DS Rakuhiki Jiten

By Spencer . September 29, 2005 . 1:30am

Purchase at Play-Asia

 

Purchase at Lik-Sang

 

DS Rakuhiki Jiten (DS Easy Dictionary.) is the latest in Nintendo’s "adult brain training series". Rakuhiki Jiten is a productivity tool, not even a game in the least bit. Simply put it’s a dictionary with a couple of extra features to play with. You might be thinking why even care about it then? Well it comes particularly useful for game importers looking for an interactive Japanese dictionary.

 

The software allows you to write kana on the bottom screen to look up hiragana or katakana. Looking up a word brings up a definition in Japanese, which is what you would expect. Although, most words come with an English translation making this a perfect alternative for importers instead of a Japanese dictionary. If you haven’t memorized all of the kana, all you need to do is select kana using the touch screen keyboard to look up a word. A fast and simple solution compared to looking up all of the romanji first. What is missing is a multi radical kanji search. If you want to look up kanji, you’ll have to know the kana translation (note: most games have kana on top of the kanji). If  DS Rakuhiki Jiten had you look up kanji by drawing them on the touch screen, this would be an awesome tool. Even some Japanese residents don’t memorize all of the obscure kanji, which could have make DS Rakuhiki Jiten a hot seller.

 

In exchange for not having a kanji lookup you can use Pictochat to link up with other DS users to ask other people hoping they are familiar with the foreign kanji. Unlikely to help many people out there, but it’s an option. DS Rakuhiki Jiten isn’t really designed for importers but for native Japanese speakers to use as a Japanese to English dictionary and not the reverse. For this purpose the software is pretty useful. You can write letters onscreen to look up a word, which can come in handy if you’re touring Japan.

 

Besides being a dictionary there are a bunch of other tools hidden in this package. When you click on the wrench on the left hand side of the screen another menu opens up. This menu reveals a world clock, that allows you to look up the time by country. A calendar that lets you look up all of the dates in a month all the way up to year 2099. Other features include a simple calculator an a timer with three different settings.

 

One really cool feature is a fifty page micro notebook. When you select the icon with a person drawn on paper (paper marker) you can draw short notes with the touch screen. The area you’re limited to is less than a quarter of the bottom screen. It’s not much room to draw a masterpiece or write a novel, but it’s perfect for jotting a thought down. With fifty different pages to write, this is easily the most useful bonus feature in  DS Rakuhiki Jiten. Will you break out your DS and boot this up just for some short note taking, probably not. Still it’s a cool gimmick to have in the package.

 

While none of the bonus features are going to sway someone to purchase the game, DS Rakuhiki Jiten’s primary use is a strong selling point. If you need help with Japanese you have three different volumes of the Daily Concise Dictionary in a tiny cartridge to help you out. It’s best used to look up unknown words. Or if you’re in Japan to translate English text into Japanese so everyone else can understand you when you ask where the restroom is.

 

Import Friendly? Literacy Level: 3

On one hand it’s an extremely useful piece of software for looking up Japanese text. However, it’s kanji menus will intimidate many eager importers hoping to use this as translation software.

 

US Bound?

It’s unlikely that Nintendo would release a Japanese dictionary in the US, even a US dictionary seems unlikely.

 

+ Pros: Touch screen kana look-up of thousands of words, most with English definitions.

 

- Cons: No multi radical kanji lookup.

 

Overall: This is extremely useful for importers who need a little help decoding kanji. Otherwise it’s an advanced dictionary with a few bells and whistles.

 

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