電子辞書: Electronic Dictionary

A electronic Dictionary is a very important tool for those who are serious about mastering japanese, because when you want to know what 漢字 (kanji) means but you don't have a kanji dictionary then you're stuck. With a electronic dictionary, as long as you know how the 漢字 looks like and the proper strokes, then you can find out what it means and the furigana for that 漢字.

NOTE: The order of the strokes is important, I had some classmates that didn't really understand why it's important to learn about the strokes(I'm chinese, so yea ^.^)

Anyway, my first (and only) electronic dictionary is a Casio EX-word XD-GF9800, it's part of the 2009 models, strictly speaking there was only like 2 models that are good for "us", one is this, and the other is the XD-GF10000 which costs like 100 dollars more but it's has more japanese-japanese dictionary, and that wasn't really appealling at the time, plus I wanted to spend the 100 dollars else where.

BTW the most important function that a electonic dictionary should have, and most does, is the jump function, which allows you to highlight 漢字 to look up the meaning, the XD-GF9800 will search through all of the dictionary for the word, and gives you a list.

There are other companies that makes 電子辞書 like sharp, canon(i think), seiko, but like most out there, it's expensive...mine costed around 450....but it's very useful. Anyway, they have other functions too, like a E-book, I think all of the 電子辞書 2010 model all have color touchscreens now, (Mine is the last black and white), and they cram alot of other books into these 電子辞書 like travel-phase book, or business terms, or even novels.