DiccionarioJaponés.com: a useful Japanese–Spanish companion from Matías Acosta

If you study Japanese through Spanish, you know the extra mental hop: Japanese word, English explanation, Spanish meaning, then back to the sentence. Sometimes that works. Sometimes you just want a clear explanation in the language you actually think in. That is why I wanted to give DiccionarioJaponés.com, from Matías Acosta, a shoutout. He reached out and invited me to look at it. I like it, and I think it makes a useful supplement for our readers.

The useful part is what happens after the lookup. A dictionary gets you unstuck; a small reading and writing loop helps the word become yours. Here is a way to combine the site with Manabi Kōbō without turning one unfamiliar sentence into an afternoon of open tabs.

Start with the sentence that confused you

The site presents Japanese–Spanish lookup, readings, kanji information and sentence-analysis tools. Its homepage also advertises searches using conjugated forms. Those are helpful entry points, but a search result still needs the surrounding sentence. A word can have several senses, and the first Spanish gloss is not automatically the right one.

Try this original example: 昨日(きのう)は家(いえ)で本(ほん)を読み(よみ)ました。 It means “Yesterday I read a book at home.” If 読み(よみ)ました is the obstacle, look up that form, then connect it with 読む(よむ). Keep both in your note: the dictionary form lets you recognize the word elsewhere; the sentence shows how it behaves here. Notice that the polite past ending belongs to the verb. It does not change who read the book.

Compare two uses before saving anything

Now change only the object: 昨日(きのう)は家(いえ)で記事(きじ)を読み(よみ)ました。 “Yesterday I read an article at home.” You did not learn an entirely new sentence. You reused a structure and replaced one piece. That is a much more useful check than copying five unrelated translations.

For a Spanish learner, write the meaning naturally: “Ayer leí un artículo en casa.” Do not force Japanese word order into Spanish just to make the lines match. Instead, mark yesterday, at home, article and read as corresponding chunks. The languages can say the same thing while arranging the information differently.

A lookup card that earns its place

Make the front of a practice card a situation: “Tell a friend what you read at home yesterday.” Put your Japanese sentence on the back, with a reading for the unfamiliar kanji and one short usage note. A card that only says “read = 読む(よむ)” leaves out the decision you actually need to practice: how to build the sentence.

Before keeping the card, answer three questions. Which meaning fits this context? Which part changes for present versus past? Can I say a different true sentence with the same pattern? If one answer is fuzzy, keep the example in a scratch note and revisit it. There is no prize for importing a huge deck you will never want to review.

Bring the word back to your reading

Return to the original paragraph and read it once without stopping. Then use our Sentence Builder for another sentence-pattern exercise, or continue with the Side by Side Reader. The point is to reconnect the dictionary result to a message, not to memorize the entire dictionary entry.

My practical limit would be three useful lookups in one short session. Keep a separate “interesting later” list for everything else. If every unknown word becomes urgent, reading stops feeling like reading. Pick the words that unlock the paragraph or help you say something you care about.

Try this small challenge

Look up one word from something you genuinely want to read. Write one original Japanese sentence, a natural Spanish version and a second Japanese sentence with one detail changed. Tomorrow, cover the Japanese and try to rebuild it. If you can explain why you chose that word, the lookup did its job. Thanks, Matías, for building another useful place for Spanish-speaking learners to explore Japanese.

Reference: DiccionarioJaponés.com. Feature descriptions reflect its public pages checked in October 2026; this article is a learning workflow, not an exhaustive technical audit of the dictionary.