I find this frustrating. Of course, this is more of an issue if you are trying to write or speak Japanese rather than just read it. With the exception of the aforementioned issue I am pleased with the Langenscheidt dictionary; it generally compares favorably with the pocket Oxford Russian-English dictionary that I used as a beginning student of Russian. If Langenscheidt would address the deficiency regarding verbs, I would give this dictionary five stars.