The Wordtank series is a line of Japanese electronic dictionaries manufactured by Canon. Although officially only sold in Japan, several of the multi-language models are popular among students of the Japanese language around the world. The ability to change menu display options to English on many of the Wordtank models is cited as a reason for the relatively wide foreign adoption. The ability to highlight an entire Japanese word (as opposed to just one character) and display a hiragana rendering of it is unique to the Wordtank series and is an extremely popular function for advanced learners. This function applies to all Wordtank models. One of the latest Wordtank models, the G70, offers this function for over 400,000 words.
History Canon has been manufacturing electronic dictionaries with the "WordTank" name since the late 1980s. Some series were better than others for the non-Japanese user (the mid-nineties IDX series was more usable than models from five years later; later series around 2004-5 are again improved).
ID series – Wordtank ID-7000 ID-7100 ID-7200 – popular in 1991/92 ID-8500
ID series expansion cards ID-110 Business Conversation Card ID-120 Onomancy/Fortune Telling Card ID-130 English Conversation/Travel Card ID-140 Japanese Definitions Card – for the ID-7000/ID-7100 ID-150 English/Japanese Dictionary Expansion Card – for ID-7000/ID-7100 (ID-7100 + ID-140 + ID-150 = ID-7200, but cost more) ID-160 English Conversation/Business Card ID-170 Contemporary Phrases Card ID-180 Game of "Go" ID-310 English/Japanese Dictionary Expansion Card – for the ID-7200 and ID-8500
IDX series – WORDTANK SUPER IDX-6500 – circa 1993–1999 – ROM 16 Mbit IDX-7500 – circa 1993–1999 IDX-9500 – circa 1993–1999 – "64Mbits" – with two card slots. Probably the number one Japanese/English dictionary for non-Japanese during the 1990s. later: IDX-9600 – ROM 68 Mbit IDX-9700
IDX series expansion cards IDX-510 国語辞典意味カード for IDX-7500, IDX-6500 (built into IDX-9500) IDX-520 英和辞典拡張カード for IDX-7500, IDX-6500 (built into IDX-9500) IDX-530 国語用例時点/漢和拡張カード for IDX-7500, IDX-6500 (built into IDX-9500) IDX-540 英和辞典拡張カード for IDX-7500, IDX-6500 (built into IDX-9500) IDX-550 ビジネス用語辞典カード for IDX-7500, IDX-6500 (built into IDX-9500) IDX-560 現代用語辞典カード for IDX-9500, IDX-7500, IDX-6500 IDX-570 トラベル英会話カード for IDX-9500, IDX-7500, IDX-6500
IDC series IDC-300 IDC-310
IDF series – Wordtank Super IDF-1000 IDF-2000E IDF-2100 IDF-2100SP IDF-2100VP IDF-2200E IDF-3000 IDF-4000 IDF-4000J IDF-4100 IDF-4500 IDF-4600
IDJ series IDJ-8000 – late 1990s IDJ-9000 – late 1990s – smaller display than the IDX-9500, similar dictionaries, but much larger set of kanji compounds (110000 vs 35000)
IDP series IDP-50 IDP-600C IDP-600E IDP-600J
C series C30 – Japanese high school focused C35 – Japanese high school focused C50 C55
G series G50 – English/Japanese G55 – English/Japanese G70 – English/Japanese G90 – Chinese/English/Japanese
V series (with voice features) V30 – Japanese high school focused V35 – Japanese high school focused V300 – Japanese high school focused V70 – Chinese/English/Japanese V80 – Chinese/English/Japanese V90 – Chinese/English/Japanese V903 – Chinese/English/Japanese
M series (with voice features) M300 – Japanese high school focused
See also Wordtank G50
External links