Using XJDic on Athena

XJDic is a freeware English-Japanese, Japanese-English and Kanji dictionary.

To start

You can start the dictionary by choosing the menu item from the Dash menubar across the top of your Athena screen (sliding down from "Courseware" to "21 Humanities" to "Japanese"):

or

The first starts up the dictionary in a window with a very large font (the window will take up much of your workstation screen) and is recommended for the students in all except the advanced classes. The second starts up in a smaller font (each character will be approximately 15 pixels high.)

After a short wait, the screen will say:

XJDIC Version 1.1 (Japanese Dictionary) Copyright J.W.Breen 1993.
Loading Dictionary and Index files.  Please wait.....
Display All Kanji Mode: OFF

(Enter ? for a summary of operating instructions)

XJDIC SEARCH KEY: 

The line XJDIC SEARCH KEY: is the main dictionary prompt. From here you can either look up words or phrases, or look up individual kanji.

You can also start up the dictionary from outside of Dash with the commands:

add nihongo
add babel
bigkterm -e xjdic

for the large font, or

kterm -e xjdic

for the regular size.

Looking up Words

To look up the Japanese meaning for an English word, just type the English word at the main dictionary prompt. It will return all the dictionary entries which have that English word in their definitions. If there are too many resulting entries to fit on the screen, it will prompt for whether you want to continue or not.

To look up the English meaning of a Japanese word, there are two ways to enter the word:

• You can cut-and-paste the word you want to look up from somewhere on your workstation screen. This can be the from the dictionary window itself, or from some other application, like mule.

  To cut and paste text from mule you'll use the mouse keys. Position the mouse cursor over the first character of the text you want, and click the left mouse button. Then move the mouse cursor over the character just past the end of the text you want, and click the right mouse button. This will put all the text between the two locations into the ``cut buffer.'' Then move the mouse into the dictionary window, if it isn't there already, and paste the text in with the middle mouse button.

• You can also type in romaji and have the dictionary program turn it into hiragana or katakana as you type. To type a word and have it turned into hiragana, start the word with the @ sign. To type a word and have it turned into katakana, start the word with the # sign. Then just hit the Return key to look up the word.

Looking up Individual Kanji

You can look up single kanji by a variety of indexing methods. To go into Kanji Search Mode, type \. The prompt changes to KANJI LOOKUP TYPE:. From here you type one of the following single letters to choose the type of index you want:

[k]

look up by the reading (or yomikata) of a character. Both on and kun readings are used for this search. A display of all kanji with that particular yomikata is produced, and the desired character can be selected using the mouse. A kanji can also be entered if its characteristics are to be examined. As with the other mode of usage, an automatic romaji/kana conversion can be invoked by beginning the key with either "@" or "#".

[m]

look up by its English ``meaning''.

[r]

initiates a display of all the bushu (radicals) along with their numbers.

[j]

look up by the kanji's ``JIS'' code. This is the standard 4-digit hexadecimal code used to identify each Japanese character.

[c]

look up the kanji by one of the identifying codes within the Kanji Dictionary. The codes presently are:

[Nnnnn]

the ``Nelson'' index number. This refers the kanji index numbers used by the late Professor Andrew N. Nelson in his famous ``Japanese-English Character Dictionary'', published by Tuttle. Over 5000 kanji in XJDIC's files have Nelson numbers.

[Snn]

the stroke count. A display of all the characters with that stroke count is produced. As above, the desired character can be selected for the display of its compounds.

[Bnn]

the primary radical (Bushu). The Bushu numbers used by XJDIC are those from Nelson (as depicted inside the front cover of Nelson's ``Japanese English Character Dictionary''). To use this method, use the list of radicals included in the appendix of this document. (For the Bushu search, you will be asked for a stroke count, and only the kanji with that bushu/stroke combination will be displayed. If you want a display of all the kanji for that bushu number, enter a stroke count of 0.)

[Cnn]

the ``classical'' radical, where this is listed. As with the Bnn search, you be asked for a stroke count.

[Hnnnn]

the Halpern number, which is the index in Jack Halpern's Character Dictionary. About 3000 characters in KANJIDIC have Halpern numbers assigned.

[Pn-n-n]

the SK*P code used by Halpern and others to find kanji.

[Unnnn]

the Unicode code for the kanji.

Once a kanji has been identified by any of the techniques described above, XJDIC displays the following information about it:

• KANJI character
• KUTEN code in decimal ([nnnn])
• JIS code in hexadecimal
• Kuten-code:Shift-JIS-code
• Unicode code in hexadecimal (Uxxxx)
• Nelson Number (Nnnnn)
• Bushu Number (Bnn, and Cnn if the ``classical'' radical differs)
• Stroke Count (Snn)
• Halpern No (Hnnnn)
• SK*P code (Pn-n-n)
• Grade (G1 to G6 if taught in those grades, G8 for Joyo kanji, and G9 for the supplementary Jinmeiyou kanji.)
• ``on'' readings of the character in katakana
• ``kun'' readings in hiragana
• meanings ascribed to the kanji (taken from the popular kanji dictionaries, such as Nelson, Heisig, Halpern and Spahn & Hadamitsky.) Some other indices are included here, such as S&H.

