Best Kanji Dictionary I Have Used

The description says it all. This is the most useful electronic dictionary I've ever seen. You use the stylus to write kanji and the game displays the appropriate meanings. It does a great job recognizing handwriting; mine isn't that great, but as long as you write the correct number of strokes and in the correct order, it will recognize. If it does not, you can select a sort of drop-down menu and pick from a group of similar kanji. There are three very minor complaints I have against Sonomama. One is that it doesn't display stroke order like most radical-based dictionaries do. Granted, simply writing the kanji is way, way, WAY faster than using the radical method to look it up in a paper dictionary. But when I come across complex kanji (especially kanji with radicals orders written from right to left), the stroke order would help. Second, some of the kanji must be drawn with a stroke order different than the one I learned from my Kodansha radical dictionary. No big deal. There are only two radicals in question. And third, I wish I could switch the top and bottom screens on the DS. For entries defined in Japanese, words in the definitions that have entries of their own are underlined. If only I could switch screens and click on the underlined kanji like a hypertext jump to another part of the dictionary... All in all, though, these are stupid complaints in light of how useful this dictionary is. It has drastically reduced the time I spend looking up new kanji.

It is only available in Japan, but since DS games are universal you will have no problem playing them on your DS wherever you are. You might see it selling for around $100 on amazon, but I found mine on ebay for less than $50.

10/10