# The &kiten; Handbook

Jason Katz-Brown

    &Jason.Katz-Brown.mail;

&FDLNotice;
2002-10-08
1.1

&kiten; is a Japanese reference/study tool for &kde;.

KDE Japanese Language

## Introduction

&kiten; is an application with multiple functions. Firstly, it is a convenient English to Japanese and Japanese to English dictionary; secondly, it is a Kanji dictionary, with multiple ways to look up specific characters; thirdly, it is a tool to help you learn Kanji.

Each of these modes is discussed in its own chapter.

Here's a screenshot of &kiten;
&kiten; screenshot

## Using the Dictionary

&kiten;'s most basic mode is as a dictionary for looking up both English and Japanese words. You can also add other dictionaries to &kiten;'s list.

&kiten; uses Jim Breen's Edict and Kanjidic as the default dictionaries. You can find more information at the Edict web site and the Kanjidic web site.

### Looking Up Words

To look up words in either language, type them in to the text-edit (much like &konqueror;'s location bar) and press either &Enter; or the Search button on the toolbar (again, much like &konqueror;). &kiten; will then look up the word.

You can enter Kanji, Kana and English and get back results from &kiten;. These results of your search will appear in the large results view which takes up the majority of the &kiten; window.

searching for an English translation
&kiten; search screenshot

#### Filtering

Often times you will want to filter rare words from your search. &kiten; will do this for you if toggle Search Filter Out Rare.

Not all dictionary files support filtering rare entries - most dictionaries, excluding the two provided by default in &kiten; do not.

If you have not enabled filtering rare entries, common entries will be labeled Common in the result view.

### Advanced Searches

&kiten; supports more advanced searches than plain normal word searches.

#### Beginning/Anywhere Searches

To search for the beginning of a word, instead of pressing the Search button on the toolbar or pressing Return on the text-entry in the toolbar, choose using the Search Match Type Match Beginning. Similarly, choose Search Match Type Match Anywhere to search for your text anywhere in a word. These search modes work for searches of both languages.

#### Searching in Results

&kiten; can also help you refine your searches by allowing you to search for new text in the results generated by a previous search. To do this, just choose Search Search in Results to perform your search.

### Verb Deinflection

&kiten; can deinflect verbs you search for. To enable this, make sure you have enabled the "builtin" dictionary for verb deinflection. &kiten; will then deinflect Japanese you search for that starts with a Kanji and ends with a Kana.

The "Deinflect" option tries to unconjugate Japanese verbs. Deinflect only supports the common verb conjugations. If you search a lot of Japanese text you might consider using this option until you get used to handling Japanese verb forms.

## Looking Up Kanji

&kiten; has features that makes finding the one kanji you want easy from over 14,000 in the default dictionary.

Clicking on any Kanji in the main result view will show details on that particular Kanji. This can sometimes be the fastest way to look up a kanji.

Kanji searches are also filtered according to whether Search Filter Out Rare is checked.

### Regular Searching

You can search with English and Japanese search strings the exact same way you can with the normal dictionary.

When searching for Kana readings in the Kanji dictionary, you will have to put a period before the okurigana (the kana that are not part of the Kanji).

### Radical Searching

You can use &kiten;'s radical search dialog to search for Kanji with a combination of radicals and a certain stroke count. Choose Search Radical Selector to open the radical search dialog.

To choose the radicals you want to be in your Kanji, select them from the middle listbox. To display possible radicals to select from this listbox with a certain number of strokes, choose this number of strokes from the spinbox just above the listbox. The radicals you choose will appear in the listbox to the right.

To choose how many strokes your Kanji should have, just enter the values into the spin boxes below the results area.

To perform the lookup, press the button that matches the kanji you wanted to look up.

### Grade Search

To get a list of all Kanji in a certain grade, enter that into the search box as "G:4" (G: is the Kanjidic tag for grade).

### Stroke Search

To get a list of all Kanji with a certain number of strokes, enter that number in the text-entry in the toolbar as "S:4".

## Miscellaneous

This chapter describes miscellaneous features that can be used in both modes in &kiten;'s main window.

### The History

&kiten; keeps track of all of your queries in a list. You can see your last 20 results by looking under Go History. To go forward one in the history, choose Go Forward. To go backward one in the history, choose Go Back.

### Global Shortcuts

You can set global &kiten; shortcuts that work everywhere on your desktop. Go to the &kiten; configuration dialog, which can be opened by choosing Settings Configure Kiten.... Select the Global Keys section of the dialog. Here you can set the keys for a global word search and a global Kanji search like in other &kde; shortcut configuration panels.

### Fonts

You can choose the font that &kiten; uses in its result view and while printing. Go to the &kiten; configuration dialog, which can be opened by choosing Settings Configure Kiten.... Select the Font section of the dialog and select the font in the font-chooser.

&Qt; 's font-substitution system makes it so a Japanese font will always be substituted for Japanese characters, even if the font you specify doesn't include them. Thus, you can choose any font in the chooser and everything should still display fine.

## Credits and Licenses

&kiten; copyright 2001, 2002 &Jason.Katz-Brown;

Developers

- &Jason.Katz-Brown; &Jason.Katz-Brown.mail;

- &Neil.Stevens; &Neil.Stevens.mail;

- Jim Breen jwb@csse.monash.edu.au - Wrote xjdic, of which &kiten; borrows code, and the xjdic index file generator. Also is main author of edict and kanjidic, which &kiten; essentially require.

- Paul Temple paul.temple@gmx.net - Port to KConfig XT and bug fixing.

- Joe Kerian jkerian@gmail.com - wrote kiten v4

Documentation copyright 2002, &Jason.Katz-Brown;

&underFDL; &underGPL;
&documentation.index;