10000 Japanese Idioms

Speak like a native with A Dictionary of Japanese Idioms. Find the best expression for every situation!

What student of Japanese has not grappled with the amazing diversity and tantalizingly elusive nuances of its idioms? One certainly would not want to confuse, for example, 気が回る (to be considerate) with 気を回す (to be suspicious). And it would be useful to know whether your boss is 腹が立つ (angry) or merely 気が立つ (upset). Indeed, even a single idiom can have a bewildering number of meanings depending on context: 手を入れる, for instance, can mean tidying up (e.g. a room), sounding someone out, or staging a raid.

This dictionary offers the most comprehensive compilation and English translation of those idiomatic expressions that so enrich the Japanese language but fail to find their way into conventional dictionaries. It contains 10,000 idiomatic phrases under some 2,200 main entries, including several thousands of idioms never presented and explained in English before. Multiple sample phrases are given for each entry, and furigana (as well as audio) allows even beginning students to correctly pronounce and use the expressions immediately.

FEATURES include:

• Incremental search in English and Japanese
• Spell-checking in English and romaji
• Bookmark, annotate and share entries
• Jump to other apps and web dictionaries
• Portrait + landscape modes
• Slide Over Multitasking Mode (iPad)
• Split View (iPad, Plus/Max phones)
• Night mode (dark mode)
• Share Extension to add cards to Anki
• Widget

Based on “A Dictionary of Japanese Idioms” by William de Lange, Floating World Editions.