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Yoji Jukugo Shin Jiten
Publisher Obunsha

Review of Yoji Jukugo Shin Jiten by Maiko Covington

This is a small grey dictionary (again, they may have changed the color) of those 4-character compound words that have abstract meanings. In school we are expected to memorize lots of these and how to write them, so it came in handy. The words are arranged by reading, but there is an index in the back that has some of the words arranged by category (such as, ones involving parts of the body, ones involving numbers, to ka) so you can look those up that way. Each entry has the reading, the meaning (both the literal meaning and the actual abstract meaning), and an example sentence or two to show it in use. Very useful. Most of these words came from Chinese, and at the end of each entry it tells you what ancient Chinese text the word originates in. Some of them even give you the actual story from the Chinese (some of these are very funny). I got this one for my birthday too, in high school.

☆ See all reviews by Maiko Covington.


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