WWWJDIC - A Feature-rich WWW-based
Japanese Dictionary
James Breen
Monash University, Australia
Abstract
The WWWJDIC WWW-based Japanese dictionary service is described. The service integrates
many different dictionary functions into a single package, and contains many features aimed toassist language learners and readers of Japanese texts.

1. Introduction
The WWWJDIC WWW-based Japanese dictionary (Breen 2003) is an evolving
multi-feature dictionary service based on free and public dictionary files. It is
widely used in Japanese-language education, and has a number of functions
specifically to aid language learners. The main server is at Monash University inAustralia, and there are five mirror sites in Europe (2), North America (2) andJapan. Usage is currently at several hundred thousand accesses per day.

2. Design Goals
The dictionary service has been developed in an attempt to give expression toconcepts of "tomorrow's dictionary"(Atkins 2002) in providing a wide range ofconfigurable features and options which go well beyond the common commercial
dictionary services based on accesses to copies of published bilingual
dictionaries.(Kenkyusha 2009, NTT 2009, Yahoo 2009)
The dictionary files used by the server are:a. the JMdict/EDICT Japanese-English dictionary (Breen 2004a), which has
about 140,000 entries;
b. the ENAMDICT dictionary of named entities, which has over 700,000
entriesc. the KANJIDIC kanji (Chinese character) dictionary (Breen 2004b), which
has detailed information on over 12,000 charactersd. a collection of glossary files in fields such as life sciences, law,engineering, Buddhism, business, etc.
Entries in the dictionaries can be accessed either by the Japanese headwords(either the kanji form or the reading/pronunciation) or by words in the glosses.

(See figure 1) The kanji dictionary can be accessed via a variety of methods
including the traditional radical/stroke-count and four-corner techniques, thecharacter pronunciations, the character meanings, various dictionary indices, etc.
A multi-component index based on the visual elements in the characters isparticularly effective and popular. An external handwriting interface can also beused. The dictionaries are integrated so that a user, having found a particularcharacter, can display word entries containing that character, or having selected aword, can examine the details of the constituent characters.

Figure 1: Example of dictionary word display

3. Text Glossing
One function of the service commonly used by translators is a text-glossing
capability in which Japanese text is segmented and matched with dictionary
entries. The segmentation and matching uses a combination of most of thedictionary files, and allows inflected forms of verbs and adjectives to be alignedwith the dictionary forms. (Figure 2)

Figure 2: Example of text-glossing function

4. Features for Language Learners
Aspects of WWWJDIC's service which are of particular interest in CALL are:a. the option of displaying a table of conjugations for any of the verbs orverbal nouns in the dictionary (approx. 17,000 entries). (Figure 3)b. animated stroke-order-diagrams for the 2,000 most common kanji. (Figure4)
c. links at the entry level to the Tanaka Corpus of 150,000 Japanese-English
sentence pairs. (Figure 5) The Corpus can also be searched independently.
d. sound clips of the Japanese pronunciation of almost all EDICT entries.

Figure 3: Example of verb conjugation table

Figure 4: Example of animated stroke order display

Figure 5: Example sentences linked to the バス停 entry
Other features of the service are:a. a configurable interface enabling users to structure the display and enable
or disable options to suit their needs;

b. multi-lingual operation. At present the main operating pages are available
in either English and Japanese. Other languages can be added by extending
the catalogue files, and a French interface is in preparation.
c. a restricted interface tailored for use with Japanese mobile telephones.
d. links from each entry to a range of online dictionaries, search engines,
Japanese Wikipedia entries, the Japanese WordNet, etc..
e. an edit interface enabling users to provide suggestions, amendments, etc.
about dictionary entries or to propose new entries.
f. an API enabling access from software and servers.
Although most of the dictionary files used are Japanese-English, it also includes
the major WaDokuJT Japanese-German dictionary and smaller Japanese-French,Japanese-Spanish, Japanese-Swedish, Japanese-Hungarian, Japanese-Slovenianand Japanese-Dutch files.

5. Conclusion
The WWWJDIC WWW-based Japanese dictionary server has developed tobecome an effective multifunction service which integrates many functions which
are typically spread over several traditional printed dictionaries. It also has
extensive integrated support for many language features.

References
ATKINS B.T.S. (2002). Bilingual Dictionaries - Past, Present and Future. Lexicography
and Natural Language Processing - A Festschrift in Honour of B.T.S. Atkins, Eurolex
2002.
BREEN J. (2003). A WWW Japanese Dictionary. In "Language Teaching at theCrossroads", JSC Working paper No. 13, Monash Asia Institute, Monash University
Press, 2003 http://www.wwwjdic.net/BREEN J. (2004a). JMdict: a Japanese-Multilingual Dictionary. COLING Multilingual
Linguistic Resources Workshop, Geneva, 2004.
BREEN J (2004b). Multiple Indexing in an Electronic Kanji Dictionary. COLING
Enhancing and Using Electronic Dictionaries Workshop, Geneva, 2004.
KENKYUSHA LTD. (2009). Kenkyusha Online Dictionary
http://kod.kenkyusha.co.jp/service/
NTT Resonant Inc. (2009). Goo Jisho http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/
YAHOO Japan Corporation. (2009). Yahoo Jisho http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/