Japanese Dictionary

Before learning Japanese, I didn't know how one can search for Japanese words in a Japanese dictionary.

To be able to find unknown words, you still need a little of knowledge on how to write them and their background (the technical terms are "Number of Strokes" and "Radical" (the base character that is the base for complex Kanji).

Luckily, being in the 21st Century comes to help. We have now Digital Dictionaries. No, i'm not talking about the Junk dictionaries sold in Europe, and if you don't know what i'm talking about, just check them out next time you go to your local electronic store.

What i'm talking about, are Full Featured Electronic Dictionaries like the one i bought a couple of years ago. They are not cheap. They range from $200 up to $700 or more depending on the features (in Japan, with some dictionaries, you can watch TV as well).

My dictionary is not that advanced. Only Black and White and no TV, but still the price was (2 years ago) around $500. Additional language modules can be added separately, even though, when you choose your dictionary, you choose your main language (i.e. JAPANESE-CHINESE, JAPANESE-ENGLISH).

The Menus and functions are in Japanese only, so you need a little of experimenting the first times.

So, here is how it looks like:

In this case, i'm writing the word, you've seen on the top picture, and I need to be careful to follow the exact order of the strokes and the number of strokes, or the dictionary will not be able to figure out the word i'm looking for and might return another one.

Once the word is found succesfully, i get all the informations needed, like all different meanings, suffixes and Radicals (the base kanji) in this case Tree (木 - KI ) which is also, in this case, the pronounciation of this kanji. Just saying the word "KI" without knowing the Kanji, might mean machine but also Three and about 20 other things, each meaning, has it's own different Symbol.

Really a big help!