Alright, I’m writing this post because I am a *huge* fan of jisho.org – since I started second year at university I’ve used it countless times. Today rather than run through it’s features and so on, I’m going to explain what I’ve found it most useful for, and hope you guys might get some of the same results out of it that I did. If you know of any other funky things it can do, feel free to comment them and I’ll try them out!
Some really quick facts: jisho.org is free. There’s a forum if you get stuck. It’s updated pretty frequently and has more example sentences than you can even begin to imagine. Every single Jouyou Kanji, plus a whole load more, are on it. It’s also green.
1. A Really Handy Dictionary
Ok, so this is a really obvious one, but jisho’s primary function is an incredibly thorough J>E and E>J dictionary. Notice the ‘common words only:’ tick box (hidden in the image above) which is incredibly useful – it’s great knowing if the word you found is actually still in use. jisho.org dictionary.
2. Working Out A Kanji From Sight
An amazing feature I only discovered a little while ago. Basically, if you have a kanji that you can’t copy paste into a dictionary (say you’re translating from paper), you head over to the Kanji by radical search, click the ones that appear in your rogue kanji, and all the kanji that contain those radicals will appear at the bottom. It’s amazingly quick, and make my translation speed turn over much higher. jisho.org kanji radical lookup.
3. Working Out Word / Idiom Usage
OK, you’ve got your word or kanji from the dictionary and you’re trying trying to work out how it’s used. I’ve found one great way is to check out the example sentences on jisho. If you read through a handful you can usually work out exactly how the word is used. However this should not be taken as gospel. There are mistakes in these sentences occasionally, so it is always worth checking it with someone. The more sentences you use the less chance you have of messing up, though. jisho.org example sentences.
4. Super In-Depth Kanji Information
I have to admit I don’t use this feature very much, but people keep telling me to, so I thought I should give it a spin. Firstly, if you are learning Kanji using any of the Dictionaries listed (including Classic Nelson, Daikanwa Jiten, Kanji And Kana, Kodansha Compact or Remembering The Kanji), this tool is invaluable as it gives you references for them. It also gives you every stand alone meaning of the kanji, although obviously that isn’t immediately usable knowledge, it’s good for working out the meanings of Kanji compounds. Definitely worth checking out if you want to know an awful lot about a particular character in a short space of time. jisho.org kanji details.
I hope this has been useful. jisho.org has for me become an almost essential tool – along with my computer Japanese dictionary JEDict (Mac) and my flashcard program Anki (Windows, Mac, Linux, iPod, Loads of other things) I would consider it one of the best tools for learning Japanese. I hope you guys find it useful too.
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useful! Thanks for the info! I used ‘Jim Breen’ but jishi is better i think
Hey Mike, nice breakdown of the jisho.org’s functions. I’ve been revisiting a lot of language resources recently and this is one that was recommended to me. Out of about 5 that commonly get blogged about this one probably has the most going for it. I’m going to have spend a lot more time on it think.
Gaspr, it’s interesting to note that jisho.org uses Jim Breen’s under the hood.
Thanks Mike for posting about it.
Absolutely useful ! Thanks so much.
I visited jisho already and I understood it was good, but what you explained in detail is revealing.
Thanks for the info. It seems to combine a lot of features of other, individual sites into one large app. It will definitely come in handy.
Gaspr: As Brett mentioned, jisho.org uses Jim Breen’s dictionary.
Brett Fyfield: Thanks :) It sounds like we found it the same way – I read a post on a few online Japanese dictionaries and jisho.org was the best in my experience.
masayume: Glad it was of use :)
Mathew: no problem :)
Great article.I tend to use Kiten (a native dict for Linux) and rikaichan more, but this also looks really great. You are right though that it is a very well layed out and easy to use dictionary.
I love jisho.org, but for words in context thing, I prefer http://www.alc.co.jp/. SpaceALC uses the non-free EIJIRO dictionary, which has much more coverage than the free one jisho.org uses.
thanks so much!^^