Today there really isn’t a good electronic dictionary choice for the very beginner of Japanese. All modern dictionaries are made for Japanese learning English* and only as an afterthought the other way around. Of course they are super useful for upper beginners up, but probably more frustrating than its worth for beginners because the dictionaries display full Japanese (with no furigana (small hiragana over kanji)). You can easily ‘jump’ to the J-E to get the meaning and pronunciation, but if you know less than 100-200 kanji you can be jumping all day. At the very least, you need to be proficient in hiragana.

While I don’t recommend relying too much on romaji, Seiko produced a super dictionary for beginners (yes, even very beginners) called the RM2000. Well, the RM2000 displayed ‘real’ Japanese, romaji and English for all entries and example sentences. This means even those with no Japanese experience could use it immediately. It was also by far the easiest to use. You don’t need no stinkin’ manual (great for you men out there) at all!

Unfortunately, they stopped making them a few years back. However, I managed to find two still in their original boxes with English manuals. It looks like they were never used – but they were opened. I fully tested both dictionaries and have them up for sale at The Japan Shop.

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* Ectaco makes beginner dictionaries, but of little quality. Not recommended.