Online Japanese Dictionaries and Glossaries

This page is a collection of annotated links to online Japanese dictionaries. Please send me (Jim Breen) details of any other dictionaries to include, or of corrections to the information here.

Servers using EDICT, JMdict, etc.

These servers use files from the EDICT/JMdict, KANJIDIC, etc. projects, plus others in the same format.

• WWWJDIC. Has many dictionary files: General (EDICT), Kanji, General (EDICT), Kanji, Computing/Telecoms, Place/Person names, Life Sciences, Law, Finance/Marketing, Miscellaneous, Engineering/Science, Buddhism, German, Russian, French, Spanish, Hungarian, plus text glossing, verb tables, kanji stroke-order diagrams, example sentences, etc. etc. Total lexicon size about 800,000 entries. Several mirror servers around the world. JE EJ (German, Spanish, French, Hungarian, Swedish and some Russian too.)
• Jeffrey's Japanese<->English Dictionary Server. Developed by Jeffrey Friedl, now maintained by William Maton. Has most of the files used by WWWJDIC and has other options such as romanized output and a lookup technique that allows for common misspellings. The master site is now in Canada, and there are mirrors in the USA and Sweden. JE EJ
• DIKU A very simple dictionary server written by a former JEDI user. Has romaji output as well as kana. JE EJ
• Grzegorz Bober's Tangorin dictionary server. Uses JMdict, ENAMDICT, etc. as well as the Tanaka Corpus. Allows for building word-lists, search history, etc. JE EJ
• Denshi Jisho is an attractive site with many features. The Ajax-style multi-radical lookup is impressive. JE EJ
• Sakura dict. A new (late 2013) dictionary and learning tool. Attractive interface. JE EJ
• Pacific Software Publishing's Bi-Directional English Japanese Dictionary (uses a very old copy of EDICT.) JE EJ
• FOKS (Forgiving Online Kanji Search) is an online dictionary (EDICT, etc.) which compensates for spelling errors, incorrect guesses of a kanji's reading, etc. Well worth exploring. JE EJ
• the Tokyoahead site has a form of kanji dictionary which allows kanji selection and generates a wordlist. JE
• the FreeDict EJ/JE dictionary. (I do not like this one. It uses an old romanized version of EDICT, and presents a small number of entries in a misleading order.) JE EJ
• AnimeLab. Uses the EDICT, ENAMDICT, etc. files, and has some interesting search options. JE EJ
• NihongoResources. Uses EDICT and KANJIDIC. Has some useful wildcard search facilities. JE EJ
• The Japanese dictionary at Online-Dictionary.biz covers 7 modern languages including as Japanese. Uses a Javascript romaji-kana system (no native Japanese input yet), and also uses the WaDokuJT file to produce German glosses. Has the same examples as WWWJDIC. JE EJ
• Spencer's EDICT and KANJIDIC server. JE EJ
• The JapanOD server, which has a very novel interface. Has mobile phone options, etc. JE EJ
• NihongoDict, which does a quite basic service using romaji. JE EJ

Thesaurus

• Thesaurus. Very extensive coverage, including synonyms, related words, etc. JJ

General Dictionaries (Japanese-English)

