I think I’m far enough along in my Japanese studies to buy a Japanese electronic dictionary. Specifically, I want one that does handwriting recognition, to let me be able to type in (and look up) kanji without having to page thru by stroke count. Which one do you guys use? I’m a beginner, so Japanese - English would be ideal. But Japanese - Japanese might be OK, if it does Kanji → Hiragana so I can … look it up again. (This is still an improvement over “page thru by stroke count” which is what I’m doing now.)
I don’t really know much about electronic dictionaries, but there are some very good free resources online. I primarily use the Sanseido Japanese-Japanese web dictionary to look up unknown words, and then cross-reference if needed with WWWJDIC (integrated with the Rikaichan add-on for Firefox), which I use to get the readings for a word, and/or the English definition if I can’t understand the Japanese one. I’ve got a copy of ??? (The Challenge Elementary School Japanese Language Dictionary), which has furigana on every kanji, but I don’t use it as often, as it’s a paper dictionary, it doesn’t have that many entries, and the definitions usually aren’t as concise as those in Sanseido.
For kanji, I also use WWWJDIC - even when searching by stroke count it doesn’t take too long to find the appropriate kanji, as they are all listed on the screen. Using the SKIP method on WWWJDIC might be a bit quicker though (although I definitely wouldn’t recommend getting the Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary as there are a lot of reasonably common kanji that aren’t listed in it, plus looking them up by hand is definitely slower).
What about the “Kodansha’s essential Kanji dictionary” ? It seems to have all the ones I’ve looked up but then again I probably already know the common Kanji that aren’t in the book you mentioned.
On an other note, I agree with Ignosco in this matter so there’s not much more for me to really say~
The Essential Kanji Dictionary only has the 1945 daily use kanji - the Kanji Learner’s Dictionary has those along with 285 name kanji (which is now out of date as there are now 983 name kanji, although some of those are variant/older forms). So neither dictionary is adequate in that sense, and on top of that, there are at least 500 kanji that fall outside both of those lists that have the potential to be used, such as ? (shark), ? (lick), ? (depression) etc.
So pretty much all kanji dictionaries that are paperback are becoming obsolete to Electronic devices/the internet?
Edit: Wow, that Rikaichan add-on is pretty amazing, :lol:
I don’t know much about the electronic ones but they seem to have an insanely large word count as I’ve been recently looking at some of the Canon Wordtanks, not sure which one to get myself though, so I think i’ll hang around this thread until there is some sort of resolution
Edit: Here is a link to something like what you are describing,http://store.aikotradingstore.com/necawov3.html
http://www.kanji.org/kanji/dictionaries/dicguide.htm
The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary (the red book) was a real godsend for me, and it’s the most user-friendly kanji dictionary even now, in my opinion.
It’s NOT exhaustive (you need the less user friendly International Edition -the white book- for that), but greatly helps in learning kanji AND Japanese in general (it worked for me, at least). However I never used electronic dictionaries, I can’t help here 
…
Yeah I have the ‘essential’ guide, Kind of sucks it doesn’t have everything but it does seem to have a lot. I don’t think I’ll be able to find a dictionary with the number of entries as an electronic one, since the Word tank has like hundreds of thousands of words in it,as well as having an english dictionary with even more hundreds of thousands. Compared to all the combinations and single Kanji in my paperback it only has a little over 20,000. So it would seem eletronic touch screens(with a stylus) are taking over. But to match that I would need like, so many dictionaries on paper that it would be impractical to want to buy them all, and considering what they would all cost, an electronic one isnt’ really all that expensive when you think about it. I have several paperback Kanji dictionaries but no electronic one yet, but I really really want one, I’m just not sure which way to go about it since I don’t want to buy a total piece of dog crap.
Too bad J-list doesn’t sell wordtanks :lol:
To clarify: I already have one or two dead tree dictionaries. But looking things up in them will be a pain if I can’t figure out how to read a character, so I want something so I can simply write the character and have handwriting recognition tell me what it is.
Some of these links look promising, especially the one that’s on sale. I’ll check back later to see if anyone else has any good suggestions.
