Review of New Japanese-English Character Dictionary by Allen Childs (MistaKefka)

Great! While I've heard Nelson's has more compounds and Kanji, the Halpern dictionary is very easy to use, while I've heard Nelson's is not. I've (attempted to) translate lots of things, and I can find almost every compound. I like the look-up system (very nice for simpler kanji, and only slightly annoying for extremely complex ones), and the cross references, core definitions, and long list of compounds, as well as frequency and radical make it easy to love. ON-Kun index and SKIP Index (for quick lookup of harder Kanji) are just two ways to make looking up quick and easy. I think I'll eventually move on to Nelson's, once I need to learn all of the readings for all of the Joyo Kanji (which I am still not quite done learning), but Halpern's has been great to me for a long time (lasts long too! Mine is over a year old, and shows ZERO wear, while some other books show a good bit).

☆ See all reviews by Allen Childs (MistaKefka).