How to search
1. Type anything
| You type | Tanro Dictionary understands |
|---|---|
taberu | Romaji, converted to たべる to find 食べる |
タベル / たべる | Katakana and hiragana are treated as the same |
食べる | Matches the exact spelling |
hanh phuc | Vietnamese without diacritics still finds “hạnh phúc”; the correctly accented form ranks first |
eat, ăn | Reverse lookup by meaning, finding 食べる and related words |
2. Choose a direction
On “Auto”, Tanro Dictionary searches by both written form and meaning across all languages. For tighter results, choose a direction in the box next to the search box:
| Direction | You type | Results |
|---|---|---|
| English → Vietnamese | school | English words, Vietnamese meanings |
| English → Japanese | school | Japanese words meaning school: 学校, スクール… |
| Japanese → Vietnamese/English | gakkou, 学校 | Japanese words only |
| Vietnamese → Japanese | trường học | Japanese words whose Vietnamese meaning is “trường học”: 学校, 学園… |
| Vietnamese → English | gia đình | Vietnamese words and English words meaning “gia đình” |
When searching Vietnamese words, type the correct diacritics: “ăn” won't get mixed up with “ẩn” or “án”.
3. Reading an entry
- Common: the word appears in JMdict's lists of frequent words (newspapers, textbooks). Learn these first.
- Sino-Vietnamese: the Sino-Vietnamese reading of each kanji in the word, e.g. 勉強 is MIỄN CƯỜNG, 学校 is HỌC HIỆU.
- Part of speech: group 1 verb (godan), group 2 verb (ichidan), い-adjective, な-adjective…
- The source label at the end of each meaning shows where it comes from. The icon means a machine translation not yet reviewed by an editor (hover over the icon for a note).
4. Suggestions while typing
As you type, a list of suggestions appears. Use ↑ ↓ to select, Enter to search, Esc to close.
5. Listen to pronunciation
Click the speaker icon next to an English or Japanese word to hear it using the voices available on your device.