Random House Webster's Pocket Japanese Dictionary

by Seigo Nakao (Editor)

Random House Webster's Pocket Japanese Dictionary is primarily intended for two types of English-speaking users: those who have no knowledge of the language and those who have some knowledge of the language but still need a dictionary to explain grammar, words and phrases. It should prove an indispensable tool for anyone needing a bilingual dictionary that presents basic vocabulary of both languages in an accessible, easy to use format.

Includes:
Over 20,000 entries
Japanese-English, English-Japanese translations
Romanization and Japanese characters

Genres: Reference, Language, Nonfiction, Japanese Literature, Japan, Dictionaries, Academic

450 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to a growing interest in Japan over the past few years, and especially to a current obsession with the sport of sumo, I have another long term project in the works: learning Japanese!

This will of course be a slow process so I thought I would record my new Japanese reference library now since I very greatly doubt I will actually be finished with the books any time soon.

My rating for each book will be based on my first tentative peeks inside the covers. First impressions can be important! I will try to make individual comments about each book, even though I am still merely getting acquainted with them all, and then later on when I have progressed a bit, I can come back and add more comments.

Oct 18, 2024
Wonderful book. Easy to use, easy to hold, fascinating to browse through!

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah, my well-worn little dictionary. I can't say I hate this little guy because he served me for many years when there was no other... However, he let me down many times and it was very frustrating. Yes, he is only a little bitty pocket-sized thing, but I've come to realization that these little things are for one thing and one thing only-- travel. If you're not buying this to take to Japan with you to help when you're miming your wants and needs and instead you seriously want to learn the language, then go ahead and buy the big dictionary because that's what you'll need. This little guy did help me construct my note cards and learn many a noun, but in the end I wanted more than it could give me.

I have the 1996 binding of this, it seems. The cover is different, but the ISBN is the same. I can only hope they improved the binding because although I did use it a lot and my rabbit did eat part of the plastic dust jacket, I don't think it had a real excuse to let it's pages fall out on me. The last fourth of its pages are now crammed loosely in between the covers... it's a b*tch to keep them in order. lol

[Kevin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This dictionary is one of the absolute WORST Japanese-English English-Japanese dictionaries on the market.

Many words are misspelled, horribly misspelled, as the publisher (usually a very astute language publisher) routinely omits hirigana from the words or phrases. This winds up with Block Kanji contractions that could mislead you by making different word combinations.

While Japanese uses Kanji, Japanese is NOT Chinese -- and as such, the elimination of hirigana for the sake of space causes serious issues with certain contractions.

Not only that, but I found more than a few English Words that did NOT have the proper definitions!

I give this book 1 star, because it is pocket size and if you're lacking on space, you can easily tuck it in a backpack zipper pocket.

I advise all students to stay away frmo this book if at all possible.

[VampireNovelFan · Rating 3 out of 5]

My Japanese teacher recommended that I purchase this reference. I honestly didn't really use it as much because I found the website jisho.org and it turned out to be a lot more useful for me. I also didn't like how one word would be in the Japanese-English section, but then it wouldn't be in the English-Japanese section. It made me wonder what kind of protocol they use when compiling the book. This is definitely not the only reference you'll ever need...

*Review also posted to Amazon

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used this when first moving to Japan in 1998 and it was indispensable in making sense of everyday life until I got a basic foundation in the Japanese language. Every once in a long time I still use it now, almost ten years later, but it's mostly a good tool for people just starting out in Japanese. For more advanced dictionary needs I highly recommend Jim Breen's WWWJDIC on the web (www.wwwjdic.com).

[Rai Keyri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish the vocabularies that are in the Nihongo-English part are also in the English-Nihongo part. Most of the terms in the English-Nihongo part can't be found in the Nihongo-English.

I also wish they expand the verbs into their different tenses.

[Chance · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's important to own a few dictionaries, but I'd say I easily reference this one more than the others I own.

[Meltha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice, but the kanji gets a little blurry sometimes.

[Lea · Rating 3 out of 5]

heh heh....I love my dictionary! ^^

[Nicki Markus · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good resource for Japanese learners.

[Amy]

Random House Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary by Seigo Nakao (1997)

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this book so much I stole it from my high school (don't worry, I ended up paying!).

[Troy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty decent Japanese-English dictionary.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow this really helped me learn Japanese language!(Kanji included)

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Textbook, No Comment.

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Textbook, No Comment.