[Micaiah_Chang]

I've been studying the language for a while, and recently made the switch to Japanese-Japanese dictionaries, after using EDICT for a long time.

This has highlighted some reservations I have about it.

The most available example (not the best) is 適当, where it can be interchangeably be used to mean "adequate" and "half-assed", sort of sarcastically. The definition being a mostly undifferentiated bag of words, without necessarily regard for nuance or typical use cases.

Contrast this with the goo dictionary, which has a slightly better structure (http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/151064/m0u/%E9%81%A9%E5...) and the 類語 dictionary, that gives synonyms and situations where you would use one over another (http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/thsrs/2512/m0u/).

I understand that there's probably no way to deal with this in a scaleable way that would be as easy to turn it into flash cards but it's kinda sad to see the gap between the two solutions.

Apologies for not having a more constructive suggestion.

[glandium]

I've been relying on japanese-japanese dictionaries for a while, and they work best IMHO once you're past a certain level. Also, most good non-jp-jp resources are in english, and, after all, english is not my native language either, so I might as well deal with everything in japanese. I just wish I could find an app that does everything in japanese, but I never found one. Tried a few, but there are so many that it's hard to find something decent. The result is that I haven't actually actively studied japanese for a while, and rely on "passive" learning from talking, reading and watching TV (I live in Japan, that helps). I'm actually sufficiently annoyed that I'm not retaining as much as I would like that I'm considering writing a web app to handle my own learning.

Edit: by the way, I once stumbled upon an online dictionary that also showed the "standard" intonation for words (something that I've very rarely seen mentioned), but I can't find it again :(

[chrisvasselli]

Yeah, it's definitely a weakness in Nihongo. I'd love to have a really well-integrated Japanese-Japanese dictionary, but I've never been able to find a J-J open-source database like JMDict/EDict. My solution for now is that you can tap on the menu button in the top-right of any entry, and open it in the built-in iPhone dictionary, which includes a J-J dictionary. But that's not a very satisfying answer.