Many words are misspelled, horribly misspelled, as the publisher (usually a very astute language publisher) routinely omits hirigana from the words or phrases. This dictionary is one of the absolute WORST Japanese-English English-Japanese dictionaries on the market. The last fourth of its pages are now crammed loosely in between the covers. I can only hope they improved the binding because although I did use it a lot and my rabbit did eat part of the plastic dust jacket, I don't think it had a real excuse to let it's pages fall out on me. The cover is different, but the ISBN is the same. I have the 1996 binding of this, it seems. This little guy did help me construct my note cards and learn many a noun, but in the end I wanted more than it could give me. If you're not buying this to take to Japan with you to help when you're miming your wants and needs and instead you seriously want to learn the language, then go ahead and buy the big dictionary because that's what you'll need. Yes, he is only a little bitty pocket-sized thing, but I've come to realization that these little things are for one thing and one thing only- travel. However, he let me down many times and it was very frustrating. I can't say I hate this little guy because he served me for many years when there was no other. If you're not buying this to take to Japan with you to help when you're miming your wants and needs and instead you seriously want to learn the langua Ah, my well-worn little dictionary.