The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary is a comprehensive kanji dictionary for learners of Japanese. It covers lots of ground, providing you with not only the definitions of many commonly-used kanji, but also acts as a useful lookup guide as well. You can look up kanji many different way with the Kodansha dictionary; everything from stroke order, to different radicals. The kun’yomi and on’yomi of each kanji is given, along with several words related to or including the kanji.

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Pros

• Contains a comprehensive collection of thousands of commonly-used kanji.
• Helps you look up kanji by stroke order, radical, and other traits.
• Great reference tool.
• Small (for a kanji dictionary).

Cons

• Large and somewhat intimidating.
• More of a reference tool than a way to learn new kanji.
• Might be somewhat limited for more advanced students.

Final Word?

The Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary is an essential tool to have for any advanced learner of Japanese. While it isn’t the best at teaching you the basics of kanji and helping you learn new kanji, it is definitely extremely useful to help you look up kanji you don’t know or help you understand the meaning of a word. Highly recommended.