If you are a host family with Japanese exchange students, an electronic dictionary (denshi-jisho), is a god-send when you need precise communication between Japanese and English. But to get the most out of one, you really should be familiar with the Japanese written forms of hiragana and katakana. If you can’t read ANY of the basic Japanese alphabetic characters, than this device will be less valuable to you. (But it makes a great learning tool to study written Japanese). However, with a little effort, one could probably learn both alphabetic written forms in several days. I don’t want to get into a course on Japanese writing, so see this Wikipedia article for a good description. But here are some basic examples of how the Japanese language appears in written form:

So denshi-jisho – Seems like just about everyone in Japan has one, and certainly every homestay student we’ve ever seen had one. Most models I’ve seen are really designed for native Japanese speakers learning English. As a host family working with mostly Japanese exchange students, what I needed was a dictionary meant for gaijin learning Japanese. What’s the difference?

Again, without getting into a white paper on Japanese writing systems, the Japanese written form that causes all non-Japanese people the most grief is called Kanji. Kanji is an ancient Chinese ‘logographic’ writing system that takes many years of study to master. A denchi-jisho designed for Japanese nationals, will often define kanji with more kanji, creating an endless loop of frustration for an English speaker.

Enter the Canon Wordtank. Yes, the same people that make great cameras, printers and copiers also make electronic dictionaries. The Wordtank line was created with gaijin in mind. The Wordtank uses less cryptic kanji in its definitions and more gaijin friendly hiragana and katakana. When kanji is used, it makes use of a simple “jump” command that allows the user to drill down quickly on the definition of an unknown kanji character to see the meaning, and more importantly it allows you to read it (in hiragana) so you can speak it. All other dictionaries also use this jump feature, but again most will define a kanji character with more kanji making it hard for a foreigner.

See for yourself how it works. I slapped together a quick illustrated tutorial of using the Canon Wordtank IDF-3000.

I bought my Wordtank IDF-3000 many years ago in Japan, and it’s still going strong after all these years. As you can see from this photo, my Wordtank is well worn.

Today there are several newer, sleeker Wordtank models so you’ll have to do your research on the finer capabilities of each. Looking for a place to buy a Wordtank? Check out two websites: www.worldlanguage.com they have some of the newer Wordtanks for sale as well other cool language and learning products. Also, www.jbox.com carries the Wordtank as well as other cool, unusual and hard-to-find Japanese products.

Click here to go on to my overview of using the Wordtank.

Posted by Netsato on Thursday, March 2nd, 2006 at 2:38 am.