I am also learning Chinese and the dictionary app Pleco has been amazing due in large part to being able to see the exact meaning of each part of the word.
An example of what I’m meaning is in Japanese the name for ‘seahorse’ is 竜の落とし子, but dictionaries won’t tell you its name is literally ‘dragon’s illegitimate child.’ The same with ‘glove’ being ‘hand-bag.’
This is true for other languages as well, such as German, where ‘glove’ is ‘hand-shoe,’ but since those are English cognates an English learner will pick it up immediately.
Does anyone know of any dictionary for Japanese where you can break down words like this?
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Any dictionary at ALL you can click on the individual kanji to see its meaning.
I don’t see what you want that is more than that.
I mean, that’s all most words are…kanji plonked together that take on a new meaning.
Personally, I like the app Nihongo but Midori, Imi wa and “Japanese” are also good apps on iOS.
http://jpdb.io/
It shows the individual kanji meanings, and you can click on the kanji and get examples and other words that include them as well. It also often shows how common words are (if they are common enough).
In this case, it says “dragon” “fall down” “child” because it translates them separately rather than “落とし子” as one term, but that should work.
(The first entry, though, is 海馬 or literally “sea” “horse”.)
Shirabe jisho is amazing!
Gives breakdown of all words and kanjis individual meaning, example sentences with breakdowns too, as well as all the conjugations of verbs.