Kanji Dictionary: Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten

by Nintendo

Product Details

• ASIN: B000O2S9VQ
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #8,698 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Language Study Tool, July 27, 2007

By	M. C. Higo "philo japan" (Northeast, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

You'll need a Nintendo DS or Nintendo DS Lite game console to use this. Kanji Dictionary: Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten is my best investment in a Japanese language study tool to date. It's so portable and user-friendly compared to the big kanji dictionary that I used to use. Using this, I can read much more challenging Japanese texts than I used to be able to. When a kanji character that I can't read appears in the text, I can just write it on the screen with the stylus, click on the Japanese-English dictionary option, and I am shown both the hiragana pronunciation and the English definition of the word, with example sentences. I can also look up words in the kana mode, in which I use the stylus to write the word on the screen in kana, and then I can see the kanji and the English definition of the word. It's great! And, although it's Japanese game software, it's completely compatible with the U.S. version of the Nintendo DS Lite console, which you need to be able to use the software.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent self study tool! A must-have for DS owners and Japanese students, February 7, 2008

By	buru buru piggu (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

I lived in Japan for 3 years and wish the DS and this dictionary were developed earlier! They would've made my life easier and helped my Japanese tremendously.

I looked at many options for an affordable, portable dictionary that accepted writing input, but nothing met my needs. The dictionaries from Casio, Seiko, and others cost upwards of $300 and almost all of them didn't have stylus inputs. I tried a Sony Clie PDA, but the included dictionary was minimalist and terrible as a study tool, providing only basic translations and occasionally, examples.

The biggest problem for students of Japanese is seeing a word and not knowing how to pronounce it. Not knowing the yomikata means you have to count strokes and look up by radical, which is often a giant and time-consuming pain in the butt. Writing is invariably faster, and this software is a godsend! It provides plenty of example sentences and usage, and I recommend this highly. If you already have a DS, this is the cheapest and most functional electronic dictionary on the market, in my opinion.

If you don't have a DS, buy one and buy this dictionary. It will pay for itself very shortly in time saved and language skills acquired.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-have for intermediate students of Japanese, April 9, 2007

By	bd_ - See all my reviews

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

The handwritten kanji lookup feature of this dictionary is extremely convenient - much easier to use than multiradical or SKIP-code lookup, and it copes well with poor handwriting. Additionally, the detailed word dictionaries contain entries that I've not been able to find in free resources (for example, pataashi).