Using XJDic on Athena

NIHONGO: Warning! There is Japanese text on this page. If you can't read it, read this.

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"):

Dictionary (large font)

J/E, E/J, Kanji Dictionary

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:

add nihongo more /mit/nihongo/doc/xjdic11.man

To print out a copy, then type:

lpr -Pprintername /mit/nihongo/doc/xjdic11.man

Appendix: List of radicals

 ЃБ Stroke Radicals 
        Аь 1    ЁУ 2    аІ 3    ЅЮ 4    ВЕ 5    а 6
 
 ЃВ Stroke Radicals 
        Цѓ 7    аЕ 8    ПЭ 9    ВН (9)  аЄ (9)  бЙ 10
        Цў 11   ШЌ 12   бФ 13   бЬ 14   бв 15   бм 16
        бс 17   Хс 18   ДЂ (18) ЮЯ 19   вБ 20   вИ 21
        вЙ 22   НН 24   ЫЮ 25   вЧ 26   вЬ 27   вг 28
        Ыє 29   Йў (162)        ЫЎ (163)        яє (170)
 ЃГ Stroke Radicals 
        И§ 30   гј 31   Хк 32   ЛЮ 33   дщ 34   ЭМ 36
        Тч 37   Нї 38   Лв 39   еп 40   РЃ 41   ОЎ 42
        ОА (42) еї 43   ељ 44   жЅ 45   ЛГ 46   Рю 47
        жп 47   ЙЉ 48   жс 49   ЬІ 49   Жв 50   ДГ 51
        жі 52   жј 53   зЎ 54   зА 55   зЕ 56   Ен 57
        зР 58   Ѕш 58   зС (58) зФ 59   зЦ 60   ЫЛ (61)
        йЉ (64) НС (85) ШШ (94) чш (140)
 ЃД Stroke Radicals 
        ПД 61   кС (61) иљ 62   ИЭ 63   Мъ 64   Лй 65
        кН 66   кО [66] ЪИ 67   ХЭ 68   Жд 69   Ъ§ 70
        кл 71   км [71] Цќ 72   лЉ 73   Зю 74   Ьк 75
        Зч 76   Лп 77   нЦ 78   не 79   Ъь [80] нй 80 
        Шц 81   Ьг 82   Лс 83   ну 84   Пх 85   Ва 86
        лП (86) Фо 87   Щу 88   рЋ 89   р 90   Ъв 91
        Вч 92   Еэ 93   ИЄ 94   ВІ [96] Ющ (113) ЯЗ (125)
        ЯО (130)
 ЃЕ Stroke Radicals 
        ИМ 95   ЖЬ 96   БЛ 97   ДЄ 98   ДХ 99   РИ 100
        Эб 101  ХФ 102  ЩЅ 103  сЫ 104  тЂ 105  Чђ 106
        Шщ 107  ЛЎ 108  Ьм 109  ЬЗ 110  Ь№ 111  Ра 112
        МЈ 113  уЛ 114  Вг 115  Зъ 116  ЮЉ 117  цЉ (122)
        Нщ (145)
 ЃЖ Stroke Radicals 
        Ун 118  ЪЦ 119  Лх 120  ДЬ 121  цІ 122  Эг 123
        БЉ 124  ЯЗ 125  МЉ 126  ца 127  МЊ 128  цц 129
        Цљ 130  ПУ 131  МЋ 132  Лъ 133  ББ 134  Рх 135
        СЄ 136  НЎ 137  КБ 138  ПЇ 139  чч 140  щШ 141
        Ую 142  Зь 143  Йд 144  Ас 145  РО 146
 ЃЗ Stroke Radicals 
        ИЋ 147  Гб 148  ИР 149  УЋ 150  ЦІ 151  ьЕ 152
        ьИ 153  Г 154  Рж 155  Сі 156  Т 157  ПШ 158
        Мж 159  ПЩ 160  УЄ 161  ЭИ 163  Цг 164  Ша 165
        ЮЄ 166
 ЃИ Stroke Radicals 
        Жт 167  ФЙ 168  Ьч 169  Щь 170  Юь 171  №В 172
        БЋ 173  РФ 174  Шѓ 175  РЦ [210]
 ЃЙ Stroke Radicals 
        ЬЬ 176  Гз 177  №ъ 178  ЧЃ 179  ВЛ 180  ЪЧ 181
        Щї 182  Шє 183  ПЉ 184  Мѓ 185  Йс 186
 ЃБЃА Stroke Radicals 
        ЧЯ 187  Йќ 188  Йт 189  ёѕ 190  ђЈ 191  ђЎ 192
        ђЏ 193  ЕД 194  ЮЕ 212
 ЃБЃБ Stroke Radicals 
        Ећ 195  ФЛ 196  ѓУ 197  МЏ 198  Чў 199  Ыу 200
        ЕЕ [213]
 ЃБЃВ Stroke Radicals 
        ВЋ 201  Еа 202  Йѕ 203  ѓу 204
 ЃБЃГ Stroke Radicals 
        ѓц 205  ХЄ 206  Ин 207  СЭ 208
 ЃБЃД Stroke Radicals 
        ЩЁ 209  щЕ 210
 ЃБЃЕ Stroke Radicals 
        Лѕ 211
 ЃБЃЖ Stroke Radicals 
        ЮЖ 212  ѓ§ 213
 ЃБЃЗ Stroke Radicals 
        ѓў 214

[Back to the main Help page]

Date last modified: Monday, 26-Aug-96 12:46:06 EDT
Copyright 1996 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
This page's URL: http://www-japan.mit.edu/mit/mit-materials/help/xjdic/index.html