Monolingual dictionary corner

Japanese Language Resources
102

Could you try to “restore” your purchases in the app? Mine won’t update if I buy a new dictionary either until I do that, so this might be the same in your case :

First go to your collection page and click store in the upper right corner :

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The store will open up and on the left upper corner you’ll see “restore”

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A screen like this one should pop up, and you’ll see the ability to refresh your purchases should they still not be listed :

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Could you let me know if this works? Otherwise I’ll look into things if there might be some known cause for this!

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103

I have not tried that actually. Technology has spoiled me with auto-syncing. I will try this when I get home and let you know!

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104

I just realized I hadn’t posted an explanation on why the slang entry isn’t up yet (I thought I had, my apologies :bowing_man: ). This is taking a long time to compile as many slang terms are just other uses for a word, so this means I need to read through the entries, see if the relevant part is noted in the definition and the like. For some words this goes quickly, others means reading through page-long definitions to see if it’s mentioned, and while my reading speed is getting up there, it’s still a far cry from my native reading speed, so this takes a loooong time. No promises on when it will be up, I apologize :bowing_man:

Generally on first impression after just entering some entries from this wiktionary page, the sankoku seems to come out ahead as expected, but this is just a relatively quick look at things, not a thorough analysis :bowing_man:

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105

It worked :smile: Thanks for the help!

Screenshot 2023-03-03 at 7.05.24 AM
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106

Hi matskje,

First off all thank you for your continued support with this wonderfull topic.

I have read it with great pleasure!

Some additional information you might want to incorporate.

It might be posted already.

Some usefull links about the monokakido app.

If you could help me out on what they recommend:
In this ytvid that would be cool:

If I could I would make an monokakido master post with all the info I have found and combine that in one single write up.
Hopefully I can return the favor one day!

Thank you for reading and your time.

Another question would be:
Could you provide a quick synopsis of each dict monokakido entails and when you should buy one?

PS: I am totally new to learning Japanese!

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107

I am now trying to make a wiki that does what I asked of you. I could no sit still.

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108

Alright after working for some time here is the first release.

I have many more links and pages too add. Time to go to bed.

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109

Hi there, @danyramdas! You just caught me in a hectic week, so I will need to answer your questions in like a week or so, my apologies :bowing_man:

As for the wiki thing, I took a quick look and it looks great :smile_cat: I’m not too familiar with GitHub I must admit, but I saw in the readme you still need permission you said. If it helps you or other people feel free to use anything I published here, but I saw you also included some posts from others who post here, I can’t give you permission in their names, so please tag users you want to quote before including them :bowing_man:

Would you also mind adding a link to this thread in the readme? If people should have questions, I must admit I will probably not be keeping to close an eye on the GitHub (can they even ask questions on GitHub?), so I would prefer they know they could come here to ask questions if they were so inclined.

I can answer one of your questions though, namely when you should buy one. As you are still quite new to Japanese, honestly kotobank.jp should be able to cater to nearly all your needs, if you do decide to buy one, I’d suggest reading through this post : Monolingual dictionary corner - #86 by matskje It’s still accurate to the information I would currently give. Have fun learning, you got this! (And as always, feel free to post any questions here, my apologies that your other questions will take some time :bowing_man:

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110

I believe that the Monokakido Dictionaries app sale is live. Now to figure out what to buy…

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111

Thanks for the heads up, I had been waiting for that. Now the question is what to buy of course! :grin:

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112

I think I’ve decided that this year I will buy 明鏡国語辞典, as a good starter one, and 大辞泉 for its many entries and coverage of idioms.

Thanks to both @anon3564849 and @GrumpyPanda for your guidance. Without that I probably would have done the same thing that I did last year: not buy because I had no idea how to pick which one(s) to buy.

Right now, I even have an idea of which ones I might buy next year, which at this moment would be 三省堂国語辞典 (for the modern/slang approach) and 新明解 (due to GrumpyPanda’s recommendation).

