General Details
Title: ジュニア・アンカー英和・和英事典 第四版 (The Junior Anchor English-Japanese Japanese-English Dictionary 4th Edition)
Volumes: 1
Language: Japanese
Publisher: 学習研究社 (Gakken)
Year: 2001
Pages: 1640
This volume is two dictionaries bound together as one; they are each separately paginated and can be bought as separate parts.
The target audience for these dictionaries is a Japanese middle school student learning English as a foreign language. The front endpapers have a colorful representation of the English alphabet, and the back endpapers feature political maps of the United States and the United Kingdom.
The first section is The Junior Anchor English-Japanese Dictionary (ジュニア・アンカー英和辞典) 4th Edition. It is 816 pages long. There is a section at the beginning of 56 color, glossy pages which consist of a visual dictionary (linked to the included audio CD), conversation guide, holiday guide, and a photo guide to the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. There is a comprehensive guide on how to use the dictionary (meant more for the parent), followed by a list of all of the illustrations, photographs, and diagrams found within the main text. There is also a list of grammatical help boxes (e.g. telling the difference between remember doing and remember to do), conversation guides, and fun wordplay sections (riddles, jokes, anagrams, palindromes, and tongue twisters). The dictionary contains approximately 12,800 entries and idioms. The most important 101 words for middle school students of English to learn are marked with three asterisks, the next top 406 words are marked with two asterisks, and the remaining top 1,000 words are marked with a single asterisk. The main text of the dictionary is followed by a simplified how-to-use guide for the student, with plenty of cartoon illustration, a guide to English pronunciation, a simplified English grammar, and a collection of well-known English children's songs (e.g. Old MacDonald Had a Farm) which all have recordings on the included audio CD. Finally, the dictionary has a guide on composing letters in English and a table of irregular verb forms.
The Junior Anchor Japanese-English Dictionary (ジュニア・アンカー和英辞典) 4th Edition follows. It is 736 pages long. It also has a short section of 32 color, glossy pages at its beginning, with further conversation guides, a guide to letter writing, and a bilingual introduction to Japan. This includes a map with landmarks, a guide to the seasons, cultural topics, food, and a guide to Japan's school system. There is then a guide on how to use the dictionary (very similar to the one of the preceding dictionary). This dictionary has approximately 14,300 entries. Entries with two asterisks (there are no three asterisk words here) make up the 460 most important words, and entries with a single asterisk make up the most important 1,000 words. There are numerous conversation guides scattered throughout the main dictionary. The main dictionary is followed by a guide to English as used in the classroom, a brief guide to English verb endings, and the same table of irregular verb forms from the English-Japanese dictionary.
These two dictionaries, though meant for middle-school Japanese students, would also work well as a dictionary for an early learner of Japanese who has already been introduced to some basic kanji. There are no furigana provided with the kanji. The example sentences are very short and grammatically simple, and the asterisks accompanying some of the words provide a guide to what constitutes a basic working vocabulary. There are not as many illustrations in this dictionary as there are in others, but the ones that are there are extremely well chosen and provide clarity to minute word usage distinctions.
Sample Entries
I try to look up "umbrella" and "Saint Louis" in all of the reference works I feature on here in order to provide a common basis of comparison between them. Although there are some proper nouns in this dictionary (e.g. Winnie-the-Pooh, Chicago, Zeus), "St. Louis" doesn't make the cut. It is included on the political map of the United States, and a photo of the Gateway Arch is shown in the English-Japanese Dictionary's color page section, but it does not have a proper entry of its own. "Umbrella" can be found in the English-Japanese dictionary on page 697:
*um·brel·la [ʌmbrélə アンブレラ] 名 (福 umbrellas [-z]) かさ、こうもりがさ、雨がさ（➤女性用の「日がさ」はparasol）.
put up an umbrella かさをさす。
Take this umbrella with you. このかさを持っていきなさい。
"Umbrella" (or, rather, かさ) can be found on page 143 in the Japanese-English dictionary:
*かさ 傘 （雨がさ）an umbrella [アンブレラ]; （女性用の日がさ） a parasol [パラソ（ー）ル]
▶折りたたみがさ a folding umbrella
▶かさをさす open [put up] an umbrella
▶雨が降るといけないから、かさを持っていきなさい。Take an umbrella with you in case it rains.
かさ立て an umbrella stand