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Random House Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price:
$12.95
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$10.36
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Manufacturer: Random House Reference
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 495.6321
EAN: 9780679780014
ISBN: 0679780017
Label: Random House Reference
Manufacturer: Random House Reference
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 688
Publication Date: 1997-04-07
Publisher: Random House Reference
Release Date: 1997-04-07
Studio: Random House Reference
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Editorial Reviews:
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Hundreds of new words are included, such as fakkusu (fax). Japanese terms are shown in roman letters and Japanese characters. The dictionary also includes a selection of Japanese cultural terms and concepts.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Frustrating to use, and yet still useful
Comment: I bought this book using a gift card at a local bookstore, while on a budget, so price was important to me. I looked at just about every japanese-english, english-japanese dictionary at the store and chose this one because I liked the structure of the entries (including the kanji and the English-Japanese side includes some common uses of the word), and it seemed to be pretty comprehensive.
Upon using it (for about 2 months now) I find it to be exceedingly frustrating if you want to use it to use the Japanese-English side. For example, I didn't know that 'hanabira' and looked it up in this dictionary, and assumed it wasn't there. It wasn't until I looked up 'petal' on the English side that it made sense. This happens with too many words for the japanese-english side to be useful to anyone that is serious about translating something.
Another complaint that I have, is that it 'translates' Bonito (a type of fish) from the English to the Japanese, crazy enough, it is also bonito. but it doesn't have the translation for ostrich, which I think is a more common animal to come up in conversation. I have encountered a few other instances like this where common words are absent but it is not nearly as common as the failings found in the Japanese-English portion of the book.
I am still glad that I purchased this book, because I got it primarily to work on my vocabulary, but I will probably buy another dictionary soon to make up for this one's failings.
Customer Rating:
Summary: BRIDGE BETWEEN TONGUES
Comment: THIS BOOK HAS BEEN VERY HELPFUL IN LEARNING THE JAPANESE LANGUEGE AND THE SYMBOLS IN THE WORDING.....THIS WILL MAKE IT VERY HELPFUL IS OUR UP AND COMING TRIP THERE...
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great reference -- but FALLS APART
Comment: After only a few years, the entire binding is coming apart -- it is almost split in two halves! One page started coming out the first couple months I had it. This is the reason for the lukewarm review.
As a reference, it is great, though not perfect. It has an excellent number of entries, and many entries in the English-Japanese section also give answers for related phrases and a mixture of usages. It also provides answers in various parts of speech, where applicable (adjective, adverb, verb, etc). For examples, it doesn't give entire sentences as in Kodansha's, rather an excerpt just long enough -- this is good because giving many entire sentences wastes space.
However, even though it was published in 1997, after the World Wide Web caught on fire, it doesn't show terms like link, click (verb), email, and webpage (so I didn't know how to properly write the adopted word "e-mail" phonetically in katakana until I got the Langenscheidt dictionary). It is very out-of-date with things like that. This is my other big gripe.
Sometimes words in the English-Japanese section are not in the Japanese-English section, but this doesn't happen too often. Sometimes I can't find a particular usage. Particles are defined in both sections. A minor gripe is the Japanese-English section is alphabetized per English rules, not Japanese rules, and also I would like to see the romaji gone completely from both sections (or at least an alternate version).
This book badly needs to be updated. Because of that and most especially the terrible quality of the binding, I would give it only 2 stars -- except it has more entries than Kodansha's Furigana Dictionary.
You just can't win!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fantastic for Entry-Level Students
Comment: This is a perfect dictionary for those who have no experience with the Japanese "alphabets;" it uses Romanized Japanese, and next to each word features the kanji/kana used in its purely Japanese counterpart. It has a pretty decent word-count and I still use it every now and then if a word proves elusive.
However, after I became acquainted with the kana, I found this text a bit annoying. It's easier to misspell the kana version of a word when you're using the Romanized Japanese. The kanji has no furigana; yes, some of them are self-explanatory, but certainly not all. And if you're just starting out with kanji, you're usually not sure which syllable goes where, so it's actually a little bit annoying until you gain more experience. Another negative note: this dictionary is easy to use as a crutch in order to avoid those scary kana -- and of course, learning the kana is the most useful thing you can do!
I think it's a pretty valuable resource, and I am certainly not sorry I bought it. Beginners should find it a breath of fresh air. However, an intermediate or higher level Japanese-language student will find this book more of a hindrance than a help. If you fall into that beginner category, and are a serious student of the language, I encourage you to take the dive into kana... it's way more useful in the long run!
Customer Rating:
Summary: My favorite Japanese / English Dictionary
Comment: This is by far my favorite dictionary for Japanese. And believe me, I went through several trying to find one I liked. The Romanji and Kanji definitions are exactly what I needed as a beginner and now, as an intermediate student, they still prove very useful. I use this everyday.
I would also recommend The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary as a nice compliment to this dictionary. If you're using Japanese in a business environment, I might suggest Cassell's English-Japanese Business Dictionary which may be hard to find but is a good permanent piece for your reference collection.
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