Hi! I am an intermediate-upper intermediate-level Japanese learner.
Recently, I’m interested in reading Japanese fiction. I had purchased some books but I’m facing difficulty looking up the Kanji that appeared in the book. Kindle seems to have a built-in dictionary that I could use along when I’m reading.
Are there people who use Kindle for their Japanese learning? Is it a good idea to spend money on it? or could recommend your method to me?
Thanks!
23 comments
It’s true that Kindles have a built-in dictionary. But the e-ink Kindles react very slowly compared to a smartphone, personally I find it a bit annoying to use because I find I have to adjust the selection too often before it finds something and it just takes ages. On the flipside it looks absolutely great, is usable in bright daylight, and doesn’t weigh a lot so holding it for extended periods of time is no problem at all.
To be honest, I haven’t used my Kindle at all for the last two years or so. Smartphone displays also look great nowadays, and on iOS I also have a built in dictionary that works everywhere where I can select text, and I can install other dictionary apps, or use another app to make cards right away when I come across something new. I can easily use multiple sources for books, including Kindle via the Kindle app. For Japanese I use mostly Bookwalker via their app, which is not ideal from a UI/UX point of view, but makes it very easy to get access to a huge selection. And for anything I can read in a web browser, there’s 10ten for really quick lookups.
It’s fine if you already have it, but otherwise I would advise to use a tablet or pc. Much more options to translate and adjust.
The new paper whites are good and you can sideload all kinds of dictionaries. I have a bunch of J-J ones on mine and it works great
I own one and I can say there are various pros and cons to them as the others have already mentioned here. If you’d only use them for reading Japanese books then I’d say it’s good but I doubt it’s worth it only for that unless you’re reading a lot of Japanese books. Personally I would say that if you enjoy reading a lot of books in your native language then it’s a good thing to own. I use mine to read from 1 to 2 books a week in either my native language or English. I also enjoy reading digitally in general which is a bonus. I can use my kindle to read novels from 小説家になろう and enjoy it more than reading on a pc or phone where I fear that I’ll lose my progress. It’s also a pretty big investment because the base level kindle can be enough but the paperwhite gives the better experience and isn’t as slow (the current oasis isn’t worth it compared to the latest paperwhite). I’d say if you think you’ll make use of it then go for it but you definitely have to be aware of the disadvantage and the investment since for Japanese learning purposes it’s not perfect.
I purchased a kobo reader two monthes ago, and then i realised there was some sort of yomichan like available plugins. Since then, i spent more time reading japanese that i never did before 🙂
Probably the best language learning investment i did during the last couples of years.
Taking advantage of the post regarding kindle. What good titles can be found to start reading in Japanese on Kindle?
I have an old Android tablet that I use for my Japanese Kindle account, and sometimes I use the iPad for things like the Chrono Trigger Ultimania. The e-ink was too slow and finicky, so I reset my Kindle and put it back on my US account.
You can spend money, but try the things you already have first. I’ve found that a tablet works best. The cloud reader on desktop is really weird in what’s available, so I don’t really bother with it anymore.
I prefer kiwi browser with yomichan on my phone and then read web novels. [Here](https://jpdb.io/web-novel-difficulty-list) is a web novel difficulty list with links to the specific web novels (it has difficulty, total words, total unique words etc. all listed. E-ink screens are great for reading but shit for look ups. For French I do use an e-reader but I don’t have to look up words as often as for Japanese.
It really depends on your strategy. If you read books above your level with lots of dictionary lookups, a simple web browser with yomichan is far better I think.
Selecting words to lookup on Kindle is sometimes slow, or it doesn’t select the word properly and you have to manually adjust.
But for reading books at your level, Kindle is awesome, in my experience. It allows for more focus, and it has a screen that doesn’t cause too much eye strain. So great for lots of reading.
eInk can reduce eyestrain and headaches for some people when compared to LED type screens. The research is not so cut and dry.
