From August 2022 a number of surface forms are being included in the dictionary database purely for the purpose are enabling them to be used as search keys. More information about this can be found here.
In WWWJDIC using one of these "search-only" terms as a lookup key will take you to the entry, but the key will not appear in the entry display. For example, looking up "ちょう笑" leads you to the "嘲笑" entry. These keys (if any) can be seen in the new [Sch] drop-down at the end of the display of an entry which contains these terms.
The main dictionary used by WWWJDIC has a limited number of proper names (see the policy on this.) This means that users encountering a (company) name such as 日清 and looking it up may get quite misleading results if the term is in the main dictionary with a different meaning.
To address this issue, if there are identical terms in both the main and name dictionaries, a link is added to the dictionary display offering the chance to see the name entry as well. (See the 日清 example.)
The Kanjidic display now has links to the IPA online kanji database. The database is part of their 文字情報基盤整備事業 project, and includes all the JIS kanji along with many variant forms. The link goes to a general page, e.g. [page for] 再 where there are four variants. Follow the "MJnnnn" link under each form to go to the detailed information. On the detailed information page the "親字・正字の関連を見る" link takes you to a graphic showing relationships between related kanji.
Sites making large numbers of accesses via the API interface may be blocked without notice. The typical threshold is exceeding 10,000 accesses in a 24-hour period (one site made over 90,000 accesses in a day.) Such heavy use is better handled by a local copy of the data. Users who wish to make occasional large amounts of use of the service should contact Jim Breen in advance.
Sites making repeated calls to the EDRDG Wiki, etc. will be blocked at a lower threshld, typically around 1,500 calles/day.
The mirror at ottix.net has been retired. Many thanks to William Maton for allowing a mirror on that site. In fact the Canadian mirrors were among the first mirror sites for WWWJDIC.
The set of links to other resources following the display of dictionary entries has been replaced by a single "Links" tag at the end of the entry display. Clicking on it pops up a table of onward links.
This approach significantly reduces the "clutter" on the page.
After an absence of 14 months, the mirror at the NLP Group at the University of Melbourne (Jim's alma mater) has returned. The per-entry link to the Kyoto/Melbourne n-gram counts has also been restored.
The old Flash-based audio-clip player, which used Flash, has been replaced by one which plays the MP3 pronuciations in a manner compatible with modern browsers.
A big thank-you to Charles Kelly, who developed the revised approach.
The mirror at gengo.com ceased to operate a couple of weeks ago, after flawless operation for the last 6 years. Staff at the company have advised that due to changed circumstances they could no longer support a mirror.
The Japanese-Russian dictionary is now the 121,000-entry Warodai file. For a description see the documentation. There are links to the Russian sites of the Warodai project.
As the (English) Wiktionary now has significant kanji information, a link has been included on the kanji lookup pages.
A significantly expanded edition of the Japanese-Italian dictionary being developed at Ca' Foscari University of Venice has been released and included in WWWJDIC.
Some major server changes:
The "FreqCnt" link at the end of each displayed entry displays the counts for the Japanese words in the Kyoto/Melbourne Japanese N-gram Corpus.
A link on each entry which enables the full database entry to be seen.
A small change has been made to the Keitai option to set a meta-tag indicating the screen is 400 pixels wide. Most smartphone browsers will use this to adjust the focus, making this option more usable.
This new option provides a flexible multiple-search-key facility for selecting and displaying dictionary entries. It is loosely modelled on the advanced searching features in Google. (Details)
An 18,000 entry Japanese-Italian file has been included. This is the Beta release from a project at Ca' Foscari University of Venice. See the project site for more information.
The format of the display of kanji details from the "KANJIDIC" database has been extensively revised. Instead of it being a dump of all the codes from the file, only the key fields: radical, stroke-count, readings, meanings, etc. are shown, and the rest can be displayed by clicking on a link.
Also the "SOD" and "SODA" links to the stroke-order diagrams have been replaced with small images of brushes.
