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The Modern Reader's Japanese-English Character Dictionary (2nd Revised Edition)
Japanese title最新漢英辞典
Author Andrew N. Nelson
Publisher Tuttle
CategoryKanji to English
ISBN0804804087 (boxed hardcover) [COPAC, Webcatplus, Wikipedia]

Review by Charles E. Tuttle catalogue

For decades, this has been THE standard reference book of Chinese characters in Japanese for scholars and serious students. No other dictionary compares in scope or quality.

Review by Ben Bullock

About 6000 characters covered, this book is useful but has some problems, for instance:

Kanji which have kun-yomi (native Japanese readings) the same but different meanings are often bundled by Nelson into just one place with no information on differentiation of meaning.

A lot of ... read more

Review by Wolfgang Cronrath

Nelson covers about 4500 main characters and more than 1000 variants including pre-war versions and a few handwritten abbreviations.

Nelson uses a lookup system based on the classical radicals with slight modifications. The main modifications is the invention of the "radical priority system" ... read more

Review by Sean Holland

I have the original, well thumbed and bearing the scars of honour won by a book that has not languished on a shelf. I've used the New Nelson a couple of times at a library. It seems pretty good, but I didn't feel motivated to rush out and buy it to replace my old Nelson.


For questions, comments, or if you would like to add your review to the above list, please email Ben Bullock <benkasminbullock@gmail.com> or use the discussion group for this web site.