Long awaited, Kodansha"s Communicative English-Japanese Dictionary is the result of 15 years of research and development. With over 22,000 entries and 19,000 example sentences and phrases, it is by far the most comprehensive and practical dictionary of its kind. Within the pages of this book are most of the words needed for ordinary and even sophisticated conversation. That is because great care has gone into the selection of the entry words and their meanings. This dictionary contains not only high-frequency English words with full Japanese equivalents, but also a number of technical terms, buzz words, and vocabulary related to Japanese culture. It also presents a large number of interjections, idioms, and phrasal verbsthe words/phrases at the very heart of the English language. More importantly, The Communicative strives to present only natural Japanese equivalents. The Japanese language in it, therefore, ranges from colloquial to formal, masculine to feminine, and humble to polite. Most of the equivalents are readily usable in everyday speech, making the book extremely useful as a tool for conversation. This dictionary also features furigana superscript. Furigana is the small script that appears above the kanji characters, indicating their pronunciation. Furigana is made up of hiragana, the basic Japanese syllabary, which most people learn in the first two weeks of studying Japanese. Thus, anyone who can read hiragana can use this book even if they do not know a single kanji character. Also included are 27 illustrations of items with parts labeled, a map of Japan, special entries on Japanese usage, and appendixes explaining the various forms of Japanese verbs and other grammar points.