Product Review

If you want to enable pop-up definitions of words while reading Japanese books on the Kindle, this is what you need!

The Kindle comes with the ability to lookup words, while you read, in any of the pre-configured language dictionaries. By purchasing this dictionary you will now be able to look-up word definitions, on the fly, when reading Japanese books.

This dictionary has:

Over 170,000 entries
More than 28,000 example sentences
Hiragana readings for all entries
Allows searching by kanji or hiragana/katakana
Can be set as a default Japanese dictionary, enabling automatic text look-up from within a Kindle book, as you read
Entries with cross-references include links for easy navigation within the dictionary
Words with antonyms contain a link to the corresponding dictionary entry
Dictionary entries with alternative 'spellings' (more than one possible writing in kanji or kana) can be found using any of the alternatives spellings
Loan words display the source word and language (over 2300 entries)
Includes regional/dialect expressions
Antonyms contain links to each other for easy navigation/lookup

Notes on usage with Kindle Paperwhite

Searching for words while reading a Japanese book will work as-is if you set this dictionary to be the default dictionary to use for Japanese books. To set this dictionary as the default got to Settings > Device Options > Language and Dictionaries > Dictionaries > Japanese and select this dictionary.

If you wish to use the Paperwhite's search box function (the magnifying glass icon) to search the dictionary outside of reading a book you must set your Kindle Paperwhite's language to be Japanese (Settings > Device Options > Language and Dictionaries > Language > Japanese). The search box (magnifying glass) is limited - it can only search dictionaries that are in the same source language as the currently set language.

Acknowledgements

This dictionary uses the EDICT and KANJIDIC dictionary files. These files are the property of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, and are used in conformance with the Group's licence. http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/edict.html


Warning

This Japanese to English dictionary works on the Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle for iOS (iPad and iPhone). It will not work on the Kindle Fire nor on Kindle for Android. This due to a limitation Amazon has in the Kindle software for computers, android devices, Windows phones and Kindle Fire. Do not buy the dictionary if you intend to use it on these devices.