The mirror site at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS) ceases/ceased operation on 30 June 2011 after over 10 years of service. A new mirror has been established for operation in Japan at http://gengo.com/wwwjdic/cgi-data/wwwjdic?1C
Access to the online database for adding or updating entries has been simplified. Now an [Edit] link appears at the end of dictionary entries, which takes you to the database if you wish to propose a change to the entry. If the entry is from one of the other dictionaries (which cannot be edited) and you would like to have it included in the main JMdict/EDICT file, a [Promote] link is provided, which will load up the input form with the details of the entry.
It is now possible to enter half-width kana (hankaku kana). It will be automatically converted to full width for lookups, etc. (This mainly affects cutting and pasting text. The dictionaries all use full-width kana.)
A new system has been introduced to maintain the main dictionaries used by WWWJDIC. The "Suggest an amendment .." link now goes to that system instead of using WWWJDIC's forms. More details here. View the daily update summary.
The system operated from late May 2010 under test, and went live in July 2010.
From 5 May, 2010 WWWJDIC has switched to a simpler mechanism for playing the audio clips from JapanesePod101.com. The change means that much less has to be downloaded from the server, resulting in faster page loading. Thanks to Charles Kelly for the providing the revised method.
To help people developing iPhone, Android, etc. applications to interface with WWWJDIC, an option has been added to the "backdoor" access method to enable output of just the dictionary entries.
For regular word or kanji lookups, the output is a minimal HTML page with just the dictionary entries in EDICT or KANJIDIC format, wrapped in a <pre> block. In the case of output from the Translate Words function, some of the HTML formatting is retained.
The option uses the code of "Z" instead of the usual "M" for the backdoor, but apart from that all the parameters are the same.
At present there is no way to use the Multi-Radical kanji lookup method via the backdoor, but this may be added if there is interest.
An option is available to link entries to the Japanese WordNet. These will appear as a "[JW]" link at the end of the entry. (If you have previously customized your WWWJDIC interface, you may have to go to the Customization Page and enable the option.)
Audio examples for many of the 135,000+ EDICT entries, spoken by Japanese native speakers. These are linked to each entry when displayed on the screen. (more information)
The main dictionary entry display can now use colours to indicate the type of kanji. The colours used are:
This option can be disabled in the customization page. Note that if you have already carried out some customization, this option will be disabled and you will have to enable it using the customization page.
The former Home Page for WWWJDIC has been withdrawn, and the "Word Search" page is now the default starting point for WWWJDIC. Most of the important functions in WWWJDIC are now on the Menu Bar at the top of each page. The "Word Search" page now has the links, etc. from the old Home Page. This and other changes have been made to simplify and streamline use WWWJDIC, and will also make it easier to maintain and update.
A link to the Customization Page is now on the Menu Bar at the top of each page. Also, the Customization Page will load with your current settings, making it easier to manage. (The older URL-based customization is being withdrawn, and only the cookie-based system will continue to be supported.)
The format of the header material, including the "Menu Bar" which allows navigation to the various parts of WWWJDIC, has been revised. Also the layout of the display of dictionary entries has been slightly changed, e.g. the kanji and kana parts have been slightly increased in size.
At the same time, the customization options have been expanded, allowing users to choose to modify many aspects of the display of the main dictionary page. This includes the ability to suppress links to other sites, use a two-column display of dictionary entries, etc.
Example sentences from the Tanaka Corpus are now displayed for selected entries on the Word Display page. The display of in-line example sentences can be enabled/disabled via the customization option.
WWWJDIC is being extended to have its interface in other languages. The first being added (naturally) is Japanese, but others can follow as long as translations are carried out. Only a small part of the interface information has been translated into Japanese so far.
To turn on the Japanese interface, you need to go to the Customize Page of whichever server you use, and select Japanese as the language.
You can view the current translated messages here. (As it is a text file, you may have to set your browser manually to EUC-JP coding.)