The New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary: Based on the Classic Edition by Andrew N. Nelson » (Revised)

Andrew Nathaniel Nelson was born in Great Falls, Montana, in 1893. He received his B.A. from Walla Walla Coleg and his Ph.D. from the University of Washington. As a Seventh-Day Adventist missionary in Asia between 1918 and 1961, Dr. Nelson played a prominent role in the fields of education and language training. Throughout his life, Dr. Nelson remained devoted to the study of the Japanese language and the fundamentals of Chinese.

John H. Haig is an associate professor of Japanese in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, one of the largest departments of its kind in the U.S.

The New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary is a major revision of Dr. Andrew N. Nelson's award-winning classic The Modern Reader's Japanese-English Character Dictionary. Most importantly, the task of looking up a main-entry kanji has been simplified with the introduction of the Universal Radical Index (URI). Character entries now can be readily found through not only the primary radical, but any radical in the character. The URI, as a result, contains over 32,000 entries, making it the most thorough and reliable index available. Though created for the novice user, the URI system is beneficial to anyone frustrated by obscure radicals and difficult-to-remember "radical priorities." Another enhancement of The New Nelson is the expanded cross-referencing system. Each main-character entry is accompanied by the sequential position of the character in The New Nelson itself as well as a cross-reference number for the character in the Japan Industrial Standard (JIS) code and Morohashi's Dai Kanwa Jiten.

Savannah Schroll Guz - Library Journal

This reigning authority on Japanese character definitions is based on missionary-scholar Nelson's first 1962 edition of The Modern Reader's Japanese-English Character Dictionary. Haig (Japanese, Univ. of Hawai'i at Manoa) revised the resource in 1997 to include a fully expanded Universal Radical Index, permitting researchers to locate characters via any component radical, not just primaries. Keeping pace with the language's evolution over the 35 years following its initial publication, the reference includes over 7000 characters, 70,000 character-compounds, and their modernized definitions. Each entry features a corresponding Japanese Industrial Standard index number. Essential for all Japanese and East Asian studies collections.