Daijisen - Reviews

Reviews

The Japanese lexicographer Tom Gally (1999) analyzes the Daijisen,

This dictionary seems in many ways a clone of Daijirin. Not only is the same Tokyo University professor listed as editor – though it is important to note that the names appearing on the covers of Japanese dictionaries often have little relation to the people who actually did the work; one case in point being Koujien, even the most recent editions of which list as editor one 新村出 Shinmura Izuru, who has been dead since 1967 – but the definitions in Daijisen follow closely those of Daijirin as well. It also follows Daijirin's practice of putting the contemporary meanings first in its definitions. The two chief differences I've noticed are that Daijisen has color pictures while Daijirin uses line drawings – a rather obvious difference – and that the example sentences and phrases in Daijisen are more often typical of the contemporary language rather than citations from classical literature. This latter point makes Daijisen my first choice when I am writing Japanese and I want to check how words are used in context.

The bibliographer and cataloguer Yasuko Makino (2002) describes the Daijisen,

Over 220,000 words including archaic words, technical terms, geographical and personal names, and other proper names as well although focus is on modern words, are in this easy-to-use dictionary. Numerous examples of usage, explanation of delicate difference in the usage of each words, abundant inclusion of synonyms, and 6,000 all-color illustrations are a few of its strengths. One of the unique features of this dictionary is a listing of last elements, which functions as reverse-order dictionary. Includes detailed color charts. This works as kokugo jiten, kanwa jiten, kogo jiten, katakanago jiten, and encyclopedia.

This depiction echoes Shogakukan's blurb that the Daijisen is an "all-in-one, multi-functional dictionary" (オールインワン多機能辞典).