How about JWPce and its built-in dictionary?
At least, you can search kanjis in there by contained radicals instead of just the amount of strokes.
J-List used to sell them… in fact, there is still an artifact from when they were sold when you go to the software study aids sub-section of the study japanese area of J-List.
JWPce is the main reason I don’t need an electronic dictionary, just remember that its built-in dictionary lacks many words/idioms from jargon, dialect, etc. etc. It’s not a problem however if you have access to the frequently updated http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi- … dic.cgi?1C (or http://www.excite.co.jp/dictionary/ , http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/ , etc. ) and copy in the “User Dict” part of JWPce the words it lacks.
If you are interested, the “user” file of my own JWPce is here (Warning: it’s occasionally peppered with a bit of Italian).
Another thing that I might suggest is a certain program that I made myself - and gave you eons ago for taking a look at and commenting - which never happened!
Besides its original purpose (Learning Kanji), it can also be used as a dictionary - and has a search-function for self-drawn kanji. But beware: the kanji have to be drawn using the typical rules - if you mess up the stroke order, then the results of the search should be … interesting!
I remember seeing that when I first came to the site now, but I had since forgotten, hehe
It seems the Wordtank is what everyone seems to point to for the most part.
What I want to know is which version of the Wordtank to get, V90 looks like the best option but i’m not sure how the newer/other models are
Edit: J-list still sells leather cases too apparently ,hehe http://www.jlist.com/SEARCH/wordtank/1/
It’s not so much about where to buy them but which one to buy and why sort of thing,
The G55 looks good but I’d sooner go for the V90 almost solely for the stylus input.
Is there any reason why you chose the G55 over the others?
Stylus input is a core requirement for me. Draw the character, it tells me what it is – this is precisely what I need. If it can’t do that, then it won’t help me more than the dead tree dictionaries I already have.
I think the V90 looks good, that’s basically what I’m looking for. And looking into it more, a tablet input system, combined with MS IME, combined with JWPce is also good – but I don’t want to fool with my laptop when I’m trying to play a PS2 game.
Thanks guys!
I don’t want to spend that much JUST yet what with X-mas and all but the V90 is totally what I’m going to get, on another note I bought the Kanji DS dictionary just for the hell of it to see if it was good as the reviews say, and it’s really not that bad at all, the stylus on the V90 works better for Kanji searching though I’ve heard. but I mean, I have a stack of dictionaries and this DS kanji dictionary seems to have everything they do, and then some(It also has a tablet/IME style input as well as the stylus too). I still want a V90 but this thing is really handy at the moment,
though I am well aware the V90 has a bigger dictionary, I’m just saying if the DS dictionary is awesome then the V90 should be amazing and then some.
Also I hear the V90 is pretty forgiving on Stroke orders 
Got a link for that DS Kanji dictionary? Are you talking about My Japanese Coach?
No I’ve never checked out “My Japanese Coach” so I have no idea what it’s like, I was talking specifically “Kanji DS Dictionary”
J-list sells them, here is the link
http://www.jlist.com/SEARCH/kanji_ds_dictionary/1/
These are designed for native Japanese people so all the menus are in Japanese, but even if you can’t read it all it’s pretty easy to figure out and navigate.
Also keep in mind Kanji should be entered in proper stroke order for best results but if you mess it up you can tap on the kanji and a list comes up with Kanji you can select that it thinks you may have meant to put, I haven’t had many problems finding the Kanji i’m looking up, granted it helps to have knowledge of stroke order.
It’s a really cool program though I like it, It also has a bunch of other neat features in it too some of them being it keeps a nice little list/history of recent searches you made, quizzes,cross dictionary search, and overall a nice layout. (There’s more functions I just can’t think of all of them at the moment)
I’ve been thinking about electronic dictionaries lately, and I was curious if anyone here knew anything about setting up a PDA or smartphone for use as one. From what I have read lately, going this route can be much better than getting a stand alone product from Canon for example, and has an advantage over the DS software in that the dictionary files can be updated. The wiki on electronic dictionaries even mentions being able to use the Eijiro dictionary (which I’ve heard is fantastic).