were electronic dictionaries a bigger deal in japan than elsewhere? as far as i know, in america they were never anything more than novelties even before everyone had a computer in their pocket. i did a little googling and it seems like they were/are more common in japan but couldn’t find any reference as to why. my only guess is that it has something to do with keeping track of kanji but in the 80s they probably weren’t even capable of displaying kanji so /shrug
Well… Yeah. Everybody’s using their phones instead.
Lots of old people in Japan. When I went I found an entire floor of a department store dedicated to brand new fax machines.
Which is probably why they do still sell these dictionaries, just not nearly as many as they used to.
I still own an electronic Japanese dictionary but haven’t used it in about 10 years. I have a dictionary app on my phone that I use nearly every day.
About the only thing the electronic version still does better than any of the apps I’ve tried, surprisingly, is handwritten kanji recognition, I think perhaps because it comes with a little stylus that makes it more precise.
