Kanji dictionaries

Barrakketh

I'm looking for some recommendations for a Kanji dictionary that is suitable for someone just beginning to learn Japanese. Currently I'm looking at Kodansha's Furigana Japanese Dictionary (J-E and E-J), but would like some feedback on that dictionary and/or recommendations about others.

A second question that is unrelated to the topic but

a) not worth starting a thread for, and

b) would be best answered by posters "qualified" to answer my first question

is if it would be very beneficial to study any applied linguistics topics prior to studying Japanese, or whether it would be more useful after what would be covered in an introductory textbook like An Introduction to Modern Japanese.

Thanks.

Air

the furigana dictionary is not a kanji dictionary
you look up japanese words by pronounciation

thats why kodansha sells a separate 'kanji learners' dictionary

ive got them both but have never really had any use for them since in class we dont stray much from the textbook, which has a decent vocab list
id use them if i was trying to really read or write something outside of class, which hasnt happened much cos of laziness

when i have theyve seemed alright, never had any problems using them. the furigana dictionary is clear and easy to read, and gives examples sentences for many of the words, especially when there are multiple definitions, and a bit of other information like briefly going over verb conjugation and such. which is about as much as you could hope for from a bilingual dictionary. but you might wanna look around and see if you prefer a different one or think something much cheaper would be fine

kanji dictionaries can be a bit tricky. theres a few different ways to look up kanji and you gotta find one that seems to work for you. usually its to do with the stroke order and recognising parts of the kanji

id probably hold off on the dictionaries for a little while though, if you havent actually started yet. just so you can learn some of the basics of the language first, so when you do try to look something up you can tell where one word ends and another begins. in big sentences everything kinda blends together and can be a pain

as for linguistics, i dont even know what that is. but i know that my uni only offers japanese sociolinguistics to people who have already studied japanese for at least 2 years

Barrakketh

Air wrote: »

the furigana dictionary is not a kanji dictionary
you look up japanese words by pronounciation

thats why kodansha sells a separate 'kanji learners' dictionary

I can't seem to find the links I had originally read, but the other sources I've read about the book had led me to believe that the furigana dictionary also used SKIP like the kanji learners dictionary. I take it that I was incorrect in that belief? Kodansha publishes several dictionaries that use the system, so if that isn't the case this seems to be the odd one out.

Air

unless there is some big one that incorporates everything, i dont think so
and i dont recall seeing SKIP in their other dictionaries
but the kanji dictionary i got is built around the SKIP system, maybe there is another dictionary that just has it as a reference at the back of a different dictionary

but i dont think i saw any books that combined kanji and furigana when i was at the store
each kanji has a few different meanings and is used in a bunch of different words, so trying to add a kanji index to a normal dicitonary will have to reference each kanji to at least a few words randomly located throughout the dictionary and would be pretty confusing to read

just looking at the Kanji Learners Dictionary shows each kanji has its own meanings, pronounciations, and the many combinations of words it can be found in
which wouldnt integrate well into the furigana dictionary

NightDragon

Not sure if this would help in the meantime, but I learned a fair number of characters from this website: http://www.kanjisite.com/

Nibble

Even if the Kodansha furigana dictionary allows you to look words up with SKIP (which I doubt), the Kanji Learners' Dictionary is a very different type of book, and quite useful for the intermediate to advanced learner. I wouldn't recommend it for beginners, though. If what you want to do is look up whole words by identifying kanji, your best option would be to buy an electronic dictionary with handwriting input or get a cheap PDA and set it up with free software as outlined here.

Barrakketh

Nibble wrote: »

get a cheap PDA and set it up with free software as outlined here.

I've been wondering where that link went. I had a thread bookmarked from before the time that the PA forums started having hardware problems and excessive downtime, but sadly the thread was lost

Thanks!