• GOO. One of the best servers available is that at the Goo site (Goo is an information project sponsored by NTT in Japan.) This server has four Sanseido dictionaries available: the big Daijirin kokugo (i.e. Japanese-Japanese) dictionary, the Exceed EJ and JE dictionaries, and the Daily Shingo (new word) dictionary. The server has all the instructions, etc. in Japanese. A very useful resource indeed. JJ JE EJ
• Asahi. Almost identical service to the Goo server (above). (The server appears to be on a Sanseido system.) JJ JE EJ
• Yahoo. Another good collection of online dictionaries (uses Shogakkan). JJ JE EJ
• LiveDoor. A similar set of Shogakkan dictionaries. JJ JE EJ
• Excite. Another service using commercial dictionaries. This also uses the Daijirin kokugo, and the Kenkyusha Chuujiten JE and EJ. JJ JE EJ
• Weblio. Also uses a mix of dictionaries, including the Kenkyusha Chuujiten. Has extensive sets of categorized words. JE EJ
• Eijiro. (aka ALC) Another useful resource with a vast list of Japanese words and phrases with their English translations. It can also be bought as a book and CDROM. (Some care should be taken with this resource, as the English translations can be quite quirky, and at times plain wrong.) JE EJ
• nciku. An online learning site that includes Sanseido JE/EJ dictionaries with EDICT as a backup. JE EJ
• Glova. A very large word collection, from a translation company. JE EJ
• A newish general dictionary. Rather a simple structure, and still only about 25,000 entries. JE EJ
• Babylon. Among its many dictionaries, Babylon has an online E-J lookup service and a rather crude index system for J-E. Dictionary size is reasonable. EJ
• the massive GigaDict collection. It has scores of dictionaries in all directions. Many are simplistic, but the site is worth exploring. JE EJ, etc. etc.
• jeKai Search. The jeKai project (see below) has a good search engine, but since it has limited material available, it may be better to use their index. JE
• bab.la. An online language portal which includes a user-generated English-Japanese/Japanese-English dictionary. EJ JE
• Nagoya University. The university's TRIAD (Translated Information Archiving Database) is a collection of translated documents indexed through a 5,000 term Japanese-English dictionary. Useful for finding words used in context. JE EJ
• Unicode Characters. A fairly simple lookup of the big Unihan text file via the meaning of the kanji/hanzi or the Chinese, Japanese or Korean readings.

General Dictionaries (Japanese-Other Language)

• Japanese-German Ulrich Apel's extensive WaDakuJT dictionary. Can be searched using German words, but is best with Japanese keywords. JG GJ
• Japanese-French Server using the Dictionnaire francais-japonais file (17,000 entries.) JF FJ
• Japanese-Spanish dictionary of the Hispadic project (31,000 entries) JS SJ
• Spanish Server using Francisco Barberan's "RUI" dictionary file. JS SJ
• Japanese-Spanish dictionary; provided by the Goihata translation company. JS
• Japanese-Basque dictionary, also from Goihata. JB

Subject-specific Dictionaries

• The RNN (Rapid News Network) page has a set of JE/EJ wordlists that are searchable. Topics covered include: business/economics, international affairs politics, technology, culture and sport and society.
• Automotive. A good searchable glossary. (Sorry. This seems to have been shut down while the owners try to sell a hard copy version.) JE EJ
• Automotive. Seems a comprehensive glossary. Explanations in Japanese only. JJ
• Biomedical. (Also here and here). Online versions of the major Life Science Dictionary Project at the University of Kyoto. (The dictionary is also available on the WWWJDIC and Jeffrey's server.) JE EJ
• Botanical. Extensive collection of articles (with images) of plants. JJ
• Business. Based on Kiyoto Hinata's dictionary of business terms (published by ALC). JE EJ
• Communications/Networking. Based on Nikkei's 1999 Handbook. (Coverage is a bit limited, and the two-stage return of results is clumsy.) JJ
• Computing/Telecomms. Very comprehensive wordlist, both searchable and also indexed by category, letter and kana. Brief English only. JJ JE EJ
• Computing. Both searchable and indexed. Seems to be mainly explanations of terms from Macintosh and Windows glossary files. JJ
• Chemicals. A combination of lookup and lists indexed on first letter/kana. A very comprehensive collection, mainly useful for transliteration of names between Japanese and English. JJ JE EJ
• Chemicals. Good chemical glossary. Short glosses in Japanese with occasional English.
• Chemicals. An online collection of chemical name lists. JJ JE
• Chemical names. The National Institute of Health Sciences (NIHS), Japan operates this useful server and list of chemical names, with associated information. JE EJ
• Chemistry. This page converts chemical names into Japanese. (It is not actually a server, as the conversion is done by a large Javascript program loaded down into the browser.) EJ
• Chemical trivial names. Provides links to explanatory texts. There is also a non-searchable page. JJ
• Clothing (esp. retail) One-word translations of many terms, and links to longer Japanese explanatations JE JJ
• Colloquialisms An excellent dictionary of Japanese colloquial language. JJ
• Colors (colours) in Japanese Also similar information here and here. Not actually glossaries - more colour-charts. English translations a bit spotty. JE JJ
• Construction (esp. home building) Very detailed list of terms with good Japanese descriptions JJ
• Economics/Politics. The RNN (Rapid News Network) page has a small searchable dictionary of business/economics/politics/government terms. (All the words are in EDICT). JE EJ
• Gardens. Online dictionary based on the Bilingual [Japanese & English] Dictionary of Japanese Garden Terms, published in 2001. Japanese in kanji and romaji. JE EJ
• Medical. The Japanese-English Dictionary Online: Medicine has both a searchable dictionary, and links to a large number of glossaries and other information pages. JE EJ
• Medical. The Japanese Association for Acute Medicine dictionary (EJ also) Good set of entries. No readings. JE EJ
• Medical. Another medical glossary, with kana and alphabetic indices. No readings.
• Medical. A Medical English Dictionary Service. Good coverage. No kana with the Japanese. JE EJ
• Military. Large searchable collection. No readings. Mirror site here. JJ
• Names (family) Good collection. JJ
• Names (family) Another very good collection. JJ
• Names (family) And yet another. JJ
• Names (given) Large searchable collection. Useful for finding readings. JJ
• Office Jargon. Interesting server based on the book "Otonago no Nazu". There is also a word-list. JJ
• Petroleum & Natural Gas. A huge glossary, indexed on Japanese and English words, with explanations in Japanese. JE EJ JJ
• Place names. The Yuujirou server using the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) database of locations and postal codes. You can paste in a complete address, and it will be parsed and the correct readings of the names returned. (The same database is the source of the j_places file used by WWWJDIC.) JJ
• Science/Technology This server at NII has a large number of scientific, etc. terms, which can be searched together or by category. JE EJ

