On developing a new online Japanese dictionary

Ive recently been developing a new online Japanese dictionary for Japanese learners at http:/ /www.romajidesu.com. Why bother creating a new dictionary while there are already good one out there, you may ask. This article aims at trying to answer that question.

What does RomajiDesu mean?

Its a pun name, RomajiDesu () means These are romaji (roman characters) in Japanese. It just reflect the fact that the website domain name are written in Roman characters, not Hiragana, Katakana or Kanji which are three official writing systems used in Japanese. So its like a simplest sentence in Japanese and RomajiDesu aims at provide Japanese learners some easy to use methods to assist their learning.

How did it begin?

It began since about six months ago when I started a Japanese course. At first, its very difficult for me to remember all those Hiragana and Katakana alphabet, so I created a tool to help me convert romaji to either one of those. (Fig. 1) The website is very simple at first, but it got bigger and bigger as I got more knowledge in Japanese. At the moments, RomajiDesu (version 2.0) contains approximately 165000 word definitions, 150000 example sentences and 13000 Kanji in its database.

How is it different to other dictionaries out there?

While it would be hard to say RomajiDesu is a better one, but it certainly has some different features. Beside those early developed Romaji to Hiragana/Katakana converters, the main functionalities of RomajiDesu include a normal Japanese dictionary and a Kanji dictionary. The main feature of the Japanese dictionary is a simple way to look up a Japanese words. There is only one input where you can type in whatever you think of. For example you can type in an English word; or a Japanese words in Hiragana, Katakana or Kanji; or in Romaji. The dictionary will find the appropriate words and example sentences that contains the searched words (Fig. 2). Since the number of these related words and sentences may be too much to display all at one, you can load them one page at a time using AJAX, that mean you dont have to reload the whole page and that would save the searching time. The result data of a searched word is also cached and that is why the speed of the page is very fast. I paid a lot of time polishing the Kanji section. Share the similarity to the normal dictionary, it feature an advanced search form where you can search for a lot of information without having

to choose from different places. For example you can type in a English, or a Kanji itself, or you can type in hiragana or katakana to look for Kanji that has matched kun- and on-reading respectively. Further, you can browse for specific set of Kanji, for example you can type in strokes:5 to get the list of Kanji that have 5 strokes, grade:3 to find the list joujou Kanji which are learnt at grade 3 of Japanese school, or jlpt:2 for the list of Kanji needed for kyu-2 of the original Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). There is also a multi-radical Kanji lookup form for that enable you to choose different radicals and combine them together to get the Kanji you need (Fig 3.). If the number of matched Kanji is large, the result page will show as a list of tiled For the list of tiled Kanji (Fig. 4). For users to get the Kanji they need, each Kanji in the list contains a sample English sense of meaning (notice that one Kanji may has many senses). If the number of matched Kanji is small, the result page will show a list of details Kanji information (Fig. 5). For detailed display, a Kanji is packed with many useful information: on- and kun-reading, English senses, some example Japanese words, main radical and components, and a nicely drawn Kanji stroke order diagram in free hand style if possible. There are approximately 6400 such diagrams which is of course more than enough to cover all the popular Kanji. In short, RomajiDesu is developed by and for Japanese learners like myself and it aims at developing simple but powerful methods for looking up Japanese words, phrases and Kanji. Therere some other information of which you can see in some other online dictionaries, such as dictionary indices, glossaries in other languages. I decided not to include those information because to my opinion, most Japanese learners dont need those and it will decrease to focus on the essential one.

What is the plan for future?

If you have been with RomajiDesu from the beginning, you should have noticed that it has grown through several major updates. After each stage, previous functionality is polished and new features are added. I usually think of what do I actually need before I start coding a new features. Now, since remembering Kanji is still a difficult task for me, the next thing I want to do is adding some features that enable people to study kanji while having some fun. And since sometimes I access the website via my phone, a mobile version of RomajiDesu will be developed as well. And last but not least, I would be very appreciate if you let me know what you need in the new version and I will try to implement it. Figures:

Figure 1. The ealiest verion (alpha) of RomajiDesu is only a Romaji to Hiragana converter

Figure 2. A dictionary search result for keyword I love you.

Figure 3. An example of multiple-radical Kanji lookup.

Figure 4. A Kanji search result for keyword love. The brief listing is automatically selected.

Figure 5. A Kanji search result for keyword .