LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

At 180,000 entries, Jim Breen's freeware Japanese dictionary is still growing

A life in characters: Jim Breen and his three children at Matsumoto Station in December 1981. The visit set Breen on the path to creating what would become the huge freeware dictionary JMdict/EDICT. | COURTESY OF JIM BREEN

By Daniel Morales
Contributing Writer

Jun 25, 2018

We all know Jim. He casts a vigilant eye over thousands of us each day as we track down definitions for confusing kanji and decipher new vocabulary.

Jim's bearded 34-by-45-pixel countenance sits atop his WWWJDIC online dictionary and supervises searches at a rate of 130,000 queries a day.

You may have figured out Jim's identity by this point: Yes, it's Jim Breen, research fellow at Monash University and father of the major freeware Japanese dictionary JMdict/EDICT. Even if you haven't visited his site directly, you've undoubtedly come across his dictionary material in some form.

At 180,000 entries, Jim Breen's freeware Japanese dictionary is still growing

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