# The &kiten; Handbook

Jason Katz-Brown

    &Jason.Katz-Brown.mail;

Daniel E. Moctezuma democtezuma@gmail.com
&FDLNotice;
2020-12-28
Applications 20.12

&kiten; is a Japanese reference/study tool by &kde;.

KDE Japanese Language

## Introduction

&kiten; is a set of 3 tools with multiple functions. Firstly, it is a convenient English to Japanese and Japanese to English dictionary; secondly, it is a Kanji dictionary, with multiple ways to look up specific characters; thirdly, it is a tool to help you learn Kanji.

Each of these modes is discussed in its own chapter.

Here's a screenshot of &kiten;
&kiten; screenshot

## Using the Dictionary

&kiten;'s most basic mode is as a dictionary for looking up both English and Japanese words. You can also add other dictionaries to &kiten;'s list.

&kiten; uses Jim Breen's Edict and Kanjidic as the default dictionaries. You can find more information at the Edict web site and the Kanjidic web site.

### Looking Up Words

To look up words in either language, type them in to the text-edit (much like &konqueror;'s location bar) and press either &Enter; or the Search button on the toolbar (again, much like &konqueror;). &kiten; will then look up the word.

You can enter Kanji, Kana and English and get back results from &kiten;. These results of your search will appear in the large results view which takes up the majority of the &kiten; window.

searching for an English translation
&kiten; search screenshot

#### Filtering

Often times you will want to filter rare words from your search. &kiten; will do this for you if toggle Search Filter Out Rare.

Not all dictionary files support filtering rare entries - most dictionaries, excluding the two provided by default in &kiten; do not.

Screenshot using filtering of rare words
&kiten; filtering search

#### Common/Uncommon words

Another way to separate information is to filter common and uncommon words, this is useful when you want to focus on the common words and/or have interest on uncommon ones. The only difference between Filter Out Rare and Common/Uncommon options is that here you also get the Rare/Uncommon results.

Screenshot for match common/uncommon
&kiten; match common/uncommon

### Advanced Searches

&kiten; supports more advanced searches than plain normal word searches.

#### Beginning/Ending/Anywhere Searches

Beside a search with Exact Match &kiten; has three additional search modes.

To search for the beginning of a word, instead of pressing the Search button on the toolbar or pressing &Enter; on the text-entry in the toolbar, choose using the Search Match Type Match Beginning. Similarly, for ending or anywhere searches, choose Search Match Type Match Anywhere or Match Ending to search for your text anywhere in or at the end of a word. These search modes work for searches of both languages.

Screenshot for match ending search
&kiten; match ending search

#### Word type searches

&kiten; supports word type searches such as: verb, noun, adjective, adverb, prefix, suffix, expression or any type. This way you can filter your results more conveniently.

Screenshot for match word type
&kiten; match word type

#### Searching in Results

&kiten; can also help you refine your searches by allowing you to search for new text in the results generated by a previous search. To do this, just choose Search Search in Results to perform your search. Similarly to beginning/ending/anywhere searches, this works for both languages too.

Screenshot for search in results
&kiten; search in results

## Looking Up Kanji

&kiten; has features that makes finding the one kanji you want easy from over 14,000 in the default dictionary.

Clicking on any Kanji in the main result view will show details on that particular Kanji. This can sometimes be the fastest way to look up a Kanji.

Kanji searches are also filtered according to whether Search Filter Out Rare is checked.

### Regular Searching

You can search with English and Japanese search strings the exact same way you can with the normal dictionary.

### Radical Searching

You can use &kiten;'s radical search dialog to search for Kanji with a combination of radicals and a certain stroke count. Choose Search Radical Selector to open the radical search dialog.

To choose the radicals you want to be in your Kanji, select one them from the buttons at the bottom of the window. To display possible radicals to select from this buttons with a certain number of strokes, choose this number of strokes from the spinboxes just above the buttons. The radicals you choose will appear in the listbox at the top.

To choose how many strokes your Kanji should have, just enter the values into the spin boxes below the results area.

To perform the lookup, press the button that matches the kanji you wanted to look up.

Screenshot for radical selector
&kiten; radical selector

### Grade Search

To get a list of all Kanji in a certain grade, enter that into the search box as "G:1" (G: is the Kanjidic tag for grade).

Screenshot for kanji grade search
&kiten; kanji grade search

### Stroke Search

To get a list of all Kanji with a certain number of strokes, enter that number the search box as "S:2".

Screenshot for kanji strokes search
&kiten; kanji strokes search

### Kanji List

This part of the Kanji Browser lets you visualize a list of kanji filtered by grade and number of strokes. By Clicking on a kanji you can get detailed information about it. Kanji Browser separates the list in Jouyou, Jinmeiyou and non-Jouyou kanji. All this kanji is available thanks to the KANJIDIC dictionary.

Screenshot for kanji list
&kiten; kanji list

### Kanji Information

This part shows you detailed information about a kanji such as: kanji stroke order, number of strokes, readings and meanings.

Screenshot for kanji information
&kiten; kanji information

## Miscellaneous

This chapter describes miscellaneous features that can be used in both modes in &kiten;'s main window.

### History

&kiten; keeps track of all of your queries in the input field. You can see your last results by clicking on the check mark at the right of the input field. To go forward one in the history, choose Go Forward. To go backward one in the history, choose Go Back.

### Fonts

You can choose the font that &kiten; uses in its result view. Go to the &kiten; configuration dialog, which can be opened by choosing Settings Configure &kiten;.... Select the Font page of the dialog and select the font in the font-chooser.

&Qt; 's font-substitution system makes it so a Japanese font will always be substituted for Japanese characters, even if the font you specify doesn't include them. Thus, you can choose any font in the chooser and everything should still display fine.

Screenshot for font
&kiten; font

## Credits and License

&kiten; copyright 2001, 2002 &Jason.Katz-Brown;

Developers

- &Jason.Katz-Brown; &Jason.Katz-Brown.mail; - Original author.

- &Neil.Stevens; &Neil.Stevens.mail; - Code simplification, UI suggestions.

- Jim Breen jwb@csse.monash.edu.au - Wrote xjdic, of which &kiten; borrows code, and the xjdic index file generator. Also is main author of edict and kanjidic, which &kiten; essentially require.

- Paul Temple paul.temple@gmx.net - Port to KConfig XT and bug fixing.

- David Vignoni david80v@tin.it - &SVG; icon.

- Joe Kerian jkerian@gmail.com - &kde; 4 rewrite.

- Eric Kjeldergaard kjelderg@gmail.com - &kde; 4 rewrite.

- Daniel E. Moctezuma democtezuma@gmail.com - Deinflection system improvements, dictionary updates for EDICT and KANJIDIC, &GUI; improvements, Kanji Browser, bug fixes, code polishing and simplification.

Documentation copyright 2002, &Jason.Katz-Brown;

Documentation copyright 2012, Daniel E. Moctezuma

&underFDL; &underGPL;
&documentation.index;