Weighed down with features

This is the most feature rich Japanese dictionary, but the features seem to weigh it down so much as to render it useless. Want to look up a word while carrying on a conversation? 30 seconds to start the program and 20 seconds to search once you push go. A real conversation stopper.

While hardly functional as a conversation tool, it does shine as a study aid. The kanji keyboard, an iPhone feature, was great for helping me decipher signs on a recent trip to Tokyo, and even helped decipher trail signs while hiking hakkodo san this last weekend. But, that is thanks to integration if the iphone kanji keyboard, which you can also use in cheaper and faster dictionaries.

What this does that the others dont is allow me to save new words and kanji to a study folder, which coverts my saved items into flash cards.

I have a problem with the search results, which tend to return lists of words for every search, most that are not relavent, or are the wrong words fir conversation. I would like to see sample applications if the words, like I can find in a good conversation dictionary. This application provides sample japanese sentences, but you need to know kanji to read them. Finally, the most common method for quiiting the application seems to be the crash.

A bonus: A major warning about signing up for the lifetime free account: The developer is a major spammer, sending me multiple emails a day.

Bottom line, a good study aid, but a poor and unreliable tool for daily use from an obtrusive spammer. Spend your $20 elsewhere. For now, this tool is mostly potential.

bdonnach about Gengo Talking Japanese Dictionary