Caveat: with the popularity of PDAs these days, there are undoubtedly some dictionary programs that have been written. I haven't searched for these but if you have a PDA already, I would recommend you search for one before purchasing a stand-alone dictionary. If any of this information is wrong or out of date, please contact me.

Update: I have finally gotten around to investigating PDA programs and have written an article titled Studying Japanese Using a PDA.

As I should have known, Jim Breen (my vote for patron saint for Japanese language students) has something valuable to contribute to this subject. Originally, he wrote an article about using his JDIC & JREADER with a PDA. Later he compiled that article along with some of the best newsgroup postings on the topic, calling it the Handhelds mini-FAQ.

You may have seen some dinosaurs lugging around paper dictionaries during their studies. Well, get with the times - an electronic dictionary (電子辞書 [でんしじしょ] or 電子辞典 [でんしじてん ] ) is truly a must. That's not to say that a good tree-based dictionary isn't useful, but rather that it isn't sufficient.

While I am NO expert, I did some basic research when I was living in Japan a couple of years ago and I recently did a bit more � hopefully some of what I learned can be of value to you.

One major conclusion I have drawn is that it makes a difference whether you are shopping in Japan or not. In Japan, the selection is much bigger, but you will have a very hard time finding an electronic Japanese-English dictionary geared specifically toward non-native speakers. This is actually true regardless of your location, but it will be more noticeable with the big selection you see in the stores in Japan.

Anyway, why is this important? Well, for starters, you'd like to have an instruction manual written in English. Another thing is that someone designing such a machine for non-native speakers would probably think to have definitions given in English and/or to include a furigana display option. Finally, many features found in these machines � which are especially true of higher-end dictionaries and are often the main differences you will see between different models from the same manufacturer � are really only useful for those already fluent in Japanese. For example, do you really need a Japanese-Japanese dictionary if you are a beginner student? Likewise, what good is a Japanese-Japanese thesaurus or a dictionary of Japanese-Japanese proverbs?

The above conclusion and discussion helps explain the next major observation: most English-speaking students of Japanese opt for the Canon Wordtank series. As far as I can tell, it is the only manufacturer that offers English manuals and features especially useful for English speakers learning Japanese.

What are some of these features? Well, that is an important question and one you should consider most seriously in your purchase decision. Below I list the ideal features I have identified:

1. Sufficient vocabulary to read any Japanese newspaper
2. A "jump" feature to allow a quick lookup of words you don't know from within a definition or sample sentence from a prior search
3. Easy and thorough kanji lookup, including pronunciation, definition (including for compound kanji), radical lookup, stroke count lookup, etc.
4. Easy Chinese character entry through handwriting recognition
5. Price-lifetime value tradeoff
6. Convenient size

I notice that people often fixate on the vocabulary size without regard for the other features. If you are a professional translator then this is probably reasonable. Otherwise, most good quality models will have an adequate dictionary for most students' purposes. You will also notice that many models share the same underlying dictionaries.

The jump feature is one that beginners may not have thought of, but experienced students will realize is invaluable to the point that not having it should be considered a sufficient reason not to purchase. This is how it is useful. Say you look up a word and you are reading through the definition or example sentences (written in Japanese naturally). Well, of course, you are likely to find new words or kanji that you don't know. The jump feature will let you select the word and automatically "jump" to its definition or kanji lookup. Even if you find a model with a jump feature, not all "jumps" are created equal. Some will only allow you to jump to word definitions; some will allow you to only select single kanji characters, etc. I haven't researched the models enough to know which are best but Lynne Donaldson did research the Canon models and you can read what she had to say (or just read some highlights at the end of this article).

Similar to the jump feature, handwriting recognition may not have occurred to you. Well, this is just my personal preference, but I think having it is a great bonus. While it is true that you can certainly look up kanji without it, having it can speed things up if you are practiced (and slow you down on new, complicated kanji or if you are a beginner). Moreover, it forces you to practice your technique as stroke order is important in the recognition software. In fact, I can tell you that I now write my hiragana correctly thanks to this feature (like many, I had previously been sloppy with certain characters). A final plus for those residing in Japan: having this feature is a great way to spend idle time on the train � use it to practice and learn characters on the train advertisements, for example.

