List of Japanese apps based on WWWJDIC usage (blacklist)

[fireemblem8088]

First off, I know some of you looooove "Kotoba!", which uses the WWWJDIC dictionary. I myself have used it for a long period of time. I agree that it has two good features:
1. It's free.
2. It's better than no Japanese dictionary at all.

To be fair, WWWJDIC is good for very specific unambiguous nouns (I would find it useful while doing my shopping), which is due only to the shear size of its dictionary. However, it is terrible when you actually want to learn how to express something in Japanese, or when you want to properly understand a Japanese sentence. This is because almost none of the entries contain any usage explanation. It's just not set up that way. You may think that this is not a big deal, because there are plenty of example sentences. While (again) these are better than nothing, the vast majority of these sentences contain completely unnatural Japanese. Most of the time they are essentially 1-to-1 translations of the corresponding English sentences, fit to comply with Japanese grammar rules. (You can usually recognize these sentences by noting the frequency of 私 for I/he, 私たち for we/us, あなた for you, 彼 for he/him, その for the, when the usually these words would be omitted). Simply put, translation is not that simple. Just because it follows Japanese grammar rules and would be generally understandable in one way or another to most Japanese people, that does not make it a good translation. I should also note that WWWJDIC is next to useless for English-to-Japanese translation.

Anyway, the point of this topic is just to let people know which apps out there use WWWJDIC and which don't, so they don't have to waste their time/money on finding out the hard way. I have only downloaded a few, so I'm hoping other users can contribute to this thread.

I also included a couple apps that use Eijiro, which is in a sense, the reverse of WWWJDIC, in that it is aimed at Japanese people, and only really works for English-to-Japanese translation (the dictionary can be found only freely at http://www.alc.co.jp/).

Apps that use WWWJDIC (blacklist)

- Kotoba! - It's free, so it's worth getting for translation of unambiguous nouns. (Any serious Japanese learner would be a fool to have it as their only dictionary, though.)
- Japanese - I downloaded this because people were saying this was the better-but-more costly version of Kotoba. It's just Kotoba with a different coat of paint. Dynamic linking between entries makes it a little better, but a WWWJDIC-based app can only get so good.
- WaEiWa - I saw some Japanese people using this app. (Aside from unambiguous nouns that I mentioned, WWWJDIC is even worse for Japanese learners of English than it is for us). At first glance, I thought it might have been OK. It seemed to have an English-to-Japanese dictionary, so it couldn't possibly have been a WWWJDIC app, right? Well, it does have one, but only because they "reverse-engineered" the Japanese-to-English dictionary, so it's useless. This app also has dynamically-linked entries.
- Japanese Flip - A simple flashcard application. Not as hampered as a dictionary would be by use of WWWJDIC, but still, it's nice to get nice concise meanings for flashcard words you don't know, which is where this application fails.
- iKanji Touch - A kanji-learning app. Use of WWWJDIC is a little more forgivable in this case, since it focuses on the meaning of characters, not words, and thus natural translation or usage explanation isn't so important.
- Japanese Flash - I haven't downloaded this, but I can see from the pictures on its iTunes store page that it uses WWWJDIC.

Apps that use Eijiro (semi-blacklist) (targeted at Japanese learners of English)

- iEijiro (all versions) - Not as good as the online site, in that you can't really search examples. I should also mention that instead giving dictionary updates as free software updates, you need to buy the next version of the app to get the updated dictionary. Nice...
- Eijiro Touch - Same as iEijiro, but I know at some stage the developer stopped supporting it and it disappeared from the store. Then it appeared again, I think.

Apps that don't use WWWJDIC or Eijiro (the possibly-good-list)

- The WISDOM English-Japanese, Japanese-English Dictionary - Targeted at Japanese people, but even so, this is currently the app I use most often. Word descriptions are broken down very well into their various meanings/usages. Features dynamically-linked entries.
- The Ultimate Japanese Phrasebook - Better than your typical phrasebook due to the shear number of phrases contained. Created by Kodansha, which is the company that makes great Japanese textbooks targeted at us. (I wish they would turn their J-E/E-J dictionary into an app already. I believe it would be better than anything else on the market.)
- Human Japanese - I only downloaded the lite version, because it seems to be a beginner app (please correct me if I'm wrong). This is basically a textbook in an app, but it has sounds included. Based on the demo, I believe this would be a useful tool for learning the language from near-scratch.

As mentioned above, contributions are appreciated.

[Belton]

I think you are being overly harsh in your criticism of the Edict dataset (blacklist is a very emotive word). It doesn't claim to be a usage dictionary. It is primarily a J->E resource for English speakers with entries based on their readings. It is also somewhat unedited as entries can be submitted by anyone. Often homonyms aren't distinguished. But I usually find it sufficient on the iPod, with Kotoba! because hey it's free and does the job. (at home I have better references on my Macbook and in paper form)

I do understand your frustration however. I find I need to search a couple of dictionaries to get a clearer picture, and maybe google to see real world usage. The problem is, there aren't many datasets out there. It's expensive to compile and edit a dictionary. The better ones tend to be more expensive or aren't available in electronic form or for iOS. There are also very few learners dictionaries, eventually you are in a bit of a catch22 situation where you have to have sufficient Japanese to use Japanese dictionaries to find out about usage that Japanese people may already know.

