I’m here to announce the second big release of Jotoba. In case you don’t already know it, its a free multi language Japanese dictionary with a lot of features that can help you learn Japanese which makes word/sentence/kanji lookup even easier.
Those features include autocompletion when searching, pitch accent, sentence breakdown, inflection detection and more languages than only English.
After some downtime, we just published a big update containing a completely newly written frontend, better sentence splitting, more example sentences and other neat features.
That’s nice! I like the mixed hashtags and the auto-complete especially.
When I type 焼くor 焼ける, where do I see the transitive or intransitive form?
Maybe it’s just me, but I like the radicals one one page like on Jisho. I think it’s not optimal on Jisho, because there should be some space between the different numbers of strokes, but taking my mouse and clicking on the different tabs for numbers of strokes (especially when I am not sure sometimes whether it is like 4 or 5 strokes) is a bit suboptimal for my taste.
Oh, it’s a german page? That’s nice. I’m always skeptical about the quality when services say they’re multi-lingual. But if it’s a German page, I’ll trust that the German translations will be accurate.
I like that this site has pitch accent. I would like for jisho to have this feature as well.
The problem I tend to see with new sites is that they are cool, but tend to be abandoned after a while. Your site won’t be abandoned in a year or so, right?
How big is your audio coverage? Do you have audio for every word, or just more than jisho?
But if it’s a German page, I’ll trust that the German translations will be accurate
The translations for words come from JMdict, not from us though. Although we’re collaborating with native Japanese people to create more example sentences for German.
Your site won’t be abandoned in a year or so, right?
We’re already online for 2 years and have no intention to abandon it, (compared to jisho which is more or less abandoned). We have a lot of features we want to implement and are actively working on them
How big is your audio coverage? Do you have audio for every word, or just more than jisho?
We have 2 sources for audio files as you can see on the about page so the coverage should be way higher than jisho but we don’t have audio for every word.
Is there a way with jotoba to search all words with Kanji X that use reading Y?
Quite often I have a word at the tip of my tongue and I remember only the first kanji and its reading, so for example I would like to search for all words starting with 正 with reading しょう. Something like “正(しょう)*” but jisho only allow “正*” which return tons of words starting with せい.
You can search for 正 セイ (write the kanji + space + reading) which will automatically show all words with that kanji and せい as its reading. Jotoba will also give you suggestions for the reading as you type the kanji + space.
Alternatively you can go on the kanji page for 正 and click the on-reading セイ
Oooo, that was quick! Thanks, I think I’ll get a lot of use out of this
I think I’ve found another bug: when my cursor is in the search bar and I press cmd + A to select all, it types an ‘a’ instead. Same for cmd + X, cmd + V, etc. I wonder if that’s a macOS thing? Ctrl + A doesn’t type an ‘a’, but of course it won’t select any text.
This is so good
(and the mascot)
