What should I look for in a dictionary to help me study?


As per the title, what should I look for in a dictionary to help me study
Japanese? Are there certain things that I should look for in the dictionary or
are they all pretty much the same?

To elaborate a bit, what should one be looking for when they are at the
following stages?

  * Casual traveler who is visiting Japan and wants to be able to communicate but does not wish to learn the language.
  * Student who is just starting to learn the language.
  * Student who is looking to move to being fluent in the language.
  * Individual who is already fluent in conversational Japanese but is looking for more specialized knowledge (e.g. computers, engineering, medical, etc).




You will want:

  * No romaji. Romaji hurts your pronunciation and is a crutch. Get something with furigana, or even better, hiragana in parentheses.
  * Lots of example sentences. Context is invaluable in learning new words.
  * Electronic is better. It's faster and can be used mid conversation much more easily. Plus you can write in unknown characters with a stylus. Plus if you get a good one you might never need to replace it.
  * Once you are at a high enough level you will want to make use of a 国語辞典 (Japanese dictionary in Japanese). They are often more thorough, and some stuff is just hard to explain in English. 




You will want:

  * No romaji. Romaji hurts your pronunciation and is a crutch. Get something with furigana, or even better, hiragana in parentheses.
  * Lots of example sentences. Context is invaluable in learning new words.
  * Electronic is better. It's faster and can be used mid conversation much more easily. Plus you can write in unknown characters with a stylus. Plus if you get a good one you might never need to replace it.
  * Once you are at a high enough level you will want to make use of a 国語辞典 (Japanese dictionary in Japanese). They are often more thorough, and some stuff is just hard to explain in English. 