The problem with the handwriting feature is that Canon doesn't offer it! In fact, I am aware of only two models that do: the CASIO XD-470 and the Zaurus series. While I have had friends who were pleased with the Casio, it does have a couple of major drawbacks: a relatively poor vocabulary and the lack of a jump feature. One the other hand, it has a very good kanji dictionary. I personally own the Zaurus model MI-J1. It is really a PDA with all the junk that goes with it (organizer, email app, etc.). I don't need or use any of that and only use it for the dictionary, which I think is fantastic. I am still looking for places to purchase it online (I bought mine in Akihabara). The only place I have found so far appears to be a group living in Japan called Zaurus Otaku Kurabu (ZOK). I can't vouch for their reliability or trustworthiness; however, they have put together a download for the Zaurus that you can get for free which makes it more user-friendly for non-native speakers. I haven't tried that yet either. If you try to purchase a Zaurus in Japan, you will need to look in the PDA section, not the electronic dictionary section.

[UPDATE: I have recently read an article about the Nintendo DS, which does have a stylus for handwriting recognition and, apparently, Cannon's Wordtank model V80 now offers this feature as well I have also found a blog called Naruhodo! that covers a variety of topics about learning Japanese with an emphasis on studying with the Nintendo DS.]

The last features of concern are size and price. These are really subjective so all I will say is that I have known many people who purchased a cheap model only to regret it later when they realized they needed/wanted a better version. My advice is purchase the best model you can afford if you are serious about your studies.

Well, good luck with your selection and purchase. Below I offer some model numbers (and where appropriate, links) that may help.

• Zaurus MI-P1
• Zaurus MI-P2 conventional dry cell batteries: No worries about recharging.
• Zaurus MI-P10 Tiny but powerful, yet cheap.
• Zaurus MI-J1 Large native Sharp dictionary but less working memory.
• Zaurus MI-L1 Color, keyboard, current model. Additional SD card slot.
• Zaurus MI-E1 as L1, also display backlight, multimedia (MP3 and MPEG player).
• Zaurus MI-E21 as L1, but improved user friendliness and multimedia functions.
• Zaurus MI-E25DC as MI-21, but with digital camera included. Latest model in the MI-Line.
• Zaurus SL-A300, Japanese Linux Zaurus, tiny, light, nice, but no keyboard.
• Zaurus SL-5000 and Zaurus SL-5500. International Linux models only available outside of Japan, thus no built in Kanji input.

• CASIO XD-470
• CANON IDF-3000
• CANON IDF-4000
• CANON IDF-4500
• CANON IDF-4600

• SEIKO RM-2000
• SEIKO SR-T6500
• SHARP PW-9500

Find a comparison chart of features for some of the above here. This, along with many of the links above, is part of the very useful site, Wordtank Central, where you can find usage examples, a FAQ, testimonials, recommendations, some online manuals, links and more.

Lynne Donaldson Research highlights:

"I've also looked at several other models, including the Sony DD-IC200, the Sharp PW6000, the Casio XD-S700 and the Seiko SR750, all in the same price range. I discounted the Sony pretty quickly because its kanji dictionary doesn't seem to have any way of looking up kanji compounds. The others all allow me to do what I want to do, but only in a convoluted way. For example, if I'm looking for a Japanese word and the E-J dictionary offers several alternatives, the readings of which I don't know, I have to make a note of the kanji for each possibility, and look it up in the kanji dictionary using the stroke count method. Having found the initial kanji I have to page through all the possible compounds using that character until I find the compound I'm looking for, then I can look up the furigana (reading). Now that I have the furigana, I can go to the J-E dictionary, enter the furigana and see whether the translation that it comes up with fits the sense of the word I was looking for in the first place. This isn't such a problem for Japanese people, since in most cases they already know the furigana so they can skip the kanji search stage, but for non-native speakers it's something of a headache. With the IDX series, in comparison, you can highlight one of the translations in the E-J dictionary and jump directly to the kanji compound entry, which in this series is combined with the J-E dictionary, so you get not only instant furigana but also an instant English translation! (The IDX series also offers an English-language display option, though my ability to read Japanese is now at the stage where this is a luxury rather than a necessity.) In the other dictionaries, if the kanji compounds are defined at all in the kanji dictionary (and they aren't in the PW6000) then the definitions are only in Japanese. Some of them have jump functions but they're very limited in how they can be used - in most cases you don't seem to be able to highlight Japanese words at all, only English ones.

I eventually (we're into February now but I'm keeping this topic all in one place) decided against the IDF-3000; it has an excellent specification, probably far more than I will ever need, but isn't quite as simple for non-native Japanese speakers to use as the IDX series is. Besides that, there doesn't seem to be any way to find a kanji compound by looking up any character other than the first, whereas with the IDX series it's possible in some cases to start with the second (or third) character, albeit by a rather roundabout route."