The New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

(The following contains a few Japanese characters. If possible, set your browser to read Shift-JIS encoding.)

- The book is now 1600 pages (the previous was about 1100). The paper seems
to be a slightly whiter, heavier, and more opaque grade. The binding is
dark blue and sort of plasticky (not sure exactly what it is), as opposed
to the maroon cloth weave of the old one.

- The pages have an airier appearance than before, but are the same size.
The gutter between columns is distinctly wider, there seems to be more
whitespace in general, and the type is bigger. The typography is still high
quality, as before. Entries now include JIS numbers when available.

- The useful appendices in back are pretty much as before, perhaps expanded
a bit. Pinyin is now given along with Wade-Giles for place names.

- The cover claims to have 1200 new characters. I'm not sure about this,
but the new characters that I noticed look like PRC-style simplified
characters.

- There is now a "Universal Radical Index" (URI) that allows you to look up
a character by any of its component radicals, and even includes a few of
what they call "nonce radicals", that is, frequently-recurring shapes that
aren't radicals, like the three dots on top of "íP".

- Sadly, nothing resembling Spahn & Hadamitzky's lookup by any character.

- There does seem to be more vocabulary. As a rough-and-ready measure of
new vocabulary, I looked under "ìd" and found a number of new words, like
ìdéqâªé'èë (denshi-ka jisho). Unfortunately this is not itself an
electronic dictionary, and the new terms didn't go as far as they might: no
"ìdãCéËíÝ"

- Here's the bad part: Nelson's has (sort of) returned to traditional
radical indexing, as opposed to the algorithmic style pioneered in previous
editions. Furthermore, it has pretty much eliminated cross-referencing from
the "wrong" radical in the main body of the text, relying instead on the
URI in the back. This may make the thing nearly unusable for previous
Nelson's owners.

Even though they are mostly using the traditional radical system, they
haven't gone all the way. All the characters that should be classified
under tsuki-hen are instead classified under niku-hen. So the editors have
managed to offend both their existing clientele who like the algorithmic
system *and* traditionalists who don't.

This is a huge mistake. If they wanted to, they could have released two
editions: one based on traditional indexing, and one based on Nelsonian
indexing. And if they had more imagination, they would have included a
CD-ROM.

Bottom line: This is like a beautifully-made clock that doesn't keep time
accurately. The indexing system provides the central structure of any kanji
dictionary, so it damned well better be a good one. This one isn't. If you
are an existing Nelson's user like me, you'll be frustrated. If you are a
classicist, you'll be irritated. If you are a first-time buyer, you'll be
mystified. Apart from that, this is a very nice dictionary.

Nelson's users should stick with the older edition (which is evidently
still being printed). First-time buyers should get the older edition or
S&H's Kanji Dictionary.

This edition of the dictionary has a totally new system of arranging characters, discarding the strange algorithmic system in favour of the much better traditional arrangement based on the arrangement by semantic components, known as radicals, used in Chinese dictionaries following the famous and authoritative 42-volume Kangxi Character Dictionary of the Chinese Ch'ing dynasty which sets out over 40,000 characters classified under 214 radicals. This is an improvement only insofar that the idiosyncratic algorithmic system of Nelson was replace by the traditional system. However, this transition was not completed, and, instead of the full traditional system being implement, only the veneer of using the traditional arrangement is present. Upon closer examination, one finds that certain characters have been classified under different radicals than that under the traditional system fixed by the Kangxi dictionary. Granted that the Kangxi dictionary is a Chinese work that would not contain kokuji, characters invented in Japan, but these characters are very few in number compared to those borrowed from China, and, in any case, were made up according to the principles of Chinese characters, thereby having a natural place in the Kangxi classification anyway. This half-hearted implementation of the traditional system is a great misfortune, for it is at once irritating and disconcerting, making the finding of certain characters a wild-goose chase indeed. Despite the deficiencies of this method of arrangement, it is yet a significant improvement on the ridiculous mathematical arrangement used in the classic peculiar to that book, making it difficult to move to the traditional arrangement used by most Japanese dictionaries.

This new edition is very much larger and heavier, and cumbersome to use, due to the inclusion of the Universal Radical Index. This URI would seem to be an attempt to repair the shortcoming in the arrangement of characters outline above. It lists each character under every radical that could possibly be the character's radical. This makes for a very big index, substantially increasing the book's bulk without adding functionality that could have been more easily achieved by proper traditional arrangement of characters. However, the arrangement being what it is, and the cross-references in the dictionary being almost eliminated altogether, the URI is more-or-less essential.

All, however, does not bode ill for the dictionary. The quality of the entries themselves are what they always have been: clear, concise and comprehensible. They have been thoroughly revised to make the definitions more up-to-date and more copious, a number of new words having been added. In terms of content, there is indeed a noticeable improvement. Note, though, that this is not a writer's dictionary, for it gives no indication of how a particular character or word might be used. Rather, it is for the reader who encounters unknown words in a text he reads, and desires to seek its meaning in the dictionary. For this latter use, the dictionary serves its purpose admirably, having such a comprehensive vocabulary that one seldom notices its omissions.

Physically, the dictionary is well produced, giving allowances for its large size. The print is sharp, clear and not too small; the liberal use of white space gives the page a much more appealing look. This book is also well bound and generally handsome in appearance, the weighty tome it is.

Whilst I would not dissuade a potential buyer from this book, I would advise him to consider carefully whether the classic edition, despite its awkward algorithmic arrangement and silghtly dated entries, might not better suit his needs than this new edition. I would not hesitate to recommend this edition to any advanced student of the language, the two main detracting factors being the arrangement of characters, which is no worse than in the classic edition and its size. Nonetheless, if size is no consideration, then this is indeed an improvement on the classic edition, albeit not perfect, but nonetheless having a better arrangement of characters, a more copious vocabulary and more up-to-date entries. In short, this new dictionary is certainly better than the classic, and surpassed by few other Japanese-English character dictionaries on the market, and flawed though it is, nonetheless indispensable for the serious reader of Japanese.