Ejiro Touch was back in the store for a while, and solved the iOS4 bug, however it seems to have gone again.
Kodansha's excellent Kanji Learners Dictionary also disappeared (maybe due to Casio having the electronic rights, the developers weren't forthcoming)
Sadly the Oxford Learners dictionary also seems to have gone. Once there were two or three versions of this. It is very good on usage for beginners. All are worth keeping an eye out for if they ever return. I live in hope of updates suddenly appearing and hope a system update doesn't kill KKLD.

Japanese Sensei from Cole Zhu is worth a look. Not a dictionary as such, more a flashcard program. It's data is good however. It's from Jack Halperns CJK Dictionary Institute. There is native recorded audio in a number of voices as well. It has a search function so it can be a dictionary of sorts, however this may interfere with the flashcard part as all searches are added to the current flashcards.

It's also worth looking at online dictionaries if you have an Internet connection available. kotobank.jp or dictionary.goo.ne.jp although unfortunately neither is formatted for mobile devices.

I also have to disagree with your recommendation of the Ultimate Japanese Phrasebook. The entries per topic are quite few and not especially in-depth. Some of the English is a bit strange or slang-like (possibly the Japanese too) so much so I tell my wife to be careful of it.

Finally I'd also say that learning to express yourself in Japanese is a different activity from translation. Dictionaries are a limited tool requiring a lot of discretion (otherwise machine translation would be much better). And translation usually has as its starting point that you can operate in the target language.

[fireemblem8088]

I think you are being overly harsh in your criticism of the Edict dataset (blacklist is a very emotive word). It doesn't claim to be a usage dictionary. It is primarily a J->E resource for English speakers with entries based on their readings. It is also somewhat unedited as entries can be submitted by anyone. Often homonyms aren't distinguished. But I usually find it sufficient on the iPod, with Kotoba! because hey it's free and does the job. (at home I have better references on my Macbook and in paper form)

Well, I did mention that Edict (Is this term synonymous with WWWJDIC? If so I'm going with it from now on.) has its uses as far as completely unambiguous words go. And despite the fact that its English descriptions of more complicated usage are ridiculously messy, it can serve as a good refresher provided you have learned them before. So yes, as a reference dictionary, it serves a purpose.

As for it claiming not to be a usage dictionary, I believe providing usage examples makes that claim indirectly to some extent. I've certainly met plenty who use it as such. And as for "Kotoba!" being sufficient for an iPod app, I don't think there is any reason we should expect less from an iPod dictionary than from a paper dictionary. When I'm on public transport and on other similar occasions I like to maximize my time by studying. I somewhat enjoy reading an example entries in dictionaries to learn usage, and when a new word appears in that example I enjoy looking that up to find its meaning tool. I believe that a dictionary can be used as a learning device.

And yes, I do realize that terms like "blacklist" a bit harsh. I suppose my frustration comes from the fact that so many applications are using what I consider to be a fundamentally flawed dictionary.

I also have to disagree with your recommendation of the Ultimate Japanese Phrasebook. The entries per topic are quite few and not especially in-depth. Some of the English is a bit strange or slang-like (possibly the Japanese too) so much so I tell my wife to be careful of it.

I haven't exactly gone through it with a fine-toothed comb, but I don't remember seeing any strange English. Plus, it's targeted at English-speaking learners of Japanese, so I'd rather have the English be a little strange to suit the natural Japanese than vice versa. I can understand why that's not good for your wife, though. I of course cannot say with 100% certainty that the Japanese sentences are completely natural, but I think it's safe to say that they're leaps and bounds ahead of any example sentence you'd find in WWWJDIC. I suppose I put it on a higher level due to the quality of Kodansha's textbooks (which I already mentioned).

Finally I'd also say that learning to express yourself in Japanese is a different activity from translation. Dictionaries are a limited tool requiring a lot of discretion (otherwise machine translation would be much better). And translation usually has as its starting point that you can operate in the target language.

I agree that they're definitely two different activities, but I believe they can be merged to a large extent with the use of detailed entries in dictionaries. Especially when the entry will give nuances and comparisons to similar words. The biggest issue is that there are grammar points and topics that don't fit neatly into any given entry.

[Javizy]

J-E translations will always have limitations, but I find Japanese more than adequate 90% of the time. The translations give a good sense of the meaning, and the example sentences, along with the context where I initially encounter the word, usually clarify it. The other 10% of the time (usually when there are no example sentences), I switch to 大辞林 and read the definition. As for usage, example sentences help with syntax and often with appropriacy, but I think ultimately you need to be looking to long-term exposure to completely assimilate the language.

