Ectaco Partner EJ400T Review

When it comes to consumer electronics, Japan is known as a nation of superlatives. Cell phones, notebooks, and digital cameras generally seem to be a step ahead of their American counterparts, often smaller, faster, and more feature-rich. Add to this nearly universal English study in schools, and it should come as no surprise that most electronics stores in Tokyo carry dozens of portable Japanese-English electronic dictionaries. Resembling miniature computers with their QWERTY-keyboards and LCD screens, they are common among Japanese students studying abroad.

Despite the large selection of electronic dictionaries designed for native Japanese speakers, few models are designed and marketed to native English speakers studying Japanese. (While models designed for Japanese speakers may be useful to advanced students who can read the Kanji (Chinese-origin characters) in English to Japanese definitions of words, they are generally of limited use to beginning students). Searching online, I located three models designed for English speakers, the Ectaco Partner EJ200D, the Ectaco Partner EJ400T, and the Seiko RM2000. Based on some poor comments I read regarding the Seiko, I decided to purchase the cheaper of the two Ectaco models, both of which seem to use the same large dictionary. However, as it was out of stock when I called, I was shipped the more expensive EJ400T at the price of the EJ200D.

Like all the dictionaries I found online, the Ectaco EJ400D offers an impressive list of features, including many beyond the core dictionary functionality most users will be interested in. For example, it includes rudimentary scheduling program (limited to 50 events), currency and metric converters, and a calculator. For beginning speakers of Japanese and English, it also offers tourist-guide quality Japanese phrases (eg “How far [sic] is to the town” and “I don't understand”) and a severely abbreviated guide to English grammar (the section “General” under “Statement and Imp” in the “Sentence” chapter begins with “Sentence [sic] is a logically and grammatically interconnected group of words that expresses a thought in speech or writing”). The EJ400D can also pronounce English words though a built-in speaker, a feature of dubious value, particularly to English speakers.

Despite an extensive list of features, however, I found the EJ400D to be quite lacking in its core functionality as a electronic dictionary. While the English to Japanese function worked as one might expect, the EJ400D's interface when translating from Japanese to English makes it all but useless. Among the features the EJ400D names are 5 input methods for Japanese: “Hirigana, Katikana, Kanji, Strokes, [and] Radical.” What goes unsaid, however, is that you must choose your input method carefully, as words that the EJ400D recognizes in when located using one input method are unlikely to be found using others.

For example, suppose one wanted to search for “iku,” the dictionary form of the Japanese verb “to go.” In most dictionaries, entering the romanji equivalent would quickly locate the definition, regardless of whether the word is typically written in it's kanji, hirigana, or katakana form. The EJ400D, however, is completely ignorant of the relationship between the kanji, hirigana, and katakana forms of words. Thus, searching in hirigana mode for いく (iku) does not locate the common verb. Worse, if the “Slang lock” is turned off in the settings, the EJ400D provides “come, orgasm” as the only definition for いく (iku).

Finding the desired definition for いく (iku) turns out to be quite a laborious process that arguably demands far more knowledge of Japanese than anyone trying to look up simple words is likely to have. To enter the desired kanji, a user can either type one of the kanji's readings, locate it by radical then remaining strokes, or by total number of strokes. As each of these methods is marked by its own disadvantages, finding kanji requires both time and patience, two things users of portable electronic dictionaries may not have in abundance. For example:

In the mode designed to locate kanji by their readings, some kanji can be found with their on-readings, some by their kun-readings, and some by both. While the heart character (心) can be found by typing either “kokoro” or “shin,” the character for day (日) seems to be available only under “hi,” but not “bi,” “nichi, “jitsu,” “nitsu,” or “ka.”
Users familiar with the various forms kanji radicals can take when not part of a large character may find the radical search method of locating more intuitive. For those less familiar with their kanji dictionaries, however, it is primarily frustrating. For example, the common “road” radical is not cross-referenced in the 2 or 3 stroke form in which it most commonly appears (辶). While advanced users may know to locate it in its 7 stroke form (辵), this is a lot to ask of users trying to find such a common radical.
The mode that searches for kanji by total number of strokes may be useful for locating the relatively few 1, 2, 3, and 30 stroke character quickly, however, paging through the dozens of 7 stroke characters is fairly time consuming.

Unfortunately, the EJ400D did not meet my expectations of a portable electronic Japanese English dictionary. Though it performs competently when translating from English to Japanese, I found it to be nearly useless as a Japanese to English translation device. Perhaps there are good Japanese to English and English to Japanese portable electronic dictionaries. The Ectaco Partner EJ400D, however, is not among them.

The Ectaco Partner English-Japanese Electronic Dictionary Model EJ400T

A dictionary to watch out for.