For a person not acquainted with the Japanese writing style but wishes to learn, the Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana scripts may be a little intimidating. With Jisho however, the learning process becomes much easier; the application provides users with an English-Japanese dictionary with a huge database of words, built-in search and word lists functions.
Jisho's compact and intuitive interface makes it quite straightforward to use; either look-up words in the available lists (comprehensively organized to sum up the most common words - countries, colors, weather, greetings) or using the search tool. Its database is stored on your computer, so no Internet connection is required. Note that for a searched word, multiple variations may be available, each complete with readings, lexical (part of speech) and translation into the pre-defined languages.
From the application's preferences panel, users may specify which languages will be displayed in the translation; it supports English, French, German, Russian. Jisho may also convert Kana to Romaji and have the result always be displayed in Japanese.
Briefly, Jisho makes for an effective and simple to use desktop assistant to looking up words part of the Japanese language.
InstantTranslate makes it really easy to translate a selection of text in the application you are working in from one language to another language.
One World Dictionary by Ascendo is a leading multilingual reference tool for Apple desktops.
