Dictionaries for Chinese, Japanese and Korean

Which dictionary to install first

Kungfucius's advice is one main dictionary per language, installed on the first day, and no further shopping until it annoys you.

• Chinese: Pleco. Free core, handwriting and offline lookup, Simplified and Traditional, with paid add-ons bought once. On a computer, the free web dictionary MDBG covers quick lookups.
• Japanese: Jisho in the browser, plus an offline app on the phone: Takoboto on Android, Shirabe Jisho on iPhone. All three are free.
• Korean: Naver Dictionary for examples and current usage, with Papago beside it for whole sentences.

A translator is not a dictionary. Papago and Google Translate give you one answer. A dictionary gives you the choices, the readings and the example sentences, which is where the learning happens.

Why Skritter sits next to the dictionaries

Skritter is listed in this category although it is not a dictionary. It is a handwriting trainer for Chinese characters and Japanese kanji: you write each stroke on the screen, it corrects stroke order, and spaced repetition brings back the characters you miss.

It is here because of what happens after a lookup. A dictionary tells you what 謝 (谢) xiè looks like. It does nothing to make your hand remember it. Skritter is the tool for writing what you have just looked up, and the two are used as a pair: look up, then write. It is a paid subscription, listed on its site at US$14.99 a month or US$99.99 a year, and worth it only if you need to write by hand.

For the full toolkits, see the best apps to learn Chinese and the best apps to learn Japanese.