Re: Alphabetical order.....in Japanese??

Captain Nerd <cptnerd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Unfortunately most kanji have many kana equivalents, which can cause
all sorts of fun. For example, is "person" filed under "hito" for
kun-yomi or "nin" or "jin" for on-yomi?

If you're looking up a word, written in kanji, let's say "koibito" (lover)
with character for love (ai) and charater for person (hito). In this case
you'd use a language dictionary and look in the "Ko" section.

But let's say you didn't know how to read that word. Then you'd have to
use a kanji dictionary which is a totally different beast.

Kanji dictionaries allow you to look up a character based on pronounciation,
number of strokes, or by its radical. A radical is a "part" of a character,
usually the first few strokes. Some characters are also radicals - like the
character for person (hito) is a very common radical in other characters.
Anyways, radicals are sorted by number of strokes, then you count the number
of additional strokes used to finish the character you're looking for. Ai's
radical is the little "hat" on top (3 strokes) + 8 more strokes (I
think...), so you'd look in the appropriate table, find the character and
its identifying number. You'll then flip to find that number in the
dictionary to find the character. The main entry will give you the meaning,
as well as the readings for the character. Underneath will be a list of
common words and compounds that start with that character. These are listed
in order of ascending stroke order. Since "hito" only has 2 strokes it
should appear pretty close to the top of the list. Here you can see the
pronounciation, as well as a very short definition (if you're using an
English kanji dictionary.) However, most of the time you'll want to refer
back to your language dictionary where you'll look up the word you can now
read to get a more complete definition.

The computer age has allowed for these marvelous pocket-sized electronic
dictionaries on which you draw the character(s) you're looking for, and the
device will look it up for you, presenting you with pronounciation,
definition, and other information. They also make them for gaijin like me
who are (were) studying the language...or just trying to read some manga.


--
It's not broken. It's...advanced.
.

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