世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com reported on an opinion poll conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into the use of dictionaries. 331 members of their internet monitor pool successfully completed the survey, with 61.3% of the group male, 16.9% in their twenties, 41.7% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 9.7% in their fifties, and 3.6% in their sixties.

It may be useful to reference a previously-translated survey on electronic dictionaries. I’m surprised that ALC didn’t make it into the list as it seems rather a popular destination for the people in my office, for instance.

First, 206 people, or 62.2% of the sample used dictionary sites, either for looking up Japanese words or for translating foreign languages.

Q1: Which of the following online dictionary sites do you use? (Sample size=206, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Yahoo! Dictionary	121	58.7%
goo Dictionary	83	40.3%
excite Dictionary	58	28.2%
infoseek Multi-dictionary	32	15.5%
Sanseido Web Dictionary	24	11.7%
@nifty Dictionary	10	4.9%
livedoor Dictionary	9	4.4%
BIGLOBE Dictionary Search	3	1.5%
Weblio	2	1.0%
Other	28	13.6%

Wikipedia featured often in the “other” category.

For electronic dictionaries, just 25.1%, or 83 people used them.

Q2: Who are the makers of the electronic dictionaries you own? (Sample size=83, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Casio	46	57.8%
Sharp	21	25.3%
Seiko	12	14.5%
Sony	9	10.8%
Canon	5	6.0%
Other	0	0.0%

Finally, the people who had used dictionary sites were asked if they had also used automatic translation services. Note that the “languages” column only lists the language pairs that include Japanese, so Google is listed as supporting only English even though it can do English to many other languages.

Q3: Which of the following automatic translation services do you use? (Sample size=206, multiple answer)

	Languages	Votes	Percentage
Excite Translate	English, Chinese, Korean	99	48.1%
Yahoo! Translate	English, Chinese, Korean	94	45.6%
Google Language Tools	English	29	14.1%
infoseek Multi-translate	English, Chinese, Korean	26	12.6%
@nifty Translate	English, Chinese, Korean	17	8.3%
livedoor Translate	English	7	3.4%
Fresh Eye Translate	English, Chinese	4	1.9%
enjoy Korea	Korean	3	1.5%
POP Dictionary.com	English, German	1	0.5%
GOKOREA	Korean	1	0.5%
Can’t remember		17	8.3%
Other		5	2.4%