These servers are at for-subscription sites.

• Sanseido. Over a dozen monolingual and bilingual dictionaries. Interface in Japanese. (The "Daily Concise" JE/EJ/Kokugo are free; the rest are by subscription). JJ JE EJ
• JapanKnowledge. A large selection of reference works, including dictionaries, a Japanese encyclopedia, and the English-language Encyclopedia of Japan. Interface in Japanese. JJ JE EJ
• Kenkyusha. Several large Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionaries, including the new 5th edition of the Green Goddess. Interface in Japanese. Approx. Y500/mo for individuals. JJ JE EJ
• eHonyaku. Formerly Nova, this site allows searches on a range of subject specific glossary files. A very useful resource which used to be free. JE EJ

Dictionary Files

These are WWW-based word-lists without any specific server lookup capabilities, although a number have indices using the first letter or kana.

General

• jeKai. A short, but valuable resource is the jeKai project, started by Tom Gally. This consists of extended information and examples of usage of a growing number of words and phrases. (jeKai entries can be reached from the matching WWWJDIC entries.) JE
• The Honyaku page has some useful glossaries, including:
  • Loanwords Karen Sandness's very useful Head Scratcher's Glossary of gairaigo. JE
  • Financial. JE
  • Japanese car names. JE
  • Marketing JE
  • Japanese government agencies JE
  Alert! The Honyaku site is being rebuilt, and not all the links above are currently working.
  
• the Zakkaya site has a large collection of subject-specific glossaries, covering many areas of business and technology.
• Norio Ota's list of Idiomatic Expressions is very useful.

