Author Description

As its title suggests, this dictionary is designed to be useful. It is pocket-size, so it can accompany its user anywhere, yet contains nearly 8,000 entries, all of which include both a romanized equivalent & the Japanese characters with which the word is written. Emphasis has been placed on introducing up-to-date colloquial expressions & on the naturalness & effectiveness of all English & Japanese terms. The entries have been selected to meet the needs of students, residents of Japan, & visitors to Japan. To aid the serious student of the language, pitch is noted. Supplementing the entries are a capsule guide to Japanese grammar, verb conjugation tables, a guide to pronunciation, a date conversion table, & a listing of suffixes used in counting.