A Review of Modern Persian-Japanese and Japanese-Persian Bilingual Dictionary

The present article attempts to introduce and review Modern Persian-Japanese and Japanese-Persian Bilingual Dictionary by Tsuneo Kuroyanagi, and to evaluate it according to modern lexicographical criteria. This dictionary is a compact version of author’s previous bilingual dictionaries, and is widely used among students, researchers and translators in both Iran and Japan in the absence of any notable alternative. As the author states in the preface, the learners of Persian language in Japan are supposed to be the main users of this dictionary. Consequently the book is designed to meet the needs of this particular group, and its users in Iran face some difficulties when referring to it. However, in the introduction of Japanese-Persian part, the author expresses his expectation that his book will also be used by Japanese learners in Iran. In this review paper, we will mainly concentrate on the needs of Iranian students of Japanese language, and evaluate both form and content of this dictionary from their point of view.