[Belton]

Edict (Is this term synonymous with WWWJDIC?

wwwjdic is the server at monash. The dictionaries or I suppose data are EDICT and JMdict (this one has extra definitions for various languages other than english), KANJIDIC, and various other files. The examples are from a separate project called the Tanaka corpus, now incorporated in the Tatoeba project. The Tanaka Corpus has it's own unique problems as well. And Prof. Tanaka himself didn't think it very good either.
It's interesting to check out the history of this wide-reaching project.

All this is free and collaborative, and to my eyes unedited in a lot of respects, compared to published dictionaries.

And yes, I do realize that terms like "blacklist" a bit harsh. I suppose my frustration comes from the fact that so many applications are using what I consider to be a fundamentally flawed dictionary.

The problem is it's free. It has dominated this area of the Internet. But then no-one else was doing this sort of project until Jim Breen came along and I doubt anyone else is going to try to start a similar project. (although Japanese Wordnet which I found when looking up Tanaka just now seems interesting) The data is the same and mostly what is different in all these apps is the front end. I don't think there are other datasets that can be licensed. Maybe Oxford, and Collins.

For what it's worth, the way entries such as ageru are identical for three different kanji always bothers me. I believe it's down to entries being indexed by their reading and not their kanji. I also have problems with the KANJIDIC files. The fact that Heisig's keywords are the first entry for all the jyouyou kanji bugs me, especially when they are Hiesig's weirder choices. But part of the good thing about KANDICT is I'm free to get a copy and change it for my own needs. But as I'm not a lexicographer all I'm doing is bringing together several of my favourite resources in a custom notebook while I'm studying.

Anyhow, it's market forces. Even globally I don't think there is a large enough market for a quality English language Japanese learners / usage dictionary. Especially when the competition, however flawed, is free and seen as adequate by many learners. I wish it were different, I'd love a more advanced version of the Oxford starter dictionary, especially in electronic form. But I don't think any publisher is willing to undertake it. I might be wrong. The bigger market is Japanese to English for Japanese speakers which seems well served by large names in Japanese publishing.

Kodansha is the best hope. I know the dictionary you're talking about (I think) and the dictionaries of example sentence structures, adverb usage, verb usage, colocation dictionary etc etc. would make great electronic books. (While I'm wishing The grammar dictionaries from Japan Times as well. although I see at least one person has "based" their grammar dictionary app on the beginner grammar volume.) That said, I think they may be a bit conservative and wary of the market and fearful of piracy. Again I could be wrong but we're not seeing these titles appearing in electronic form.

Ultimately I think usage probably has to come from exposure to real world settings, through reading or talking and it's not exactly easy to get to that level.

I haven't exactly gone through it with a fine-toothed comb, but I don't remember seeing any strange English.

Maybe it was just when we were going through the social section. The ones I remember offhand are "I've got a bun in the oven" "you dork" . On both sides, English and Japanese we found examples that we thought "yes... but". Maybe it's just me.
Merely by going through an editorial process, it's going to be miles ahead of Tanaka. And I'd have that same instinct for a reference book or dictionary coming from a reputable publisher rather than some as yet unknown app vendor.
I do however think that as a phrasebook, I've seen more useful formats.

I understand what you're doing. It's very hard to sift through all the cr*p on the App store and find the good stuff. It's useful to have lists and reviews.

[Belton]

While I was writing the previous post I came across an interesting app

http://itunes.apple.com/app/japanese-en ... 92546?mt=8

It's a thesaurus. So words are grouped by their sense. It's aimed at Japanese so the kanji don't have furigana. The entries link to a ja.wikipedia search if you are online. It's using the Japanese Wordnet data mentioned above. It is possible to use English as well. Obviously it needs a lot of interpretation but it's an interesting way to browse words. Ideally you would be able to link out to your favourite dictionary but you can't even copy from the main screen, I had to copy from the wikipedia page.

[Javizy]

I wish more apps would use the URL scheme. Anki and 大辞林 do, so I can jump between them conveniently. I've been meaning to e-mail the Japanese guy to suggest it. Being able to switch to other dictionaries automatically would be so much more useful, and I'd end up using 大辞林 a lot more than the 10% I mentioned above.

[Belton]

Another thing that anyone can do is fix the example sentences in the Tanaka Corpus, thereby making the data at wwwjdic more useful for everyone.

http://blog.tatoeba.org/2009/01/new-val ... ystem.html

or add to the corpus which makes it even more relevant. Maybe a wiki style project like this can work.

--edit--

what I have noticed when browsing tatoeba.org's Japanese corpus is, that while 私は、彼は etc are often not used in Japanese these single sentence examples need them to make proper sense, because no topic will have been established. Maybe the grammatical subject of example sentences needs to be more inventive.