Japanese-English Concise Dictionary

This book is ideal for learners of Japanese as a second language who want to communicate more effectively and also for learners of English who know Japanese.

This book lists 8,752 core Japanese words with English equivalents.  Main entries are in Kana (Japanese alphabet) alphabetically with Chinese characters, if any, followed by romanized Japanese pronunciation.  Next, in the same line, parts of speech label, and the entry’s English equivalents.


<Sample>

えんせい  遠征  ensei    [n.] expedition

えんぜつ  演説  enzetsu    [n.] speech

えんぜつしゃ  演説者  enzetsu sha    [n.] speaker

えんぜつする  演說する  enzetsu suru    [v.] address

えんそう  演奏  ensō    [n.] performance

えんそうかい  演奏会  ensō kai    [n.] recital


Japanese is written with three different scripts: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji (Chinese character).  Typical Japanese words are written with Hiragana and Chinese characters.  Chinese characters must be used since almost 90% of the language derives from Chinese characters.  Katakana is usually used to write foreign words other than Chinese.