I would say absolutely yes, I love my Kindle and read all my Japanese books on it. The built in dictionary really helps.
You’ve already got a ton of responses but count this as a vote for the kindle. It’s only downsides in my opinion are
– Not great resolution (compared to modern phones / tablets)
– Can’t read custom fonts (but you might not care about this at all)
This might be a rationalization but I don’t count the low refresh rate / long time it takes to load a definition (about 0.5 s tbh) as a disadvantage. It acts as a small barrier to looking words up and this encourages you to actually recall the meaning of the word instead of thoughtlessly looking it up.
If you go down this road I suggest you watch MattvsJapan’s video titled “How to use a Kindle to learn Japanese” (or something like that), it has a section on how to get more dictionaries.
I read Japanese books on my Kindle, and with the built-in dictionary can certainly go at a faster clip than reading paper books and looking up words.
I got an Onyx Boox E-reader, and I can say with confidence, I am too stupid to figure out how to use the dictionary function. If I was reading Japanese and wanted to look up words, I probably would just use split screen and use the Tokoboko app cuz I’m crazy.
Love it though. The fact I can have anki on it cool, though I mainly use it as an on-the-go sketch device rather than as an E-reader.
It only helps you as much as you are already motivated to study.
I mean, if it’s hard for you to get motivated, buying this won’t help. If you’re hardworking anyway, then is this even needed?
It’s a weird question tbh.
The inbuilt dictionary is handy and it compiles all your highlighted words in one place too! However, I’ve found that some japanese texts are hit and miss when it comes to highlighting and searching – for one short story I resorted to pointing my phone at the screen so Google translate could capture the word, and THEN I could look it up in the dictionary. Kind of a pain.
It’s absolutely worth it. There’s a post I wrote a few months back with my experience using it with a specific dictionary for JP learning!
If you enjoy reading in general, this will probably be a good idea for you. If your not much of a reader I’d say try the other options that people have suggested first and see how that goes.
Yes there is a built in dictionary; it’s ok it does the job, but I quickly moved away from it. You can easily load up other dictionaries onto the device. Once you’ve selected a dictionary it will default to that specific one, the next time you look up a word. I sometimes find myself switching between different one’s as the dictionary I’ve chosen doesn’t have a translation.
Biggest gripe about the Kindle is that it’s a bit slow. The device is not the most technologically advanced so if your having to look up every other word it can take a couple of seconds which can really add up especially if you focus on trying to understand the sentence. This can be frustrating at first since you might spend 20+ minutes on a single page or 2 depending on the book. However, understand that it’s part of the process. You learn the language one word at a time and keep building on that.
My advice if you do decide to go down this route, go with the intention of recognizing the words/kanji rather than trying to understand sentence in detail at least in the beginning.
Just download the Kindle app onto your phone. It works great.
The dictionary isn’t perfect but it really reduces the slog of looking up words, particularly if you don’t know the readings.
I’d like to have it connect to JDIC but I don’t know if that’s doable.
This depends on the type of eBook. Dictionaries can be used to check word meanings, but only if the eBook is really selectable text, and not just a pdf of the book page. Ebooks are certainly cheaper and don’t incur postage costs nor waiting time.
Hi! I received a ton of comments. Thank you a lot for sharing the advice.
I have tried what I already have, the Kindle app on my Pixel. It’s much easier to look up for the words. Also, I learned a lot of study tools from your comments. I would definitely check out the yomichan and some sources that you posted here. I haven’t heard about that before.
I hope this post will also help other japanese learners.
It’s not only a “good idea”, it’s pretty much the ONLY thing you can do at this point.
I use it to buy e-book from Japanese Amazon because shipping costs are ridiculous. The hard part is setting up a Japanese Amazon account. I ended up using some random address for my “home” address, but you can have thing electronically delivered to your kindle, or physically, to your home country.
But in all honesty, reading isn’t very fun or useful until you have a decent vocabulary bank built up. I’m around 9000 words and I can still barely read adult-novels without having to look up words.