At this stage, you can request a display of all the compounds containing that character by using the mouse to select the kanji and entering it as the search key for a main dictionary search.

By default, when you look up a particular kanji, only those compounds which start with that kanji are displayed. If you type /, it toggles between that display mode and a mode which displays all compounds with that kanji anywhere in them.

Online Help

You can get a short help screen about the options for the dictionary by typing ? at the dictionary prompt.

To quit

Simply type "bye" at the dictionary prompt.

For more information...

Some more documentation on xjdic is available online. To read it, type:

To print out a copy, then type:

Appendix: List of radicals

 １ Stroke Radicals 
        一 1    ｜ 2    丶 3    ノ 4    乙 5    亅 6
 
 ２ Stroke Radicals 
        二 7    亠 8    人 9    化 (9)  个 (9)  儿 10
        入 11   八 12   冂 13   冖 14   冫 15   几 16
        凵 17   刀 18   刈 (18) 力 19   勹 20   匕 21
        匚 22   十 24   卜 25   卩 26   厂 27   厶 28
        又 29   込 (162)        邦 (163)        阡 (170)
 ３ Stroke Radicals 
        口 30   囗 31   土 32   士 33   夂 34   夕 36
        大 37   女 38   子 39   宀 40   寸 41   小 42
        尚 (42) 尢 43   尸 44   屮 45   山 46   川 47
        巛 47   工 48   已 49   巳 49   巾 50   干 51
        幺 52   广 53   廴 54   廾 55   弋 56   弓 57
        彑 58   ヨ 58   彖 (58) 彡 59   彳 60   忙 (61)
        扎 (64) 汁 (85) 犯 (94) 艾 (140)
 ４ Stroke Radicals 
        心 61   攸 (61) 戈 62   戸 63   手 64   支 65
        攴 66   攵 [66] 文 67   斗 68   斤 69   方 70
        无 71   旡 [71] 日 72   曰 73   月 74   木 75
        欠 76   止 77   歹 78   殳 79   母 [80] 毋 80 
        比 81   毛 82   氏 83   气 84   水 85   火 86
        杰 (86) 爪 87   父 88   爻 89   爿 90   片 91
        牙 92   牛 93   犬 94   王 [96] 礼 (113) 老 (125)
        肋 (130)
 ５ Stroke Radicals 
        玄 95   玉 96   瓜 97   瓦 98   甘 99   生 100
        用 101  田 102  疋 103  疔 104  癶 105  白 106
        皮 107  皿 108  目 109  矛 110  矢 111  石 112
        示 113  禹 114  禾 115  穴 116  立 117  罘 (122)
        初 (145)
 ６ Stroke Radicals 
        竹 118  米 119  糸 120  缶 121  网 122  羊 123
        羽 124  老 125  而 126  耒 127  耳 128  聿 129
        肉 130  臣 131  自 132  至 133  臼 134  舌 135
        舛 136  舟 137  艮 138  色 139  艸 140  虍 141
        虫 142  血 143  行 144  衣 145  西 146
 ７ Stroke Radicals 
        見 147  角 148  言 149  谷 150  豆 151  豕 152
        豸 153  貝 154  赤 155  走 156  足 157  身 158
        車 159  辛 160  辰 161  邑 163  酉 164  釆 165
        里 166
 ８ Stroke Radicals 
        金 167  長 168  門 169  阜 170  隷 171  隹 172
        雨 173  青 174  非 175  斉 [210]
 ９ Stroke Radicals 
        面 176  革 177  韋 178  韮 179  音 180  頁 181
        風 182  飛 183  食 184  首 185  香 186
 １０ Stroke Radicals 
        馬 187  骨 188  高 189  髟 190  鬥 191  鬯 192
        鬲 193  鬼 194  竜 212
 １１ Stroke Radicals 
        魚 195  鳥 196  鹵 197  鹿 198  麦 199  麻 200
        亀 [213]
 １２ Stroke Radicals 
        黄 201  黍 202  黒 203  黹 204
 １３ Stroke Radicals 
        黽 205  鼎 206  鼓 207  鼠 208
 １４ Stroke Radicals 
        鼻 209  薺 210
 １５ Stroke Radicals 
        歯 211
 １６ Stroke Radicals 
        龍 212  龜 213
 １７ Stroke Radicals 
        龠 214