JapanesePod101.com Blog

Top Secret Project with the Legendary Jim Breen Finished!

Well, it’s done, and it’s alive!

Mr. Jim Breen, Innovative Language Learning, and JapanesePod101.com, are happy to announce that EDICT, Jim Breen’s legendary Japanese to English dictionary, now has…

Audio clips for all entries!

So what exactly am I going on about?

First, let me back up a second.

If you’re studying Japanese, you’ve encountered Jim Breen’s EDICT Japanese to English dictionary, whether directly at WWWJDIC or through another Japanese language learning tool. (Many popular Japanese language learning tools use EDICT.)

Having used the dictionary at WWWJDIC countless times during my Japanese studies, I’m a huge fan of the site. Last November, I contacted Mr. Breen about the possibility of working with him to provide Japanese audio clips of native Japanese speakers for the entire EDICT dictionary! Mr. Breen not only welcomed the project, but he also joined us in the trenches! (More on that in a bit.)

The Mission: Provide Audio Clips for EVERY entry in the ENTIRE EDICT dictionary!

To put the task into perspective, we’ve been teaching Japanese for 3 years and amassed an audio library of only 20,000 words. Mr. Breen’s Dictionary was 120,000+ at the time we undertook the project. Furthermore there were technological issues, coordination issues and the holiday season standing in our way, but last November we started.

And here’s what it took to get it done:

• 8 voice actors (taking shifts) going at it 5+ hours a day
• 3 audio engineers editing 10 hours a day on 2 continents
• The technology team working in the US, Japan, and Germany
• Mr. Breen himself joining us in the trenches from Australia, as he rolled up his sleeves to code.
• The support of the entire JapanesePod101.com team
• And probably a lot more people working behind the scenes

This project was a beast! But, 5 months later EVERY entry in EDICT has an audio clip!

Well, almost…

The snag: EDICT, the Japanese Dictionary, keeps growing!

Just when the celebrating began, we got a nice and nasty reality check. You see, EDICT is constantly getting bigger, thanks to all the contributors out there. So when we started the project, the list was 123,000 words, the number of recordings we made!

EDICT is now 140,000 words! Thanks, contributors. :)  So, unfortunately for our voice actors, it’s back to the studio. You can help by reporting missing words, so that we can record them.

Enough already with the behind the scenes stuff! How does it work?

Okay, okay. Yep, you want to test it out. Here is what you do:

1. Head over to WWWJDIC
2. Search for any word
3. Where there is a clip available for an entry, a play button will appear at the start of the entry. Click this button to play the clip.
4. Click the link to a lesson about the word (if available) on the JapanesePod101 site.

We would like to thank Mr. Breen, who has been supportive or our site since its inception, for giving us this opportunity. We hope that adding audio to EDICT will be a valuable tool for your Japanese studies.

Thank you to every one who contributed to the project. There were so many of you, and we know that it was very intense, especially with such a short deadline. We truly appreciate it.
Our main goal here at JapanesePod101.com is to provide Japanese students around the world with great learning tools. We hope that this enhancement will be a well-received addition.

We’re looking forward to your feedback!

Note: Premium members, you have access to all of this audio in the premium section of JapanesePod101.com.

Someone asked on a recent post at Japanesepod101.com what なつこ先生’s name was in 漢字. I said that it was 夏子. I’m pretty sure it’s 夏子, in all of the early PDFs, she is listed as 夏子.

Almost all Japanese people have 漢字 names, and all family names are 漢字. The last time I went to Japan, I was quite fluent with my 漢字 from my Chinese study, but I still found common Japanese names very interesting. Whenever I’d go into any shop, I’d make a point of reading the various workers’ namecards. I found the names fascinating.

To someone used to dry, uninteresting Chinese names, Japanese names are a breath of fresh air. They sound like they were made up by hippie parents. Take 夏子 for example (the name, not the lady!) The first character is ’summer’, the second, ‘child’. I often get a pleasant surprise when I hear about Japanese peoples’ names. Some which are so common seem so poetic.

田中・たなか: ‘Field’ and ‘middle’. Whenever I meet someone with the surname 田中, I always picture one of their ancient ancestors working hard in the field, and someone asking his surname. This was at a time when surnames weren’t so common, so the first 田中 took a long thoughtful look at his surroundings and thought, ‘well I’m standing in the middle of a field, so…’