Being a developer on the Microsoft stack, which I love, me getting a mac is pretty big. Well recently I purchased one so I can do some iPad/iPhone development on, which I own neither. Anyway I have spent the last couple of weeks looking for software that is comparable to what I use on my Windows computer(s).
One of the big things I looked into first is stuff for Japanese, and for the most part it has been a success finding what I need/want. Most of what I do is in the browser so no real problems until I started looking for a desktop based English/Japanese dictionary since over the next semester I will be on a bus with no internet for 12 hours a week.
First I tried to integrate some dictionarys into the built in dictionary app with little to no success. Next I searched for some free alternatives, with no success. I even went so far as to looking into coding my own interface for JMDict. After realizing that I could I should first search for something else, and it lead me to Jisho, fitting name, from SugoiSoft. I have to say the $14 dollars it cost well worth the money and time it saved me in writing my own so I bought it quickly.
Review
Having gone through all the background lets look at the product. This is a pretty normal dictionary app, but because it is using JMDict as its source it is very powerful in its material you can search for. Here is a list of features. I have bolded what I like the most.
- Search in your Native Tongue (English, French, German, Russian)
- Search from Anywhere (No internet required)
- OS X Integration
- International
- Lists
- Romanization
- Variable Strength
- Wildcard Searching
Let me breakdown each of the features I like and why, the others are good but I don’t necessarily “need” or notice them personally. As you can tell most of the features I like.
Search from Anywhere
This next semester I will be going to the main campus of my college 4 days a week which is over an hour away one way. I “plan” to do my homework on the bus instead of wasting that amount of time just doing nothing. Since I have no internet during that time I need a better dictionary available to me so this app is going to help so I don’t rely on the internet so much for looking up words, plus it will make it quicker during class.
OS X Integration
I am not sure if Jisho integrates with spotlight, yet, but it doesn’t seem to. So this feature kind of threw me for a loop at first. However, I found that once I turned on a setting I can right click on some text somewhere and search for it in Jisho instantly instead of copy+paste.
Lists
This feature I never would have had if I rolled my own solution and has already proven its value. I can make lists of words I frequently look up, or words I want to remember. One day if I get really motivated maybe make a list of all the JLPT words.
Romanization
Firstly, if you know me you know how much I hate romaji, but this feature combined with “OS X Integration” is valuable helping other people that still use romaji, and unfortunately that is a lot. Also don’t tell anyone, but a couple of times I have used romaji for a quick reference so that is nice.
Wildcard Searching
This one is nice. I hate doing search algorithms so I appreciate them when search is done well and I can say this is nice from the users perspective. It works and I have yet to not be able to find a word. The wild card features is especially nice for those words you can only remember parts of words or you don’t know the reading for a particular kanji
Final Thoughts
This is a great front-end for JMDict and is a lot better than what I would have been able to make. Because of everything available in the JMDict data it can be diffcult to bring forward that data easily for everyone to use and access. Jisho does it elegantly and makes the data access very quick and easy. The designer really did a good job of making sure things work well with each other. You can get a free trial to try it out at the Jisho Website.
If you use a desktop based dictionary what do you use and why do you like it?
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Thank you for the kind review of Jisho! I haven’t gotten around to adding spotlight integration yet, but it’s something on the list.
I highly recommend using Jisho in conjunction with an app called Quicksilver. It really allows for fast look ups without using a mouse in any app. We wrote a small tutorial on how to do it on our blog at http://bit.ly/jishoqs