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Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/5/14 14:42
What are the best Japanese dictionary apps on IOS and Android that support drawing the kanji (when you don't know how to spell it)?

How do dictionary apps compare to dedicated electronic dictionaries?
by dictionary (guest)  

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/5/14 22:02
I use Midori for the iPhone.... But in order for the written kanji to work, you pretty much have to know the stroke order....
by John B digs Japan rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/5/14 22:05
I forgot to add the link to its description website....

http://www.jitouch.com/midori/features/
by John B digs Japan rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/5/15 10:44
What are the best Japanese dictionary apps on IOS and Android that support drawing the kanji (when you don't know how to spell it)?

Kotoba for IOS is one of the best dictionary apps out there and its free. It doesn't have native kanji drawing, but if you enable chinese input in the keyboards setting you can write a good majority of the kanji that you may encounter. Otherwise you'll have to input them using the multi-radical input (basically breaking down the character into it constituent parts).

How do dictionary apps compare to dedicated electronic dictionaries?

Most dictionary apps draw from the jdict database for their translations. Its ok but not great, there are occasional errors and it can be confusing to understand. Then again they are free and its something you'll probably always have on you.

I find electronic dictionaries tend to show more useful results, but they can be difficult to use if you don't speak Japanese as they are primarily made for Japanese speakers studying English rather than the other way around.
by yllwsmrf rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/5/15 15:17
Thanks for the suggestions... Midori looks nice and Kotoba with Chinese keyboard is a good tip... Would you recommend Chinese - Simplified or Chinese - Traditional with Kotoba?

Any recommendations for Android? I prefer Android for flash support and would buy it in a second if Midori (or something similiar) was on Android.

Does Android also have Chinese / Japanese handwriting support?
by dictionary (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/5/15 15:18
I also really like Kotoba... is there anything as good on Android?
by dictionary (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/5/16 02:57
I use android.

For dictionaries, I use Aedict. I also have EBPocket (free version), on which I loaded the kenkyusha electronic dictionary.

For handwritten kanji input, I use Kanji Draw. I also have Kanji Recognizer.

For japanese keyboard input, I use Smart Keyboard Pro with english and japanese. I also have OpenWnn/Flick installed.
by seanpdx (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/5/17 10:09
Can anyone compare the best IOS dictionary that has Kanji drawing (or with Chinese keyboard) with the best Android dictionary that has Kanji drawing (or with Smart Keyboard)?

I'm looking for a single dictionary app for everything... don't want to switch between them.
by dictionary (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/5/18 02:13
If you want a comparison, you need to be more specific about what qualities you want compared.

For example, most freely available electronic dictionaries use Jim Breen's WWWJDIC/EDICT database, so much of the returned information will be the same. Visual formatting will be different, and user interface will be different, but much of that is so individual that nobody can tell you which one you yourself would prefer. =) Screenshots of each app may help in that regard.

Honestly, there are better considerations for whether to get an android or ios phone. If a japanese dictionary is your only consideration, skip the phone and get an electronic dictionary. ;)
by seanpdx rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/5/20 01:38
Personally I use kotoba! for the IOS no clue if an android equivalent exists but it supports kanji drawing if you enable the chinese keyboard. It also lets you see most kanji stroke order with an animated image.
by Jon the random one rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/5/21 07:55
I use Midori on iPhone, and I also have a Canon Wordtank electronic dictionary. Personally I think Midori is a better package than Kotoba in the iPhone, and very much worth its cost.
Midori's kanji entry is pretty good, it does require you to get the stroke order pretty accurate but this is a good idea anyway when learning the Kanji. It also has animations showing how to draw kanji, which I always like. You can also type words in using Romaji or, if you enable the Japanese keyboard in iOS, you can type them in in Japanese, with the kanji being suggested to you as you type.

I'm not sure about this but I was lead to believe that Android doesn't natively support a Japanese keyboard? As people above has suggested, you need to use the Chinese keyboard to make this work. Personally this would be a potential issue to me, especially as the iPhone has full native Japanese support, and it's very good. In fact it works significantly better than Japanese entry does on my Windows desktop. If this is the case (I'm not an Android user) then it would point me strongly to iPhone, but I yield to those who know more about the Android platform...

As for comparisons with my Wordtank dictionary, well as suggested above Midori doesn't quite have the depth of knowledge that my Wordtank does. It also doesn't allow you to highlight a word anywhere on screen and "jump" to a translation of that word, which my Wordtank does. But that said my Wordtank's screen is woeful in comparison to the iPhone or iPad, and it costs a whole load of money if you already own a smartphone. Overall I don't think I'd buy it again (I got it prior to owning a smartphone) unless I needed to translate very specific or technical words, which you just won't find on something like Midori.
by GMatt (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/5/22 03:07
"I'm not sure about this but I was lead to believe that Android doesn't natively support a Japanese keyboard?"

Huh? What do you mean by ''natively support''?
The japanese keyboards I've installed work just fine, including OpenWnn, which is about as ''japanese'' as you can get.
by seanpdx (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/5/22 12:03
Native support means it comes with it. I.e. you don't have to install third party software to make it work.
iOS has support for Japanese language entry without anything needing to be installed.
by GMatt (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/5/22 14:31
Native support means it comes with it. I.e. you don't have to install third party software to make it work.

With all the Android phones being sold in Japan, I seriously doubt that they don't come with a Japanese keyboard pre-installed.
by . (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/5/23 01:44
Who cares whether it's preinstalled?
Being preinstalled doesn't make something good.

The people who mentioned "chinese keyboard" were talking about ios/kotoba. Not android. I don't have any chinese keyboards on my android devices. Just japanese.


As for android phones sold in japan, those are customized, just like all the android phones sold in the US or europe or anywhere else. Different phone variants are sold by different carriers in different geographic regions.
by seanpdx (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/12/15 01:51
Midori is just so expensive, and it doesn't have more features than kotoba and alikes. ios and android have japanese keyboards where you can draw a kanji
I like the "japanease all in 1", you can look up kanjis by keys which is pretty easy. (I guess that if you know how to draw a kanji you know the keys)
by Tom (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/12/16 05:23
Please bear in mind that Kotoba has had a name change & is now called Imiwa? Same functionality just a different name.
by Stan Norrell rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/12/16 08:01
Kotoba / Imiwa for IOS is definitely the best dictionary app. I really hate IOS but man this is a good app. I don't think there's anything as good on android (currently using Aedict).
by ssss (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2012/12/18 09:46
For drawing a kanji when I don't know its pronounciation or meaning, I always use "Kanji Recognizer". The catch is that it's not very accurate, partly because it expects proper stroke order (at least a little). It works okay for not-too-complex kanji.

As a dictionary, I used to use Aedict until I found JED to be just a bit better. The underlaying dictionaries are essentially the same, it's just that JED works better for me.

Additionally I use Obenkyo for studying purposes (as the name implies) and to do some quick lookups now and then.

These are all for Android. I have no clue about iOS :)
by thany rate this post as useful

Re: Japanese dictionary (IOS / Android) 2013/1/28 12:50
Japanese for iOS
http://www.japaneseapp.com

The oldest and the best for iOS. Imiha? has only recently tried to catch up on features and pleasure of use.

Seriously, Japanese is totally iOS-style, no ugly mock-dictionary layouts like on Midori. Those drive me nuts.

Easy to organize entries into lists, built in SRS flashcards, JLPT lists, kanji animations, color label entries, add notes to the entries, everything for studying is there. My top pick.
by Lee (guest) rate this post as useful

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