Tutorial

To look up a word in the Kanji reference dictionary, simply select Search... from the Dictionary menu, enter search criteria into the Find word dialog (shown in Figure 1 below) and press the Spyglass button (or press Return).

Note: The following tutorial assumes that JWM is used with its default settings ie. the only dictionary in the Reference dictionary list is the Reference sample dictionary. Otherwise, the search results will vary.

Figure 1. The Find word dialog

You have probably already noticed that the Input dialog will be displayed when you have the Find word dialog open, and the green Kana cursor is flashing in the Kana/Kanji area (for further details about entering Japanese, see Japanese input system). If you click any other textbox (such as the English textbox), the Input dialog will disappear and you can enter English text, as usual, or extended European characters (using the Euro button).

Finding words by their Kana
For example, if you enter the Kana 'はし' into the Find word dialog and press the Spyglass button, you will see the following entry come up in the Output list:

       はし    bridge

As you can see, Kanji are displayed in red, Kana in green and English in blue. If there was no Kanji in the word, only the Kana and English would be displayed.

To clear the Find word dialog, click the Zap button (the button with the lightning in it) or press Command-Z (Left-Alt-Z on the PC). You should click this button between each of the example searches described below. Generally, if you do a search and the results aren't what you expected, you probably forgot to clear the Find word dialog.

Finding words by their Kanji
Now, zap the Find word dialog to clear it, enter the Kanji '本' and press the Spyglass button. You will see the following word displayed in the Output list dialog.

       ほん    book, main , head, this, our [pref]

You will probably have noticed that when you entered the Kanji into the Find word dialog, that the reading of the Kanji was shown as a question mark (since the Kanji reading was unknown). Whenever there is a question mark in any position in the Kana area, all Kana will be ignored during a search. Thus, if you wish to search using both Kana and Kanji criteria at the same time, make sure that there are no question marks in the Kana area. You can do this by highlighting any question mark and entering the Kana you want - the question mark will then be overwritten without deleting the Kanji.

Of course, you can also put in more than one Kanji if you want to find a Kanji compound. To try this out, zap the Find word dialog and find the word '年金'. You should see the following entry displayed when the search completes:

   年金    ねんきん    annuity, pension

As you can see, finding words in the dictionary by their Kana or Kanji is very simple.

Kana and Kanji search filters
There are also some filters you can select from so that your searches locate only the words you want. These are listed in the Filters popup menu on the Find word dialog.

The checkbox marked 'furigana only' allows you to filter in words which have valid furigana (ie. each group of Kana in the word is the reading of a particular Kanji in the word). This checkbox is only useful with dictionaries which contain words with their furigana set up correctly - the only dictionary at this time which has this extra information is the Basic vocabulary dictionary. The reference dictionaries, called Edict and Enamdict, do not have furigana information in them.

Finding words by their English meaning
Now, let's find a word using its English meaning instead. Type 'fat' into the English textbox and start a search. You should see the following entry displayed:

   太い    ふとい    fat, thick

When searching by an English meaning, the text you enter into the English textbox can match any part of the English definition. If you want only whole words to match your entry in the English textbox, check the whole words checkbox before starting a search.

The Reference dictionary list
The Kanji reference dictionary uses the dictionaries shown in the Reference dictionary list. To see the Reference dictionary list, select Reference dictionary list... from the Preferences submenu of the Edit menu and the dialog in Figure 2 will be displayed. As you can see, up to four dictionaries can be placed in this dictionary list, and only the Reference sample dictionary is currently in the list.

Figure 2. The Reference dictionary list dialog

When you do a search, the dictionaries in the Reference dictionary list are searched in turn (starting with the dictionary at the top of the list) and the results displayed in the Output list dialog. Thus, you can control the order in which results are shown by setting the order of the dictionaries. For example, if you created your own custom reference dictionary, you would probably add it to the top of the Reference dictionary list so that your words would be found first.

Adding the Edict and Enamdict reference dictionaries
Since the Reference sample dictionary only contains a small number of words, you will want to add more substantial reference dictionaries, such as Edict (a 66,000 word general reference dictionary) and Enamdict (a 160,000 word proper name dictionary containing place-names, surnames and given names). These are available free via download from the www.lavasoft.com web site, or on the JWM Companion CD.

Whether you have the JWM Companion CD or downloaded these reference dictionaries, follow the installation instructions packed with them.

To add a dictionary to the Reference dictionary list, select Reference dictionary list... from the Preferences submenu of the Edit menu to bring up the Reference dictionary list dialog, press the Add button, navigate to the 'Dict' folder and select the dictionary you wish to add. Note that most users probably don't need to add the Enamdict dictionary to the Reference dictionary list due to its substantial size (it may slow down dictionary searches considerably), and the fact that it doesn't contain words most beginning and intermediate users would find useful in their studies.

Advanced search controls
If you enter a Kanji into the Find word dialog and hold down the Control key when clicking the Spyglass button, only words beginning with the Kanji you entered will be found. This is very effective in filtering out unwanted Kanji compounds.

If you enter a Kanji into the Find word dialog and hold down the Shift key when clicking the Spyglass button, words containing any of the Kanji you entered will be found. This is very effective in finding blocks of Kanji compounds with any of the Kanji you entered (you can enter up to 8 Kanji).

If you hold down the Command key (Left-Alt on the PC) when clicking the Spyglass button, the search indices of the dictionaries searched will be fully re-created.

Adding extra words to the reference dictionary
You can build your own custom dictionaries to augment the dictionaries supplied with JWM. The best way to do this is to create a new dictionary, add the new words to it, and then add that dictionary to the top of the Reference dictionary list. Please refer to the section on adding new words for details on creating your own dictionaries.

Editing words in the Reference dictionary
If you wish to change any part of a word you have found in the Reference dictionary (such as it's English definition, for example) simply click it in the Output list dialog to highlight it and select Edit... from the Word menu. The Edit word dialog (shown in Figure 3 below) will be displayed, ready to accept your changes. Press the Save button when you have finished any changes.

Figure 3. The Edit word dialog