DS gets wordplay, Japanese-English dictionary
by James Ransom-Wiley 
{ Apr 13th 2006 at 1:55PM }
Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten was
released for the DS in Japan today, bringing an affordable electronic Japanese-English dictionary to the masses.
KSRJ's major selling point is its stylus functionality, allowing users to input kanji (stroke-sensitive) and
kana onto the touch screen. Japan Chronicles compared Nintendo's new - Price*
- Same J-to-E and E-to-J dictionaries
- Word search by kanji
- English pronunciation
- Very readable, especially on a DS Lite
- Easy-to-use search history
- Useful quiz modes
- World clock
- Calendar
- Vastly superior navigation
- Superior Japanese dictionary (Super Daijirin vs. Meiky%u014D)
- Includes Chinese dictionary, as well as dedicated English and Kanji dictionaries
- Stylus-controlled navigation
- Includes real (not virtual) keyboard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
boots (former bd (former b)) @ Apr 13th 2006 2:04PM
Talk about market expansion. Well done ninty!
I can't wait for this to come to america... which is doubtful :(
Gonzo @ Apr 13th 2006 2:05PM
Good price point. Any halfway decent equivelant to this would be more than a ds.
I hope they come out with this geard towards English speakers.
Microphone functionality is a must.
Akira @ Apr 13th 2006 2:19PM
I can't wait to buy it. That's what separates the DS from other consoles, versatility. They are making it more of an all around device, like a pda that you can play games on. I can't wait till they come out with some type of office ap.
32_footsteps @ Apr 13th 2006 2:24PM
I could get some use out of this... quite a bit. I wonder how much easier this would have made college, when I pursued a minor in Japanese.
Fan @ Apr 13th 2006 2:30PM
"They are making it more of an all around device, like a pda that you can play games on."
Is this what people hate the psp for? Beeing an allround device? Was not everyone going on about how consoles should play games and not movies and so on. Were there not people screaming that Sony had schizophrenia and that it was all about the games because its a game machine.
But when the DS gets a browser and some translation tools its all about the genious of market expansion.......
Oh wait this is Nintendo so its all right. Lets get back to bashing Sony for something, anything. lol the hypocrisy.
Squeek @ Apr 13th 2006 2:34PM
#4:
The difference is that you didn't buy a DS for these features and other features that you did not want in the first place. These are optional add-ons in the form of games.
I haven't bought either a DS or a PSP, but with all these nifty games being released, this one in particular, I might consider it when the DS Lite drops under $100.
boots (former bd (former b)) @ Apr 13th 2006 2:38PM
Yes Fan, except Nintendo has never encouraged making it a multimedia player. Furthermore, there is a huge market available for the DS, because Nintendo didn't forget to care about the most important thing: Games. Now that it has games, it's outselling everything, so peripheral producers know they have a bigger market and therefore can succeed at making it an everything machine.
PSP is on the other hand, an everything machine, but for playing lots of music you need huge memory sticks, same thing for movies or you can buy an expensive UMD, instead of getting the cheaper, playable everywhere DVD version of a movie. So, by failing to make it an easy to use media player, and by not bringing must-have games, they crippled the possibility of making it mainstream.
Oh, and there are no "English-Japanese" games on PSP, nor a good attempt to make a "brain training". It seems that "Practical Quotient" flopped.
I love Sony, but they are screwing up so much lately I fear they might die as a company.
minus_273 @ Apr 13th 2006 2:39PM
#4
The difference between this and the PSP is that with the PSP you have to get everything and pay for it at once regardless of whether you will use it or not. The alone does one thing play games. Then it is expandable enough to add many other things depending on whether you need it or not.
.ed @ Apr 13th 2006 2:44PM
This is HUGE.
Awesome step in another new direction... done right.
Translation hardware is so expensive and garbage for the most part. Having two very bright screens, one with touch input and a super small form factor makes this a must have.
The DS really is the Developer's System.
Applause.
Fan @ Apr 13th 2006 2:46PM
#6
"Oh, and there are no "English-Japanese" games on PSP"seems that "Practical Quotient" flopped."
No you are wrong. Check it out.
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/01/1447235&from=rss
And if you think Sony as a company is going to die you have absolutely no clue. Sorry.
gnome @ Apr 13th 2006 2:50PM
And the DS is so much cheaper than your average PocketPC... Great...
TeaTom @ Apr 13th 2006 2:54PM
Although this isn't quite the 'learn Japanese/kanji/kana' product I've been hoping for, it certainly shows that it's a possible product. Hopefully this will be backwards engineered for a western audience.
NightOwl @ Apr 13th 2006 3:38PM
I'd pay $100 easy for a Chinese version of this product, especially if it had Chinese pronounciation as well.
Even as it is, if this comes to the states (or even if it doesn't) I'll probably pick it up.
fawazr @ Apr 13th 2006 3:41PM
None of these companies ever dies and go away forever. Just look at Sega and Atari.... they're like corporate zombie organizations.
Nintendo have all these market expansion goodies that consumers can elect to purchase. The DS has experienced steady growth since its release and each month seems to bring something new to the table. Nintendo didn't get all hardcore with shoving a browser, media player, UMD format, proprietary memory sticks, and patches down people's throats, and their Zen-like patience paid off.
baochan @ Apr 13th 2006 4:08PM
But there's still no "jump" for Japanese words. Which means to translate English to Japanese, you have to enter the word in English, see the kanji, and then manually enter the Kanji by hand. It's a step up from the last Rakubiki Jiten, and a neat little toy, but it'll never replace my Wordtank.
Don Jose @ Apr 13th 2006 4:42PM
What is it that Nintendo has done to me after 19 years of uninterupted loyalty that leads me to think that this is FAR more intriguing than the revolution? Seriously, I'm still way skeptical about the Rev, but, for the first time, I kinda want to go get a DS. As long as it works well, that's righteous!
rudimentalist @ Apr 13th 2006 5:09PM
The all-around system argument from Nintendo is a hardware issue, paying for something you don't want. No one's being hypocritical. Nice try though.
idioteraser @ Apr 13th 2006 9:11PM
Also Nintendo with the Brain Training and English Training non game has built a huge market of middle aged and older people who would buy such a dictionary.
You got a cookbook, travel guides, a kanji writer improvement nongame.
Nintendo knows that these appeal to a lot of people who are not into gaming but who picked up Brain Training.
As for Talkman it isn't in the top ten week after week wheras the English Training DS nongame is. Please give me a sales number for Japanese.
mike @ Apr 14th 2006 6:30AM
NightOwl.. right on..
1.3 billion Chinese. I'm looking for a chinese version of this.
Alright. I already have a dictionary.. and this is OKAY since it has a Kanji dictionary (albeit in JAPANESE, not Chinese)
Give us a Mandarin version PLEAAAAASE...
Come on.. the development on these things must be dirt cheap .. it can't be that hard.
akira @ Apr 14th 2006 10:58PM
# 5
Hey, I got no problem with the psp. It's just that pound for pound it sucks. Yeah they give you all this crap that the nintendo is now coming out with, but the difference is is that the psp doesn't do it well. Plus it costs like 200 and change. For all that money, I rather have the ds and the ability to choose which features I wish to add on, rather than paying for a "complete" machine that does all things but does nothing well.
Dusty @ Apr 15th 2006 5:54PM
Nintendo already made a Japanese-English dictionary software for the DS. It came out June, 2005. I bought it but I quickly sold it as it didn't allow kanji input.
Dusty @ Apr 15th 2006 5:56PM
Here's a link to the existing dictionary DS game.
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/adjj/index.html?link=jpg