Online Japanese Dictionary

[robert5153]

Hello, everyone. First post in this forum.

Does anyone have suggestions online Japanese Japanese dictionary? (Not a translation dictionary, but a dictionary in Japanese for Japanese speakers.)

I found this one:

http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/

It seems to be pretty good, but when I copy and paste definitions into Anki they come out full of junk characters.

[Taurus]

I use http://www.sanseido.net

[Javizy]

I use http://www.sanseido.net

Wow, that's really concise. It'd be much more suited to flashcards than the goo ones I've been using. Take 控える for example.

〈下〉 （１） 準備して待つ． （２） 自制する． ▼発言を～ （３） 書き留める． （４） 近くにある． ▼試験を間近に～ (派)(～)え

（動ア下一）[文]ハ下二 ひか・ふ
補足説明動詞「引く」に継続の接尾語「ふ」の付いた語
[一]（自動詞）
(1)いつでも活動できるよう準備をして待機する。
「楽屋に—・えて出番を待つ」
(2)表立たずに傍らにいる。
「首相の後ろに—・えている夫人」
(3)すぐ近くにある。
(ア)場所的に近い。
「北側に山が—・えている小村」
(イ)時間的に近い。
「大事な試合が明日に—・えている」
(4)進まないで止まる。
「琴をぞひきすまされたる、—・へて是をききければ/平家 6」
[二]（他動詞）
(1)他のものが動こうとするのを引きとどめる。抑制する。
「袖を—・える」
「馬を—・える」
(2)あることに配慮して、自分の行動を制限・抑制する。
「酒を—・える」
「公表を—・える」
「言葉を—・える」
(3)後ろに退かせる。
「裏を一センチ—・える」
(4)すぐ近くにある、ということを他動詞的に表現する。
(ア)近い関係にある。
「近くに有数の観光地を—・えて発展した都市」
「代議士がバックに—・えている」
(イ)時間的に間近にせまる。
「開会式を三日後に—・えて準備に忙しい」
(5)記録にとどめる。メモする。
「電話番号を手帳に—・える」
(6)和船で、櫓(ろ)を操作して船首を左へ曲げる。
⇔押さえる
(7)引く。
「其方(そなた)へ引け。強く—・へよ/義経記 5

[robert5153]

Wow that's quite a difference. Goo gives so much more context though. Aside from all the transitive meanings (almost completely absent in sanseido), the goo definitions offer more nuance.

For example, where sanseido just says 近くにある, goo gives so much more information about exactly how it might be used in this context. That said, for flashcards sanseido is obviously more practical. (One won't read all that context more than once or twice, right? After that it is just clutter.)

I have only recently discovered the advantages of using Japanese definition cues instead of English translation cues in flashcards. Shifting over will be a slow process. But in addition to the obvious boost towards thinking in the language, it solves a thorny problem I've had where more than one Japanese word has the same translation in English. And it gives a much better understanding of how one uses these different words differently. The Japanese definition approach is a 3-in-1 boost. I just wish Rikaichan worked with Anki. (Yeah, yeah, I could use the Anki website.)

[a_cubed]

Depending on what you want, I've found this quite a useful resource:

http://linear.mv.com/cgi-bin/j-e/jis/dict

It allows kanji, kana and roma input for Japanese searching, as well as many kanji search approaches including SKIP (Kodansha's index system) input. I've had no problems copying and pasting from the results either.

However, it gives just basic translations and I've found offlne dictionaries to be more useful in some circumstances.

[robert5153]

Hmm. I just dicovered Sanseido committing a dictionary foul:

しあが・る 3 ［仕上がる］
〈五〉 完成する． (派)(～)り


かんせい ［完成］
〈スル〉 しあがること．

I suppose this is the price of terseness.

[liam]

It seems to be pretty good, but when I copy and paste definitions into Anki they come out full of junk characters.

What OS are you using? If you paste into some other program (like word) does it paste correctly. You may need to install the Japanese support plugin for Anki or use a different browser.

[robert5153]

I'm using MacOS 10.5 and the latest release of Firefox. I should clarify my issue. It's not that I have an (obvious) character encoding problem. It's just that when I paste from the Goo pages, I get some extraneous characters in addition to the correctly encoded characters that appear on the Goo page.

I don't seem to have the problem with Sanseido, and in any case I am living with it.