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Japan Foundation's Basic Japanese-English Dictionary
Kenkyusha's Furigana English-Japanese Dictionary
Martin's Basic Japanese Conversation Dictionary
Martin's Pocket Dictionary: English-Japanese, Japanese-English
Takebayashi: The Kenkyusha Japanese-English Learner's Dictionary

(See also the kanji page for kanji dictionaries.)

Japan Foundation. 1986. Basic Japanese-English Dictionary. Bonjinsha, Tokyo. xvi+958 pp. ¥2575.

This is an extremely helpful dictionary because of it's extensive examples and explanations, although it's coverage seems a bit limited - it's easy to find words not among its 2873 entries. It's thus more useful as an aid to mastering the grammar of common forms - e.g. to see what particles to use with particular verbs - than as a general reference for looking up unknown vocabulary.

The entries are given in two columns, one entirely in Japanese (with roomaji transcription, as well as furigana on the kanji) and the other a translation of the entry and examples into English. (Presumably this is to allow editions in other languages to be prepared by changing only the second column.). Even on the Japanese side the main entry is in roomaji (followed by the normal spelling in kanji and/or kana), and the entries are listed in normal English alphabetical order. In addition to a brief introduction on how to use the dictionary there is a brief sketch of Japanese grammar in an appendix.

Kenkyusha. 1990. Furigana Eiwa JiteN / Kenkyusha's Furigana English-Japanese Dictionary. Kenkyusha, Tokyo. [vi]+980 pp. ¥2000.

Most larger English-to-Japanese dictionaries give the Japanese equivalents of the English entries in normal Japanese orthography, which often includes kanji, This is fine for Japanese users, but it tends to make them unusable for all but the most advanced Japanese learners. Kenkyusha's dictionary overcomes this by giving furigana over all of the kanji. Another advantage of the dictionary is it's amazingly large and up-to-date range of entires, some 49,000, including such things as proper names (e.g. Fiji, Gestapo, Coca-Cola), common phrases (e.g. dunk shot, financial year, Gestalt psychology), occasional abbreviations and acronyms (e.g. FAO, MVP), elegant foreignisms (e.g. e pluribus unum, fin de si�cle), and non-standard spellings (e.g. dunno, hafta). Unfortunately, however, it often does not give much basis for choosing among the listed Japanese equivalents: e.g. seven Japanese equivalents, grouped by semicolons into for groups, are listed for the English noun 'flare', with nothing in English to suggest what the differences among them might be. Thus it will often be necessary to also consult a Japanese-English dictionary to make choose among the possibilities.

Martin, Samuel E. 1959. Basic Japanese Conversation Dictionary (rev. ed.). Charles E. Tuttle, Rutland VT. x+266 pp. (A$9.95)

This is a useful little two-way dictionary that fits in the pocket, and hence was not surprisingly in its 76th printing when I bought it. It only has about 3000 brief entries in each section, English to Japanese and vice versa, but the ones selected seem ample and suitable for everyday practical purposes in Japanese life. Verbs are usefully listed in both their polite and familiar (or �dictionary') form, and the kanji or kana spelling of Japanese forms are given in the English-Japanese section, which turns out to be useful for such tasks as letter writing. If it also marked the accent of words it would be almost perfect for it's limited purpose.

Martin, Samuel E. 1990. Martin's Pocket Dictionary: English-Japanese, Japanese-English. Charles E. Tuttle, Rutland VT. [xx]+724.

This can be thought of as an improvement over Martin (1959) above in that it marks accent and gives a bit more information about forms in addition to being considerably enlarged - some 18,000 entries in the two directions together (somewhat over half being in the Japanese-English section, which lists several forms of each verb separately). Regrettably, however, it has become a bit bulky for one's shirt pocket, although it's not as bad in a suit pocket or a purse. In addition it does a bit worse than Martin (1959) by not giving the kanji or kana spellings of Japanese words. This is fine if you're only interested in conversation, but it makes it necessary to refer to some other source for writing.

Takebayashi, Shigeru (Chief Ed.). 1992. The Kenkyusha Japanese-English Learner's Dictionary. Kenkyusha, Tokyo. xiv+1121 pp. ¥4200.

This is an excellent learner's dictionary. The entries are Roman letters and show accentual patterns, and they are followed by the normal Japanese spelling, clear statements of meaning, examples in sentences, and occasionally a picture or table. The romanisation is slightly unusual in that all long vowels are written as double (thus oo and ee) and the so-called "syllabic n" is written with a tilde to distinguish it from "normal" n. Appendices include very brief outlines of Japanese pronunciation and grammar and a list of about a thousand "essential" vocabulary items.