Luminous no longer freely available

[freddie matthews]

Hey all,

If anyone missed it like me, Kenkyusha's Luminous dictionary (ルミナス英和・和英辞典), which was previously accessible at https://www.kenkyusha.co.jp/modules/08_luminous/, was taken down from public access. Kenkyusha did announce this on their main page on April 3, stating it would be removed at the end of the month, though no actual reason was given.

It's unfortunate because one advantage this J–E dictionary has over others is detailed usage notes on some entries, which were especially useful for English borrowings in Japanese that differed in their ideal translations. 

Note, there seem to have only been two published editions of the dictionary. The following is my research on alternative ways to access the dictionary:

* The dead tree J–E edition goes for around ¥3,740, though in the age of computers, I'm personally loath to grab a book and manually look up entries

* There's a macOS/iOS app for ¥2,900

* Seiko seems to bundle it in some dictionary apps for iPad (I'm region-restricted from purchasing and don't see a price tag).

* Kenkyusha offers an online subscription service for its dictionaries, KOD, which seems to include it, going for ¥550 per month for the basic plan.

Probably the best option for Apple users who still wish to use it after a one-time purchase would be the standalone app, unless this is also slated for imminent takedown. Personally, I'll likely go for the subscription service since I've wanted to access Kenkyusha's supplemental lexicon (KOD 追加語彙) for a while, though subscription services come with their own drawbacks.

Jim, could you confirm if you can still access Luminous via KOD?

– Opencooper

[Jim Breen]

Yes, ルミナス is still available via the online KOD subscription.

I find that subscription service very useful. The EJ dictionaries
there can be a great help too as often a Japanese term that doesn't
appear in the JEs will be in the EJ's explanations

They used to have 大辞林 as well, but that was dropped a few years ago.

Jim

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--
Jim Breen
Adjunct Snr Research Fellow, Japanese Studies Centre, Monash University
http://www.jimbreen.org/
http://nihongo.monash.edu/

[freddie matthews]

Thanks for confirming Jim. I was able to successfully sign up for KOD. Didn't have any issues registering from outside of Japan.

– Opencooper

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[Ahmed Fasih]

Opencooper’s note from a couple of months ago led me to some great Japanese-to-English dictionaries (I picked up the iOS Luminous app!), but it also made me want to ask—is there anything like JMDict for Japanese-to-English? Not necessarily free cost-wise (though that’ll be nice) but easily-licensed and high quality?

Thank you!

Ahmed

[Jim Breen]

>> is there anything like JMDict for Japanese-to-English

Do you mean Engish-to-Japanese? The Kenkyusha online service has several.

Jim

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[Ahmed Fasih]

>> is there anything like JMDict for Japanese-to-English
>
> Do you mean Engish-to-Japanese? The Kenkyusha online service has several.

Ah indeed! But I was curious if any had an *open license* like JMDict, and therefore suitable for small personal projects?

(Japanese Wiktionary is one option and I was curious if there were others.)

[Adam Nohejl]

Hi,

there seems to be free access to Luminous here:

https://www.kenkyusha.co.jp/collab/KanjiAlive/index.php?book=lumi_waei&method=forward

The URL implies it's a collaboration with KanjiAlive, but the URL is Googlable and accessible without any authentication.

(I bought the iOS app nonetheless.)

Best regards,

--
Adam Nohejl

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[Jim Breen]

Thanks for that link.

The links on their Site Map page are interesting too.

Jim

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