Subject-specific

• Accounting/Finance/Politics/Business/etc. (From Mizuho Translators' Tools.) An excellent set of glossaries. JE EJ
• Acronyms. A useful set of expansions of (mostly English) acronyms, with their Japanese translations. EJ
• Animals. Large list of animal names (in katakana), linking to description, photograph, etc. JJ
• Architecture, arts, etc. Superb collection of about 8,000 entries related to traditional Japanese architecture and gardens, painting, sculpture and art-historical iconography from approximately the 1st century A.D. to the end of the Edo period. Indexed on the romaji forms and searchable with romaji and kanji keys. JE
• Automotive. A good wordlist, but limited to Japanese explanations of terms. JJ
• Automotive. A slightly shorter list from Isuzu. A short English gloss and a longer Japanese explanation. JJ JE
• Automotive. Similar to the Isuzu site. JJ JE
• Automotive. Another similar site. Good coverage, but not easy to read. Has a crude index on the first letter of the English description. JJ JE
• Automotive. Good set of word-lists. JE
• (Japanese) Buddhist Statuary. This is labelled a "Photo Dictionary", but has a lot of useful terminology as well. JE
• Biology. A large glossary, with extended explanations (in Japanese). Has readings for most terms. JJ
• Biology. Another good collection of approx 6,500 terms. Has a brief English description and a longet Japanese one. JJ JE
• Bureacracy. A short list of buzz-words from Kasumigaseki, with Japanese explanations. JJ
• Business/Finance. This comprehensive list from Nomura Securities has lists of English and Japanese (kanji and katakana) headwords, and links to a brief gloss and a full Japanese explanation. JJ JE EJ
• Business/Finance. And another, from Nomura Trust. A bit shorter than the one above and mostly only in Japanese. JJ
• Confectionary Interesting and useful short glossary. Covers ingredients and preparation techniques. JJ
• Contemporary life/Slang. Tada Taku's glossary of useful words, particularly in popular culture. Romaji only. JE
• Computing. A good set of short explanations in Japanese of computing terms, linked from Japanese and English head-words. JJ JE EJ
• Computing. Another good short set of about 1500 words. It clicks through to longer Japanese explanations of each term. JJ JE EJ
• Computing/IT. A big wordlist with an extensive explanation of each term (in Japanese). A short translation in English. JJ JE
• Design and Manufacturing. The documentation group at NEC has kindly provided this glossary (an EJ indexed version is forshadowed.) JE
• Drugs/Pharamaceuticals. Great resource for translating prescription and brand-name drugs. EJ JE
• Electronics An 1150-term list with links to expanded Japanese explanations. (Searchable version) JJ JE
• Electronics A (30,000 entry) word list covering electronics and related areas. EJ
• Electronics A large list from JEITA/JEIDA, also with links to expanded Japanese explanations. JJ JE
• Electronics/Control. A very extensive collection (about 18,000 entries) JJ JE
• Electrical Power Good collection with readings, brief English, and full Japanese explanations JE
• Engineering. NEC's engineering design and manufacturing glossary. Large number of words/phrases. JE EJ
• Environment. A reasonable set of words relating to environmental issues, with an explanation of each (in Japanese). JE EJ
• Etymology. A small collection of indexed articles on word origins. JJ
• Fashion Interesting list of fashion terms. Full Japanese descriptions. JJ JE
• Financial and Securities Markets. An excellent glossary, compiled by Katsuhiko Yamada. EJ
• Finance, Securities and Options Not large, but has some unusual terms. JJ EJ
• Finance (FX and CFD) Quite a good collection. Short English glosses and Japanese explanations. JJ
• Food/Sushi. Short list of food and sushi terms. Romaji. JE
• Gairaigo. EDOBEE - a good collection of gairaigo, with useful explanations of the more obscure waseieigo. JE
• GameJiten. Has information about computer games including characters, weapons, etc. etc JJ
• Geography/History/Politics/etc. Almost a small encyclopedia, with small articles and links on many topics. JE
• Idiomatic expressions/Sayings Interesting collections of idiomatic expressions, aphorisms, etc. in Japanese, English and Russian. Indices in all 3 languages. JER
• Knitting Short collection of knitting terms. JE EJ
• Kotowaza. Not a word list, but a selection of Japanese proverbs.
• Latin Tags. Great list of Latin tags. Now you can say "Cogito, ergo sum" in Japanese. LEJ
• (American) Law. Online version of Junsuke Otsuka's "American Law Dictionary". EJ
• Medical Acronyms. A longish list of English medical acronyms, with the English expansions and Japanese equivalents. EJ
• Medical. A long medical word-list. JE
• Metal Surfaces. Lists of terms dealing with surface treatment and rust prevention in metals. JE JJ