I considered tightening my budget to perhaps get all four this year, but I haven’t used monolingual dictionaries much at all (only on a lark every so often), so it felt more prudent to get a couple so I can start easing in, and if I’m using them regularly by next year, then perhaps I can add some more to get more variety and such. ^^

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113

I got the 三省堂国語辞典 for its modern approach and idiom inclusion, but it stumbled on the very first word I needed to look up: 拓ける. (Built-in Daijirin didn’t pick it up either, but maybe it was a conjugation problem, as it’s pretty inflexible). In this form it isn’t in Jisho either, but 拓く is (not in 三省堂 though). So I guess I also need a dictionary with a significantly higher headword count. :sweat_smile:

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114

I bought this from Verasia and it arrived today. It has everything as shown on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/金田一-秀穂/dp/4053049369 including the little booklet explaining how to use it and the kanji posters. The materials are really high quality. I saw some Amazon reviews complaining about the thin pages, but for a dictionary I thought they were fine, definitely thicker than an adult dictionary. Maybe they’re just thin for 7 year olds?

I love it and I’m so glad I got it! It cracks me up that there is a box, a dictionary with a sturdy cover, and the book is slipped into a plastic cover. This dictionary is bulletproof :joy:

At the bottom of each page is a little fun fact, e.g., how a word is used or a riddle. Very fun! :slight_smile: In addition to all of the preamble material and kanji appendices, there are little snippets here and there with maps, images, or diagrams. It feels like a lot of accessible material that I’ll naturally delve into as I look up words. It’s great for someone at my level (more on that below) that I’m not going to outgrow anytime soon.

I can imagine someone who has front-loaded kanji learning might not be so enthusiastic as everything has furigana. This is also more for the “likes to read books in paper” crowd.

My level for reference - I’ve covered most of N5/N4 grammar, have done weekly speaking practice with a Japanese friend for 4 years. I do most of my reading on Satori, but I can read 2nd grade books, it’s just a lot more work (I get the grammar but I’m missing loads of vocab, 6-10 lookups per page). Shirokuma cafe is accessible (though the puns are obviously a challenge). I study grammar/vocab/kanji etc in parallel, and am at 270ish kanji. So for the way I’ve approached my studies, I need furigana resources and it doesn’t bother me at all. I get kanji reading practice in Satori where I gradually add known kanji so eventually I’ll get over this hump.

For absolute beginners, this dictionary would be too much of a slog. You need basic vocab and grammar to understand it. I’d say I’ve only recently reached the language proficiency to make this dictionary worth it, so perhaps this is easiest to recommend to someone who is just at the level where doing an ABBC or BBC read is challenging but alright. You can read a page and are pretty sure you got it right, but you check on the book club discussion and still learn a bit more, but you aren’t reliant on the club to get you through.

I can’t speak for how useful this dictionary would be at the intermediate book club level or N3+ level, or WK level 60 as I’m not there yet myself!

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115

Hey there, can anyone suggest me a good monolingual dictionary app that works good on iPhone and iPad?

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116

Monokakido has one called Dictionaries, blue icon with some upright white lines (representing books?), from that app you can buy several different monolingual dictionaries. See this post: Monolingual dictionary corner - #23 by matskje (Obs! The icon shown in the screenshoot is an old one, that isn’t how it looks for me.)

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See this link.

That should cover your questions.

If you need example look ups I can provide them for:

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 10th
NHK Japanese Pronunciation Dictionary
Meikyo Japanese Dictionary 3rd edition
Kenkyusha’s New Japanese-English

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118

Your timing is perfect. Monokakido has an ongoing sale right now.

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119

Yeah I saw it just now! Thanks everyone for the answer, exactly what I needed :grin:

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120

Isn’t there a built-in dictionary on iphone/ipad? I remember reading somewhere that the スーパー大辞林 (J-J) and the Genius (J-E) are included.

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What do you mean? I’m not aware of anything like that

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