A comprehensive, communicative, and practical guide to usingJapanese, Kodansha's Furigana English-Japanese Dictionary is aninvaluable reference tool for anyone with an interest in the Japaneselanguage. It has been edited with the needs of English-speaking users inmind students, teachers, business people, and casual linguists.

What is furigana and why is it so important?Furigana refers to the small kana that are printed above or alongsidekanji to show the pronunciation of the Chinese character. With furiganasuperscripts, the beginner who is familiar with hiragana and katakana isable to read even the most difficult and obscure kanji at a glance. Otherdictionaries either provide little or no guide to kanji readings or romanizesome or all of the Japanese words and sentences. In the past, romanizeddictionaries were of some value to students using textbooks that containedno Japanese script. Now, however, an increasing number of influentialcurriculums around the world are based on a rationale and methodology thatdemands the introduction of hiragana and katakana from the earliest stages.Learners and their teachers studying under such curriculums will inevitablyfeel more comfortable with a dictionary such as Kodansha's FuriganaEnglish-Japanese Dictionary, one that shows the pronunciation of kanjiwith familiar and authentic kana script.

This unique set of features have been incorporated into one portable andaffordable volume:

• More than 14,000 entries comprising the most commonly used words inEnglish
• Furigana pronunciation guides added to all kanji
• Semantic and usage differences between Japanese words and expressionsexplained clearly in English
• Thousands of full-length example sentences illustrate typical usage innatural Japanese
• Idioms, phrases, and common expressions help expand vocabulary andsentence building skills
• Many encyclopedic entries offer useful background information on Japanesehistory and culture
• Includes many current terms such as artificial intelligence andinternet

Hundreds of scientific and medical terms with full Japanese equivalentssy to use, andcarefully adapted to their practical needs.