Best online dictionary

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  Medyrius October 12, 2011 at 10:03am

  Ohayou Marcus-san,
  I don't know what the best dico out there is but I should advice this one : http://jisho.org/
  
  It's rather simple an easy to use both for kanji look up and vocabulary...
  
  Basically all the kanji look-up dicos are alike since the searching methods are the same.
  I'm assuming you already how to look up for a kanji but in case you don't I won't mind explaining a little...
  
  Ja gambatte ;)
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  MarcusAseth October 12, 2011 at 11:11am

  Thank you for the link Medyrius :D
  
  "I'm assuming you already how to look up for a kanji" <--- you mean that there is a specific method to find a certain kanji?? At the moment I don't know any method to do that,I can only Copy/Paste a kanji from a place to the online dictionary,but if the kanji is a draw,like in a manga,I don't know how to do :(
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  Medyrius October 13, 2011 at 3:06am

  Yea that's exactly where the looking up methods come in handy... Especially when you see a kanji for the first time and don't know any of its pronounciations.
  
  The methods I use are : Key/Radical look up and Stroke count.
  
  The principle for the Key/radical method is to look for the kanji through its main PARTS...
  The radical of a kanji is the main PART that was used to make the kanji... It can be either another kanji or just a common form that's used to make kanjis. There are 237 radicals if I'm not wrong...
  Keys are about the same thing as radicals but unlike radicals, they are numbered and have names like "Sword", "Seal", "Gem" etc. which is either the meaning of the kanji it's made of or just a concept name that fits the form of the key. There are 214 keys if I'm not mistaken and they're called Bushu...
  
  In both cases, most online dicos will list you all the different Keys/Radicals, often grouped by number of strokes, and all that's left for you to do is to check in the list the Parts that ressemble the ones your kanji is made of...
  On most cases you click on the Key/Radical and you'll have listed all the kanjis that have the Key/Radical in their parts... All that's left for you to do is to check each one of them until you eventually run into the kanji you were looking for...
  
  For example, the key of the kanji 学 (Gaku - study) is 子 (key number 39 - meaning kid).
  In this case the key 子 is yet another kanji which readings are : ko, SU, SHI and it means kid...
  
  Now in this other example, the key of the kanji 花 (Hana - flower) is http://nsa22.casimages.com/img/2011/10/12/111012080253697457.gif and it's not a kanji but just a figure used to make kanjis... It's the key number 140 meaning grass...
  
  That's about all but you may find some more explanation about the Keys and Radicals if it helps you understand more...
  
  For the stroke counting method, you don't need a lot of experience but it becomes rather painful when the kanji is very complicated or if it's written a way you can't clearly discern the strokes...
  
  
  Ja There you go partner ;)
  
  
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  MarcusAseth October 13, 2011 at 4:53am

  Thanks for the clear explanation :D It still doesn't look like an easy method like searching for a word in an english dictionary,but at least now with a bit of effort I have a chance to find the unkown kanjis :D
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  Gituska October 14, 2011 at 4:47am

  I use Rikaichan plug in for Firefox (Rikaikun for Chrome).
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  MarcusAseth October 14, 2011 at 7:08am

  :O great plug in,now I am using it too,thanks :D
  
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  kraemder October 24, 2011 at 2:29pm

  It sounds like you have to already be literate in Kanji to look up Kanji in a dictionary. I'm personally really bummed that Japanese doesn't have ebooks like western European languages do - like the kindle store at Amazon. edictionaries like Rikaichan are the only Japanese dictionaries I expect to use for years to come.
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  MarcusAseth December 10, 2011 at 5:35am

  who is this troll? don't contact him,he is a male & he gonna send you virus insides the pictures :|
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  juliatorne January 6, 2012 at 11:40pm

  Besides jisho.org mentioned above, I can also recommend http://tangorin.com/ I like it because it immediatly gives you some example sentences so you can see the word in context.
  If you make an account you can even make vocablists and export these to a text file you can import in your srs system.
  
  http://kanji.sljfaq.org/draw.html I don't use this alot but you can try and draw a kanji here to look it up.