WaKan Project Website

[danvx6]

Hello everyone!

After finding Wakan by accident through another forum, I began using it, and was extremely surprised by the extent of its features. This wonderful piece of software instantly replaced my old dictionary (JWPce) and has made it so easy to make vocabulary lists and keep track of kanji. I am amazed. There is one thing I do miss from JWPce though, which is the ability to search the dictionary using kanji or kana input instead of romaji. Is this feature planned for a future update?

Also, the feature that highlights words from your vocabulary list in the dictionary is great, but it can be pretty redundant. I've searched for an option to make vocab list definitions display after the EDICT entries instead of before, but I had no luck in finding such an option. Does anyone know a way to keep the redundant definitions out of the way?

This software is probably the single most useful piece of software I have ever used, and it is freeware on top of that. If the two issues above (mostly the first one, the second one is just me being picky ) are taken care of then I would have no reason to use any other software with Wakan, because it alone could do everything that I need.

Thank you for this great software, and also thanks for taking the time to read this.

[tony]

danvx6,

I'm glad to hear that you are finding WaKan so useful. About JWPce, though-- it is not really intended to be a dictionary, and as a word processor I think it is considerably more useful than WaKan's Editor/Translator window. Each program has its own strengths.

As for searching the dictionary with search strings containing kanji and/or kana, that has been a standing request for a long time, but I don't know of any plans to implement it in the near future. A very helpful tool for this purpose is a new program named zkanji, available at http://zkanji.extra.hu/ . The author of zkanji is looking for testers, and is very responsive to feature requests. zkanji is intended to be primarily a kanji study program, but it is already a very handy dictionary utility, having been inspired in many ways by WaKan. It can search for words by kana or by a combination of kana and kanji, as you requested, and can find words beginning or ending with a given search string. Also, when it recognizes an inflected verb or adjective, it tells you which inflection it is. I use it all the time in my fledgling attempts to read and write Japanese.

The primary features of WaKan's dictionary which are missing in zkanji are (1) the screen popup tool (zkanji has a popup dictionary, but you have to copy text to the clipboard in order for zkanji to access it), and (2) the example sentences, which I refer to constantly when writing a sentence with a word which is new to me.

It would be nice if one program had all the features one typically needs, but sometimes programs do the job better if they specialize a little, and besides, since all of these programs are free, there is not much room for complaint.

--tony

[wakan]

Hello danvx6,

I've added your request for option to display vocabulary meaning after the dictionary one (or not at all) to my to-do list.

Your second request is already there (support for UNICODE input).

Filip

[danvx6]

Thank you very much!