Review of Ruigo Kokugo Jiten by Maiko Covington

This is a REALLY neat thing to have. It's basically a thesaurus, but... The words are arranged by MEANING. So, as you page through the dictionary, each word is close in meaning to the word next to it and they sorta slowly change, like that. To look up a word you look it up by reading in the index at the front, and it tells you what category number to look under. The category numbers are written in LARGE type at the top of each page; they are in sequential order so basically it's the same as looking for a page number except there is not always one number per page. Each word is defined and there are one or two example sentences. Given the dictionary's layout, it is perfect for comparing two words that are very similar in meaning, like when you are writing some long sakubun and you must decide which one to use. This dictionary has many many words in it, it is also rather fun (for nerds like myself) to just page through there and think "ooh, we had this word? I didn't know we have this word." One last really good use of it is for looking up all those giseigo and gitaigo - they are in there. One final note: This dictionary comes in a hardback version (it's yellow) and a somewhat smaller vinyl-bound-in-a-box version (it's white). I would recommend the smaller one since the content is EXACTLY the same and the smaller one is considerbly cheaper. But, that's just my opinion.

☆ See all reviews by Maiko Covington.