Multiple Element Japanese Dictionary
This app features a large amount of words, all major kanji and iOS voice-over pronunciation. Featuring a variety of ways to look up kanji. Lots of examples provided in both English and Japanese. You can create and organise folders to store words and kanji. All together this provides a very useful dictionary for learning. The notable problem of this app is the large focus on features at the expense of being stable and optimised. Crashes happen every now and then and were even more common in earlier versions. The filesize is large and needs to be compressed. The notes feature is also broken.
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Nice app
Good app, does pretty much everything you could want it to do.
I love this app.
Since becoming a more advanced Japanese student, I've found it necessary to have a dictionary always on hand - for words I hear during television shows, unknown kanji I come across during reading, and, of course, to double-check myself when I find a word slipping my mind. Imi Wa? is perfect for all of these occasions. As far as Japanese dictionaries go, I haven't found one so far that surpasses this one. Of course, more cultural information for each term could be useful - having several different words for bathroom can make it difficult to know which one to use for certain situations - but no dictionary I know of is so advanced. A feasible feature to include in future updates could be handwritten kanji recognition, as I have been using the shinkanji app in tandem with this one, but I can also honestly say that not having this feature has forced me to use the 'search by radical' function and become more adept at recognition rather than just reproduction. As far as performance goes, I've never had the app quit on me, unlike Facebook and Twitter, so it is always reliable. Five stars for being the best friend a Japanese student could have!
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Love it
Most frequently used app on my phone. It's very useful
If it isn't broken, don't *completely annihilate* it
This used to be an excellent app with a name that didn't make me wince every time I saw it. Alas, the newest incarnation of this dictionary has seen almost all of its previous merits stripped away (and, what's more, hidden beneath an offensively garish color scheme). The app defiantly refuses to open, often crashes when it does, and regularly misleads introductory students with clumsy readings of common kanji in example sentences. For me to recommend this dictionary to friends again (as I frequently used to) the developers will need to improve its stability and ensure that it provides users with accurate information. I hope they also reconsider the dictionary's presentation and at least contemplate doing away with its awkward new name.
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Fantastic app
I love this app but just have a few problems with it. I don't like the current red and green colour scheme (and if I'm using an app a lot I want to like looking at it!) so it might be nice to have an option to change it.
I've also seen a few comments that imiwa is a somewhat childish name. Although I much preferred the name Kotoba, I understand that it had to change. But I don't like the name imiwa -- the romanization is... Pretty bad, I feel, and if new learners are encouraged to type wa instead of ha it will really set them back. I agree with it seeming childish; I think it's also counterintuitive.
But I do love the speech support, the various different ways to look things up (loving the Chinese input lately), so I couldn't bring myself to take off more than one star.
I've also seen a few comments that imiwa is a somewhat childish name. Although I much preferred the name Kotoba, I understand that it had to change. But I don't like the name imiwa -- the romanization is... Pretty bad, I feel, and if new learners are encouraged to type wa instead of ha it will really set them back. I agree with it seeming childish; I think it's also counterintuitive.
But I do love the speech support, the various different ways to look things up (loving the Chinese input lately), so I couldn't bring myself to take off more than one star.
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Couple of requests:
Great app, really helpful! But a couple of things that I would really appreciate being changed in the next update.
1. Could the Multiradical button be moved to somewhere that's not 1.5mm away from the backspace button on the Japanese ten-key? Not much of a problem when you don't use the app very much, but every time I accidentally press it, everything pauses for a couple of seconds, then goes to the multiradical screen. Gets pretty annoying after the hundredth time in a day, when reading confusing ancient Japanese books.
2. Not as annoying in the first one, just a little inconvenient: the "only common words" button ("Nur Häufige", weiß nicht was das englisch ist) is in a position, which I always accidentally hit without realizing, which always confuses me momentarily when words I know exist don't come up.
But amazing app! Been using it for nearly two years! Thank you!
1. Could the Multiradical button be moved to somewhere that's not 1.5mm away from the backspace button on the Japanese ten-key? Not much of a problem when you don't use the app very much, but every time I accidentally press it, everything pauses for a couple of seconds, then goes to the multiradical screen. Gets pretty annoying after the hundredth time in a day, when reading confusing ancient Japanese books.
2. Not as annoying in the first one, just a little inconvenient: the "only common words" button ("Nur Häufige", weiß nicht was das englisch ist) is in a position, which I always accidentally hit without realizing, which always confuses me momentarily when words I know exist don't come up.
But amazing app! Been using it for nearly two years! Thank you!
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Valuable resource, 2.7.1 update seems to have fixed bugs
I'm studying Japanese and Kotoba is one of my go-to dictionaries for looking up unfamiliar words and checking verb forms. Tip: turn on the "Chinese - Traditional (Handwriting)" keyboard in your iPhone's settings to help look up kanji you have no idea how to read by writing them freehand.
I would love to see an iPad version as well (with a UI tailored to the larger screen, not just the iPhone UI but bigger, of course).
Note: The 2.7.1 update seems (in my use thus far) to have fixed the issues that plagued previous versions of the app, so I can once again give Kotoba a wholehearted recommendation.
I would love to see an iPad version as well (with a UI tailored to the larger screen, not just the iPhone UI but bigger, of course).
Note: The 2.7.1 update seems (in my use thus far) to have fixed the issues that plagued previous versions of the app, so I can once again give Kotoba a wholehearted recommendation.
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Fantastic except for one simple thing
I use this dictionary every day and find it fantastic. I love that you can search in romaji, kana or kanji. The multiradical search is great too. Being able to make lists and favourite words is very cool.
However there is one MAJOR drawback - that you can't search for conjugated words. Everyday in Tokyo I see a word that I want to look up that I can't. For instance, on the train platform it said 'kimasu', which I couldn't find in the dictionary. It is not easy at all to try and guess the infinitive of the verb. Similarly with 'Yokatta', I couldn't find the meaning of this word but had to use google instead.
Surely one of the advantages of an electronic dictionary is that you can search for all forms of the word, not just the 'dictionary form'. I am sure this would be an easy fix and I think one that is desperately needed.
However there is one MAJOR drawback - that you can't search for conjugated words. Everyday in Tokyo I see a word that I want to look up that I can't. For instance, on the train platform it said 'kimasu', which I couldn't find in the dictionary. It is not easy at all to try and guess the infinitive of the verb. Similarly with 'Yokatta', I couldn't find the meaning of this word but had to use google instead.
Surely one of the advantages of an electronic dictionary is that you can search for all forms of the word, not just the 'dictionary form'. I am sure this would be an easy fix and I think one that is desperately needed.
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Amazing!!
This app us so handy during my Japanese class!! Everyone who owns a iPod touch or iPhone in my class uses it as well!!
I only wished that we could write out the kanji character on the screen in order to find out the furigana or romaji pronunciation!
But it's an amazing app nonetheless!!
I only wished that we could write out the kanji character on the screen in order to find out the furigana or romaji pronunciation!
But it's an amazing app nonetheless!!
