JapanDict blog

Japanese kanji of 2011: 絆

fr3nd — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:21:05 +0000

This year, Japanese people chose the kanji 絆 (きずな – kizuna) to represent them. It means “bonds” and it’s been selected because of the collaboration of the Japanese people after the earthquake and tsunami to recover the affected areas.

After being chosen, the kanji is written by an expert calligrapher in the Kiyomizu-dera temple in Kyoto.

The second and third selected kanji were:

災 – disaster, calamity
震 – quake, shake

As you can see the selection of those kanji were so influenced by the disaster happened 9 months ago.

What do you think about those kanji?

New features in JapanDict

fr3nd — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 23:44:08 +0000

We have implemented few new features in JapanDict and we hope you will enjoy them as much as we enjoyed doing them:

Lists of words: Ever wanted to learn new words from an specific area? Now you can! We’ve implemented various lists of words. Some examples:

Mobile version: Probably one of the most requested missing features. Now you can browse and query the dictionary using your mobile device.
Speed improvements: We’ve implemented caching and reduced the downloaded data in all the site, so all the site will be much faster than before. Try it!
Minor aesthetic improvements. Mainly small fixes that will make the site more beautiful than before.

Please, don’t hesitate to post your comments and opinions here so we can improve the site as much as possible.

Japan 2011 earthquake and tsunami relief

fr3nd — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 10:04:36 +0000

The 11th of March of 2011 Japan had one of the biggest earthquakes in it’s history, creating a huge tsunami which destroyed many areas along the Pacific coastline of Japan northern islands. Many people was dead, injured or missing.

Right now the country is trying to restore the damaged areas and help all the people affected by the disaster. Many international organizations are trying to help with the recovery.

In JapanDict we’ve created a new page with many links to provide help in different ways:

http://www.japandict.com/japan-relief

Official kanji list increased to 2136

fr3nd — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 10:45:16 +0000

Jōyō kanji, the official list maintained by the Japanese ministry of education which contains all the characters who every Japanese student should know, has been increased to 2136. This means an addition of 196 new characters and the suppression of 5.

This decision was made because nowadays, thanks to new technologies, it’s much easier to write some kanji considered so difficult before. Most people use computers or the mobile phone to write Japanese characters, so they don’t need to remember the exact way to draw it. They just need to remember the pronunciation and how they look.

This list has not been stable over the years. For instance, during the second world war, when the Japanese nationalistic fervor was so high, the number of kanji was increased to 2528!

However this is a big change for Japanese students and educators, as this makes even more difficult to study what it was one of the most difficult and time consuming things from the Japanese language.

This is the full list of the new included kanji:

媛怨鬱唄淫咽茨彙椅萎畏嵐宛顎曖挨韓鎌葛骸蓋崖諧潰瓦牙苛俺臆岡旺艶稽憬詣熊窟串惧錦僅巾嗅臼畿亀伎玩挫沙痕頃駒傲乞喉梗虎股舷鍵拳桁隙呪腫嫉叱鹿餌摯恣斬拶刹柵埼塞采戚脊醒凄裾須腎芯尻拭憧蹴羞袖汰遜捉踪 ## 曾爽遡狙膳箋詮腺煎羨鶴爪椎捗嘲貼酎緻綻旦誰戴堆唾鍋謎梨奈那丼貪頓栃瞳藤賭妬填溺諦阜訃肘膝眉斑阪汎氾箸剥罵捻虹匂喩闇弥冶麺冥蜜枕 ## 勃頬貌蜂蔑璧餅蔽脇麓籠弄呂瑠瞭侶慄璃藍辣拉沃瘍妖湧柿哺楷睦釜錮賂毀勾

References: Examiner, Kirai, Tofugu, Wikipedia