Review of The Kanji Dictionary by Mark Pearce

Things I Like:

1. Revised Radical System. Finally a kanji ordering system that makes sense! It lists the characters by radicals as does the New Nelson, but the radicals are much fewer (79 instead of 214), easier to identify, and are derived from the kanji as they are written in Japan today.

2. Appendices. This dictionary saves its most useful information for the end. Its lists of popular Japanese family and given names has been especially useful to me.

3. Compounds Words. This dictionary lists an extensive number of compounds for each kanji, as does the Nelson, but it lists all of them that contain the character in question---not only those that begin with that character. In this regard, it combines the best features of both the New Nelson and the Halpern

Things I Don't Like:

1. Page layout. The pages seem too crowded with information and the characters are not prominent enough. It's sometimes difficult to tell the character apart from the compounds information defining it. Some information, (catalog numbers, etc) seems at first glance to belong either to the kanji above or below the information.

2. Kanji appearance. Besides not being large enough, the characters themselves are printed in a very boring Ming typeface. Contrast this with one of Spahn and Hadamitsky's earlier efforts, "Kanji and Kana", which has some of the most attractive kanji I have ever seen in print. I understand, however, that their recently published "Kanji Learner's Dictionary" uses the "Kanji and Kana" typface. They've evidently seen the light.

☆ See all reviews by Mark Pearce.