Kodansha's Furigana Japanese Dictionary: Japanese-English English-Japanese (Kodansha Dictionaries)

Unless you're reading material targeted for Japanese children, you will always need to face kanji in printed Japanese. If you want to read anywhere away from you computer (where you can easily use an electronic dic), you need a printed kanji dic, either one with kana readings (Kodansha's essential kanji dic) or one with romanji readings (Kodansha's Kanji learner's dic)Kanji dictionaries contain only words written in kanji, so, anyway, you'll also need a dic that covers kana-only words and that is ordered by kana alphabetic order, and this dictionary here is a good one. By the way, this one is kana/kanji only. First learn the kana. If you don't feel that you need the kana because you're only going to stay in Japan for a short time and want to concentrate in the spoken language, look for a romanized dic, instead.So, you will always need at least:-two dictionaries for reading or-one for listening comprehension.If you're serious about learning Japanese (not just a short time tourist) and want to develop writing abilities, avoid romanji (Japanese written in English letters) at all costs. Learn the kana.This dictionary is not complete. Then, if you can't afford (or find... in fact, I couldn't find any) a more complete dictionary, get yourself a free electronic one to complement this one. Jim Breen's EDICT database together with a dictionary search program like Kanjibrowze will be just fine. This combination is a powerful one: When you're reading on the Net, you can use the electronic dic only. However, it does not provide any hint in word usage, so use Kodansha's furigana dic when writing in Japanese or for further understanding.No dictionary can substitute a language course, unless you're an absolute genius and have the ability to decipher completely unknown grammar patterns and verb/adjective inflections. Also take into account that unlike european languages, Japanese usually has no space between words, so you really need to know at least the basics of grammar in order to be able to use any dictionary.

Personally, I really like this book as it seems to be very thorough. Definitely a must-have book for the advanced Japanese learner who needs to learn the Kanji, in addition to just the vocabulary translation. I often refer to this book just to find out what the kanji for a word is. Not meant to be a pocket dictionary, but a REFERENCE dictionary.For example, the word raspberry shows in katakana, "ki-i-chi-go", plus the kanji with the furigana above, plus the common katakana pronunciation "ra-zu-be-ri". Therefore, you'll know how to read it in romaji, katakana English, AND kanji with the proper historical Japanese way. PLUS, for many words, especially those with multiple or varied meanings, it will give examples (even full sentences too) in both English and Japanese, with kanji and furigana. Very helpful and INDEPTH meanings for the serious learner!!The only negative about this book, is that the Japanese to English section is in hiragana (as opposed to romaji). So to look up a Japanese word, it may be very difficult for beginners to use, unless you already have the hiragana a-i-u-e-o ka-ki-ku-ke-ko down already, plus knowing how to read the hiragana. For quick look-up (and laziness) I would prefer to look up a Japanese word by the abc alphabet way.I would say that this is only for the serious Japanese learner with intermediate/advanced capabilities. If you are simply studying for a Japanese class for a few semesters and are not totally serious, you don't need such in-depth explanations, I would recommend something cheaper and easier to read. At a regular price of $60, there are much cheaper and much simpler books.

Let me start this review by saying that i'm a begginer in the studies of the japanese language. With that in mind i have to say that this dictionary it's just perferct for me.Pros:- The materials used to make this are top quality: the paper, the cover ... well, everything.- It's very organized and the instructions in the beggining are very informative.- Every word has at least one sentence. I can't emphasize this enough, especially when translating from english to japanese. It's really crucial to place the word in a context so there are no confusions.- All kanjis come with furigana, this is just great to begginers that are also trying to learn kanji.- It is a very complete dictionary FOR IT'S SIZECons:- Well ... i must say that i have only one con to this book. Due to it's size it may not be sufficient to more advanced students. As i said i'm a begginer so it's just perfect to me. Even if you are an advanced student you may want to buy this one just for it's size.I would recommend this book to everyone, even if you are an advanced student. This dictionary is way more pratical than some HUGE BOOK. You may want to carry this arround and look for your bigger one only when this one fails to help you.EDIT:Just read a review saying that writing sentences is a waste of space. It's far from that. When you are translating a text from japanese to english you already have a context so a sentece in this case is less important. When you don't know how to spell/say a word in japanese you NEED a context. The same word in english can have SEVERAL distincs meanings in japanese. If the book don't lay a context to you it may lead you to erros.