Japanese for “electronic dictionary,”\u00c2\u00a0 it’s a gizmo that’s really handy if you’re learning Japanese<\/strong>. They’re usually full of all different kinds of dictionaries, and now they have things like a drawing pad where you can draw a kanji on the pad, and they will (usually) recognize the kanji you draw on the pad. So gone are the days of tediously looking up kanji by their respective parts.<\/p>\n Sounds great, right?<\/p>\n Well, there are downsides<\/strong>. For starters, \u00e9\u203a\u00bb\u00e5\u00ad\u0090\u00e8\u00be\u017e\u00e6\u203a\u00b8 are hard to find outside of Japan<\/strong>. You have to find a way to import them, and that can wind up being very expensive. Also, they’re usually bulky<\/strong> and full of a lot of features you’re not going to use<\/strong>. And it’s one more thing to carry around.<\/p>\n My Sharp Papyrus has an MP3 player and a bunch of other random crap I just never use. I’ve seen others that have TV tuners. Seriously? I just want to look up some words.<\/p>\n My iPhone does just about all of that, only better.<\/p>\n If you’re an iPhone or iPod Touch user, you already own something that can easily be turned into a \u00e9\u203a\u00bb\u00e5\u00ad\u0090\u00e8\u00be\u017e\u00e6\u203a\u00b8 if you’re willing to spend some money in the iTunes App store.<\/p>\n I’ve already mentioned the excellent \u00e5\u00a4\u00a7\u00e8\u00be\u017e\u00e6\u017e\u2014 (Daijirin<\/em>) app<\/strong>, which gives you a great \u00e5\u203a\u00bd\u00e8\u00aa\u017e (kokugo<\/em>— Japanese) dictionary for around $13 US.<\/p>\n If you need something more along the lines of a \u00e8\u2039\u00b1\u00e5\u2019\u0152\/\u00e5\u2019\u0152\u00e8\u2039\u00b1 dictionary (that would be an English-Japanese\/Japanese English dictionary), then you can get the pretty good Genius 2<\/strong> for $42, or the excellent \u00e7\u00a0\u201d\u00e7\u00a9\u00b6\u00e7\u00a4\u00be<\/strong> for $31, or the Wisdom<\/strong> for $24.<\/p>\n I love the \u00e7\u00a0\u201d\u00e7\u00a9\u00b6\u00e7\u00a4\u00be for its sample sentences, and its search robustness, but its interface is a little plain, and it lacks a super jump ability. You have to cut and paste words to search related words, which is kind of a pain.<\/p>\n There are also \u00e5\u203a\u203a\u00e5\u00ad\u2014\u00e7\u2020\u0178\u00e8\u00aa\u017e dictionaries available as well as medical dictionaries. (The medical dictionaries are hideously expensive.)<\/p>\n To find Japanese dictionaries in the App Store, search under \u00e8\u00be\u017e\u00e6\u203a\u00b8 or\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e8\u00be\u017e\u00e5\u2026\u00b8 (jisho<\/em> or jiten<\/em>… but you need to use the Japanese keyboard to generate those kanji.)<\/p>\n What about the kanji recognition? Does the iPhone have that?<\/p>\n Yes, it does. Of a sort.<\/p>\n Add the Chinese Traditional Handwriting keyboard under Settings> General> Keyboards> International> Chinese (Traditional). Then when you want to look up a kanji by drawing it, use the globe button to select the handwriting pad. Select until you see a big rectangular pad, and draw the kanji you’re looking for.<\/p>\n Draw slowly, and use proper stroke order<\/strong>. Then select one of the four kanji that pop up on the side. Voila. Kanji recognition– just like a $350 \u00e9\u203a\u00bb\u00e5\u00ad\u0090\u00e8\u00be\u017e\u00e6\u203a\u00b8, only it fits in your pocket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So what’s a \u00e9\u203a\u00bb\u00e5\u00ad\u0090\u00e8\u00be\u017e\u00e6\u203a\u00b8 (denshi jisho)? Japanese for “electronic dictionary,”\u00c2\u00a0 it’s a gizmo that’s really handy if you’re learning Japanese. They’re usually full of all different kinds of dictionaries, and now they have things like a drawing pad where you can draw a kanji on the pad, and they will (usually) recognize the kanji you […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,120],"tags":[137,133,128,132,130,139,138,134,53,12,135,136,131,126],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japanese-language-study","category-technology","tag-app-store","tag-133","tag-electronic-dictionary","tag-132","tag-130","tag-139","tag-138","tag-genius","tag-iphone","tag-japanese","tag-wisdom","tag-136","tag-131","tag-126","category-4-id","category-120-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":363,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions\/363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}My iPhone Can Haz Denshi Jisho?<\/h3>\n
What About Drawing Kanji?<\/h3>\n