• Military. The RNN News collection of military terms. JE EJ
• Military. A set of glossaries (linked from the panel on the left labelled "Public Domain".) JE EJ
• Mountaineering Lexicon. Hirotsugu Muranishi's interesting English-Japanese Mountaineering Lexicon. JE EJ
• Music. This is a music term glossary, indexed on the term in Italian, German, English, etc. with explanations in Japanese. EJ
• Music. Another large music term glossary, indexed on the term in Italian, German, English, etc. EJ
• Music. A strangely-formatted glossary. Mostly transcriptions of terms or short explanations in Japanese. JE
• Networking. Basic networking word list. JJ
• Names of People. An indexed list of about 35,000 full names of Japanese people, culled from newspapers. Most have their profession, etc. added. Has some Chinese and Korean names as well. JJ
• Ninja. A short (2 page) list of Ninja terminology. JJ
• Ocean & Marine Life. A comprehensive set of glossaries, covering French, Spanish and Portuguese as well as English. JE EJ
• Onomatopoeia(1). A short list of giongo (Japanese onomatopoeic words). JE
• Onomatopoeia(2). A rather longer set of onomatopoeic words. JE EJ
• Opto-electronics. A large and high-quality source. It has the reading of each word and an English gloss, and links to a detailed explanation in Japanese. JJ JE
• Patents. The quaintly named Horsefrog patent translation school has a searchable glossary with many example sentences. JE
• Patent Related Glossaries. Patro Information KK has excellent JE and EJ patent terminology glossaries with about 10,000 terms each. JE EJ
• Pharmaceutical. This "Dictionary of Medicines" is really about providing information about the pharmacopoeia. JJ
• Pharmacology. Another useful big English-Japanese glossary. (The front page says it it is copyright by the Japanese Pharmacological Society, but its contents look remarkably similar to an early version of the Life Sciences Dictionary (above)). EJ
• Photography. Phil Ono's excellent list of photography words in English and Japanese. EJ
• Postal codes. Another way of finding a Japanese postal code, provided you can read Japanese placenames. JJ
• Printing. A short glossary of printing terms. Romaji only. JE
• Printmaking. A glossary of selected terms found in discussions of Japanese printmaking, particularly in relation to kamigata-e and the kabuki theatre. Romaji only. JE
• Real Estate. A list of real estate/realtor terms. JJ
• Religion (Mormon) A list of religious terms applicable to the Latter Day Saints. JE
• Sewing. A short glossary of sewing and pattern terms. JE
• Sex. An eclectic collection of sexual terminology, including many of the current slang terms. JJ
• Tea Ceremony. This is the front page of an encyclopedic collection of short articles. The indexing of Japanese uses romaji. EJ JE
• Telecomms/Computing. A comprehensive list. The heading says it covers telecomms, but much of the content is general computing. EJ
• Telecomms Another good file. Mainly Japanese explanations, but most entries have a short English gloss. JJ JE
• Theatre. Good list of Japanese theatre terms. Some kanji but mostly romaji. JE
• Shinto. Transcription of the Basic Terms of Shinto, first published in 1957. Romaji index and short articles about each term. JE
• Shinto. A more comprehensive Encyclopedia of Shinto. Has text searching of articles and a crude glossary. JJ JE
• Yomikata. An excellent compendium of the readings of Japanese words, including placenames, and all those long compound words encountered in medical and technical fields. Categorized by topic. JJ

Link Collections

These pages consist of links to servers and glossary lists, some of which are already listed above.

• The large Lexicool collection of dictionary and glossary links. EJ JE
• Aaron Ernst's Intellingua Japan link list. A large searchable collection of links, well categorized. JE EJ
• ChikenNavi. This page has a mass of links to pages of other links, plus all the major free and commercial dictionary servers. To get to the dictionaries, click on the jisho link in the top LH corner. JE EJ
• http://www.iic.tuis.ac.jp/links/dictionary/dictionary.html A big site, with a lot of links to explore.
• http://www.jah.ne.jp/~takanori/dict.html Links to many servers
• http://www.kotodama.net/biomedical/links.htm Collection of biomedical dictionary links.

Unclassified

These are pages which are waiting to be properly classified. You are welcome to explore them. (Feedback on these is welcome.)

• http://www.atmarkit.co.jp/aig/searchtop.html computing
• http://www.intel.co.jp/jp/commentary/e-term/ computing
• http://www.wdic.org/
• http://www.tdk.co.jp/eword/index.htm networking
• http://www.keyman.or.jp/search/index.html networking
• http://www.national.com/JPN/quality/glossary_quality.html quality

Jim Breen
(Japanese page)
November 2014