I have had a good electronic dictionary which is Sharp PW-E550.
It has Oxford dictionary and Thesaurus, and they are very extensive
and useful. One of the features of the dictionary that I love is that
it provides me with the origins of the words. Many of the entries
are accompanied with some detailed explanation of their origins.
One may find this kind of feature only in bigger dictionaries. And
I am happy that my cheap and little electronic dictionary has it.
However, this Sharp provides me with an English-English dictionary
only. So I wanted an electronic dictionary that has English-Korean
and also Korean-English capabilities. Also, come to think of it, it
would be better to have Japanese-Korean and Korean-Japanese
because I am also deeply interested in Japanese literature, especially
works by Miyazawa Kenji. In addition, I want to learn Chinese
someday. So I may need Chinese-Korean and Korean-Chinese.
Well, in fact, many dictionaries sold in Korea are fully furnished
with those various dictionaries.
I have spent some time searching and comparing the electronic
dictionaries that are available on internet. I narrowed down to
two stuffs. One was Casio EW-L6200, and the other one was
Nurian X3. Casio was quite excellent in English dictionaries, while
I chose Nurian as a candidate for its small size. Moreover
this has adequate English dictionaries and good Japanese and
Chinese dictionaries. Casio's display was in black/white, while
Nurian's was in color. After giving much thought, I chose Nurian.
I am quite happy with it now. Though the small display seems
congested from time to time, it is dictionary all right, and
one normally don't spend that much time on an entry of a
word or phrase. One more thing: Casio was bigger and more
expensive than Nurian.
Nurian can also recognize your handwriting. I found this function
is quite useful, especially when searching Chinese or Japanese
words. But I have to add that this function can be found in
many other electronic dictionaries too.
If you want a good English dictionary, I recommend you to
consider the Casio. If I haven't had my Sharp, I would certainly
have bought that. On the other hand, if you have interests in
the other languages too, just like me, I guess you need some
compromise, because each electronic dictionary has its own
strength and weakness.
- Eunbam, 080315