JapanDict Languages

Multi-language support in JapanDict

It’s been a while since our last update, but we’ve been working hard with small improvements, bug-fixing and adding a new feature that we believe will make happy a lot of people whose native language is not English.

We’re very excited to introduce the addition of new languages for the search, translations, kanji and the example sentences.

New languages in translations

Besides English, translations will also be available in Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish for selected words. These translations are directly taken from the great JMDict Project (also where most of the information in JapanDict comes from) and include:

  • 336,000 entries in German from the WaDokuJT Japanese-German dictionary file compiled by Ulrich Apel.
  • 121,000 entries in Russian from the Warodai project.
  • 51,000 entries in Hungarian compiled by Istvan Varga using some advanced NLP techniques.
  • 41,000 entries in Spanish from a combination of two dictionaries: the HISPADIC Japanese-Spanish dictionary and the RUI Japanese-Spanish dictionary compiled by Francisco Barberan.
  • 29,000 entries in Dutch from the Waran Jiten project wiki at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.
  • 16,000 entries in Swedish using automation techniques to translate entries from English. The resulting translations have also been manually modified to improve quality.
  • 15,600 entries in French from two different sources: the Japanese-French dictionary file from the Dictionnaire français-japonais project by Jean-Marc Desperrier and the French translations in the JMdict Internationalization project.
  • 10,000 entries in Slovenian from the JASLOV dictionary file.

More information about these translations can be found in the WWWJDIC documentation.

Kanji meanings in more languages

The kanji dictionary also includes new languages coming from the KANJIDIC project. In this case, besides English, meanings in French, Spanish and Portuguese are also included.

Multiple languages in example sentences

Last but not least, the example sentences will also have translations in other languages. These are coming from the collaborative Tatoeba project and the following extra languages are now supported: Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish and Portuguese.

Because of the collaborative nature of the Tatoeba project, anyone can add new translations or improve the current ones. To encourage collaboration a direct link to the Tatoeba sentence will be provided for every example.

Search in different languages

Multi-language has also been added to the search. By default, all searches will be done in English and Japanese, but it’s now possible to select other languages by clicking in the “Advanced” link.

Please try these new features and let us know what you think!

New graphic vocabulary cards

Hi!

We’re very excited to announce a new collaboration between JapanDict and Espai Wabi-Sabi, a Japanese school located in Barcelona.

Thanks to them we included kawaii graphic vocabulary cards to some popular words. We believe they are going to be very useful to study vocabulary. All the images are clickable and they link to the word they are referring to. We will add more cards in the future.

Some nice examples:

All the current graphic cards can be seen here:

Espai Wabi-Sabi is a very nice Japanese school operating in Barcelona. They have different courses adapted to any need. You can follow then in Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Feel free to contact them for more information.

Japanese audio pronunciation

Audio pronunciation of Japanese words and sentences (new feature)

Do you know how to properly pronounce a Japanese word? To help you learn how to speak Japanese, we have implemented a new feature in JapanDict: audio pronunciation for all the words and sentences in the dictionary.

We already had in the past pronunciation for some popular words, but we have to admit it wasn’t really good. For example, it didn’t cover all the words in the dictionary and the voice was very “robotic“. Now, and thanks to our Japanese robot friend Mizuki (yes, she is a robot), every word and sentence in the dictionary will have the ability to be listened. Just click on the speaker () icon next to the word and it will be played in perfect Japanese. Although the voice is still computer generated, the quality of the speech is way better. It looks almost human!

Examples of some things that can be heard:

  • Every possible way to pronounce a word
  • Every possible declension of any verb or adjective
  • Every example sentence for any word

Try it now!

 

Some examples:

Happy birthday JapanDict!

Today is a very special day. Six years ago we launched for the first time the JapanDict Japanese dictionary. Happy birthday JapanDict! Since our first launch, a lot of things have changed. We’ve redesigned the dictionary a couple of times, adding more and more useful features over the time but keeping the simple, fast and easy to use interface that made us popular.

JapanDict 2010
JapanDict in 2010

 

To celebrate our birthday, we are adding more features to JapanDict. The most important one is something we wanted to have in the JapanDict Japanese dictionary for so long: the multi radical kanji search.

Multi radical kanji search

Imagine you see a kanji character on a newspaper, tv or any other place where you can’t just “copy-paste” it into the dictionary. What could you do? Now, with a little bit of analysis it’s possible to look for a specific kanji in JapanDict without knowing how to write it in your computer.

Using the multi radical kanji search is now possible to find any kanji by selecting the radicals (or components) forming it. With a little bit of practice it’s very easy to use it.

Other improvements

Although the multi radical kanji search is the biggest improvement, we’ve also worked on other important features and fixes to the dictionary. Some of them are:

  • New tabbed interface to select between different kind of searches
  • Improved quick search feature with word search and kanji search
  • Improved kanji search
  • Some design changes and improvements
  • Some bugs fixed

Go to JapanDict.com to see all the improvements and let us know what you think!

Japanese Telegram

Introducing Japanese Telegram Services

Since the beginning, one of our main objectives has always been to inspire passion in the Japanese language. In fact, even before the JapanDict Japanese dictionary was launched, we already had the @learnkanji Twitter account posting a new Japanese word every day. Around three years ago we also launched our Learn Japanese Facebook page with the same philosophy, posting every day a different Japanese word with the English translation. Both of them have been very successful and we believe they are a good resource for Japanese students and enthusiasts all around the world. Today, we are very proud to introduce two new services we’ve been recently working on: the Learn Japanese Telegram channel and the JapanDict Telegram bot.

Telegram is a free messaging app which is gaining more and more users over the time. Similar in some aspects to WhatsApp, it has more features and some of them are really interesting.

Learn Japanese Telegram Channel

A Telegram channel is a tool for broadcasting public messages to a large group of people. In fact, it’s not that different from a normal chat, but the messages go one way only.

This allows us to create a new way to send a Japanese word every day. The new Learn Japanese Telegram Channel isn’t that different from the @learnkanji Twitter account or the Learn Japanese Facebook page, but this time it is possible to receive the daily Japanese word directly in Telegram as a chat message. We believe it is a new and useful way to learn Japanese vocabulary with no effort.

JapanDict Telegram Bot

A bot in Telegram is like a normal account but operated by software. In fact it’s no different from a normal chat session, but instead of talking to a person, you talk to a machine.

The JapanDict Telegram bot allows you to make any query to your favourite Japanese dictionary using a normal chat. It is now possible to search for Japanese words talking directly to the dictionary in a chat session. This new way of using the dictionary is much faster: you don’t even need to open your web browser!

How do I use them?

It’s very easy. First of all, you need to install Telegram and create an account if you don’t have one already. It’s free and there is an app for Android, iOS and Windows Phone. It’s also possible to use it from your desktop computer as well.

Once you have Telegram installed, just click the following buttons to join us!

 Join the Telegram Channel

 Start the Telegram Bot

Give them a try and let us know what you think.

 

Header robot image designed by Freepik.