This page has been divided into the following sections for ease of navigation.

• About this site
• Searching
• About the database
• F.A.Q.

Japanese by Example is a web-based searching tool which you can use to access a database of thousands of Japanese sentences. Simply enter one or more English keywords, hit the search button, and a list of matching English/Japanese sentence pairs will be displayed. Easy!

This site was designed with no real purpose, other than to give people to whom this huge store of information may be of interest easier access to it. That's not to say it can't be a useful tool; only that the uses are limited only by your imagination. For example, it could quite easily allow those with limited Japanese ability to compose meaningful sentences in Japanese - perhaps for use in letters or emails. By searching for an example phrase or sentence that is grammatically similar to the one you wish to say, and replacing key words with your own, you can easily construct the sentence you require.

To use this site properly, you must have a Japanese font installed on your system. Your web browser must also be able to support Unicode UTF-8 encoding. If you can read the following text (in red), your system probably meets these requirements:

Ｙｏｕｒ　ｓｙｓｔｅｍ　ｈａｓ　Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ　ｌａｎｇｕａｇｅ　ｓｕｐｐｏｒｔ！

One of the main aims of Japanese by Example is to make searching the database as easy as possible. Just enter one or more English words, separated by spaces, into the search box and hit "Search".

A few tips for searching

• Searches can currently be performed in English only. If you wish to search for sentences in Japanese, try Jim Breen's WWWJDIC.
• Searches for English words are case insensitive. You will, however, have to use the correct punctuation when entering contractions. (e.g. Don't, not dont.)
• The results returned for a given search will include ALL of the words you entered. Therefore you should try to enter as few words as possible to increase the chance of a match being found. For example, let's say you wish to ask "What time does the swimming pool open?". Searching for that exact sentence is unlikely to yield any results. Instead, try just searching for the words "open time". This should return a reasonable list of sentences, hopefully at least one of which you can adapt to suit your needs.
• The English half of the database is in U.S. English. Please use U.S. English words when searching. (e.g. Color, not colour. Realize, not realise.)
• The search engine will attempt to search for variations of a word if you enter its root form. For example, searching for "opening" will only return sentences containing the word opening. A search for "open", however, will return matches for open, opening, opened, etc.
• Searches are limited to a maximum of 10 unique words. If you attempt to search for more words than this, the search engine will try to select the 10 words most likely to return useful matches. Additionally, some common English words and articles (a, the, and, etc.) are ignored altogether.

The database of example sentences used by this site was generated from a collection of Japanese/English sentences compiled by Professor Yasuhito Tanaka and his students at Hyogo University. The collection is in the Public Domain and consists of around 170,000 Japanese/English sentence pairs.

The database is currently being maintained by Jim Breen of Monash University, Australia. For further information, or to download the database files and documentation, take a look at the following pages.

• Example Sentences - Documentation
• Example Sentences section on the WWWJDIC information page
• Word Usage Examples in an Electronic Dictionary [paper]

This site also makes use of Jim Breen's excellent EDICT Japanese-English dictionary to provide translations on the example overview pages. Copyright of EDICT is held by Jim Breen and the EDRG.

• The EDICT Project Home Page

A little information for anyone with more than a passing interest in the site.

• [Q] Why did you make this site? Hasn't it already been done?
• [A] I started this project shortly after encountering Prof. Tanaka's database during research for a similar project I had been working on for my degree. I spent an evening scanning through the file in disbelief of the wealth of information that lay inside. I came up with the idea for this site the very next day - at the time, there was nothing similar available. However, Jim was quick to add better support for the Examples index to WWWJDIC, which I suppose does throw the purpose of this site into question a little. I shall carry on though, adding more features every now and then, although I want to keep things simple and don't want to lose the Example-driven core of the site. Ease of use will also be a particular focus for the future - one thing WWWJDIC has always struggled with because of the very nature of its attempt to do everything.

• [Q] Why can't I search for Japanese text?
• [A] Because I haven't implemented searching for Japanese text yet. I started off with English because it was simpler; matching Japanese words is a little more of a challenge. Take the English word "water". In the database, it usually appears as just that... "water". Occasionally, it might creep in at the start of a sentence and gain an initial capital letter - "Water". That's it. This makes looking for matches in English a walk in the park in contrast with Japanese where both the text in the database and the user input could be in Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana, Roomaji, or even a combination. Yes, it will be implemented in the future. I'm just waiting for a couple of free days when I can build the required indexes and overhaul the searching system.

• [Q] What can I do if I find a mistake?
• [A] The database is pretty rough-and-ready. You'll probably find at least one sentence with a mistake in each resultset you get. You can try sumbitting a correction to Jim Breen if you like. I recommend checking WWWJDIC first though to ensure that the error still exists, as the version of the database used by Japanese by Example is generally behind the current release.

• [Q] Are there other database sources you could use?
• [A] Not that are in the public domain and that I am aware of. I would dearly love to include the Moeru Eitango Moetan (Sansai Books) examples in here, although their suitability and usefulness is probably a little questionable. But alas, I doubt I could ever get permission.