Random House Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary [Paperback]

Seigo Nakao (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0679780017 | ISBN-13: 978-0679780014 | Edition: Bilingual

This dictionary is designed for non-native speakers of Japanese, perfect for business people and students. There are over 50,000 entries, including the most common meanings. Japanese terms are shown in romanized Japanese and standard Japanese characters. The romanized entries are listed in alphabetical order, so no knowledge of Japanese is required.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

It was a really helpful tool for me. I don't speak Japanese or any other second langauge for that matter but didn't want to appear as the "Ugly American" who only speaks English and makes no attempts at the native tongue when abroad. In fact I will now use all of the lanuage dictionaries when taking a vacation, it can't hurt. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

This dictionary is designed for non-native speakers of Japanese, perfect for business people and students. There are over 50,000 entries, including the most common meanings. Japanese terms are shown in romanized Japanese and standard Japanese characters. The romanized entries are listed in alphabetical order, so no knowledge of Japanese is required.

Product Details

• Paperback: 688 pages
• Publisher: Random House Reference; Bilingual edition (April 7, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679780017
• ISBN-13: 978-0679780014
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 1.4 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (80 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #33,200 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #10 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Japanese
  • #17 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Languages > Japanese
  • #17 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Languages > Instruction > Japanese

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A really good dictionary, but some flaws lower the grade., November 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Random House Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary (Paperback)

This dictionary is really thorough compared to Martin's Concise Japanese Dict." or "Basic Japanese-English Dict.", having 50 000 words compared to 19000 and 3000 words, respectively. There are even medical, scientific and technical words that, as a student at a technical course, I find really useful. The words are written in romaji and also normally in KANJI instead of KANA, which helps a lot. It is organized after the romaji spelling which makes it fast to find what you are looking for. Ok ... now to the less favourable sides of the book. First of all - WHY oh why are the books english and japanese parts not mirrored? I have occasionally stumbled upon words that are in the english-japanese part, but not the other way around. REALLY annoying. Secondly - why not print the verb type (I,II,III) instead of just stating "vb"? Not a lot of ink, but enormously helpful. Anyway, though it doesn't get full score, I still think it is the best dictionary of the three I have tried.

64 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, December 4, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Random House Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary (Paperback)

I picked this book up at a local used book store to help with translating some manga (comics) for a friend. Upon bringing it home, though, I realized why the last person had gotten rid of it. While this is an EXCELLENT dictionary for translating english words to japanese (that part takes up almost 3/4 of the book), it's not worth it's weight in paper as anything else. The japanese to english section is small, incomplete, and basically pretty laughable. Many particles are completely omitted (leaving you wondering what the heck 'wa' does) as are many common nouns that you see everywhere. Also, try looking up jade (hisui) in the english - japanese section, it'll be there. But if you look up 'hisui' in the japanese - english section it wont be there. This happens to A LOT of words, very annoying... If you're only going to be using this book for english - japanese, go ahead and get it. Otherwise I recommend avoiding it unless you need a doorstop.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for Beginning Japanese Language, March 19, 2003

By 

Christopher Fung (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Random House Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary (Paperback)

As a Japanese language student, I found this dictionary to be a very useful tool in the beginning stages of learning Japanese. Most likely, the beginning student will learn to associate Japanese phrases with their respective Romanizations instead of thinking in Japanese script. For this reason, this dictionary is a good tool to help transition students from thinking in romanji to the respective Japanese scripts (hiragana, katakana and kanji).

I have found this dictionary quite useful when I studied the Japanese language during my first year in high school. However, after I began associating Japanese phrases and words with hiragana, I began using a dictionary that allowed me to search words in the hiragana script (a,i,u,e,o,ka,ki,ku...ra,wa,wo). It was difficult to go back to this Romanized dictionary.

As this dictionary is not exclusively Japanese to English or English to Japanese, this dictionary compromises its comprehensiveness. I have found that this dictionary doesn't include many more advanced or classical Japanese words and phrases that may be found in Japanese newspapers or official documents.

Yet, if you are a beginning Japanese student without any experience with Japanese script, this is a good start. However, if you are student who has more experience with the script, a better recommendation might be Kodansha's Furigana Japanese-English Dictionary or Kodansha's Furigana English-Japanese Dictionary.