Offline EIJIRO iPod/iPhone app?

[fireemblem8088]

Hey all.

Firstly, if you know anything better for E -> J than Eijiro, I'm all ears.

Anyway, I've been using a program called "Eijiro touch", which basically just gives access to the Eijiro database. But with Apple's last OS update, it stopped working properly. I can't click on entries anymore. So I decided I'd check for an update. I found that not only is it not listed on iTunes anymore, it's developer has removed its page from their website ( http://allnightapps.wordpress.com/eijiro/ ). So it seems like I wasted my money, but anyway, do any of you have any other app suggestions?

[suaracahaya_71261]

My top three Japanese dictionary that sits in my iPhone home screen:

1. Kotoba -> free, extensive, great feature.

2. Japanese -> not free, though, but also has great feature. I use it every time esp. to track what words I encountered daily and group them into vocabulary lists for further references. My iPhone is basically my only dictionary right now.

3. WISDOM E/J -> better and thorough explanation than the former two, as it is "real" dictionary (i.o.w not just translating one word into another, but actually gives meaning, different usage explanation, etc), plus it's more applicable in daily situation; i.e. if you encounter a word that is listed in Japanese/Kotoba but not in WISDOM then the word is highly unused in daily life.
Cons: no furigana (small hiragana to help you read), so I always end up copying part of kanji/words I don't know how to read and inputting the word into either Japanese or Kotoba, to get the reading.

Hope this might helps

[suaracahaya_71261]

i.e. if you encounter a word that is listed in Japanese/Kotoba but not in WISDOM then the word is most likely unused in daily life.

Sorry for misused words ^^

[Javizy]

I use 'Japanese' as well. Mainly because of its vocabulary list feature, which I can e-mail to myself and turn into flashcards including a J-J definition. It means I remember every word I look up

iEijiro is another fairly cheap eijirou implementation, which I occasionally use to look up phrases.

As far as I'm aware, the best J-E/E-J is Kodansha's Green Goddess, which I believe is about £20.

I think you really need to use a J-J dictionary like 大辞林 if you want to understand the word fully. I don't know about Green Goddess or Wisdom, but JDIC and eijirou can be extremely unreliable.

[fireemblem8088]

What I don't understand about this 英辞郎 applications, is they seem to update in external apps. eg. i英辞郎 119 and 120 (containing versions 1.19 and 1.20 of the 英辞郎 database respectively, I believe) are listed separately. Does this mean you need to buy the application again to get the latest version? ptsEijiro and Handy英辞郎 seem to be the same (although Handy英辞郎 has you buying the latest database internally rather than in the App Store, not sure whether this is a good or bad thing).

Also, I noticed in one of the screen shots for (one of the versions of) iEijiro, there seems to be a furigana option that you can turn on or off. If you've been using Eijiro, can you tell me if this works well, and do all kanji have furigana?

By the way, while this topic wasn't really supposed to be about J -> E, would you be able to tell how "Japanese" is really that much better than the free "Kotoba!"? They're both based on the JMdict (or Edict or whatever), right? And "Kotoba!" now has word lists that can be saved too.

[Javizy]

iEijirou has hiragana in brackets after some, but not all, kanji words if you activate furigana. You're unlikely to find anything aimed at natives that has much better though. I don't know about the database, but I haven't had to pay to update it.

As for Japanese vs Kotoba, I've never used Kotoba so maybe suaracahaya can help you with that. The reason I bought my iPod was because I saw a video of Japanese, so I bought it straight away.

If you search 三省堂, you'll find a J-J dictionary that's a lot easier to approach than something like 大辞林 if you have trouble with kanji. You can check out the dictionary it uses online http://www.sanseido.net/ I think it has similar furigana options to iEijirou, but I can't remember very well.