Jim Breen

{{Short description|Australian linguist}}

{{for|the rugby player|Jim Breen (rugby league)}}

{{Use Australian English|date=September 2016}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}

James William Breen (born 1947) is a Research Fellow at Monash University in Australia, where he was a professor in the area of IT and telecommunications before his retirement in 2003.{{cite news | author=Alexander Jacoby | title=Net resources make light work of Japanese study | newspaper=The Japan Times | date=2006-11-21 | url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2006/11/21/language/net-resources-make-light-work-of-japanese-study/ | access-date=2008-02-02}} He holds a BSc in mathematics, an MBA and a PhD in computational linguistics, all from the University of Melbourne. He is well known for his involvement in several popular free Japanese-related projects: the EDICT and JMDict Japanese–English dictionaries, the KANJIDIC kanji dictionary, and the WWWJDIC portal which provides an interface to search them.{{cite news | author=Mary Sisk Noguchi | title=KANJI CLINIC: Cyberspace – the final frontier of kanji-learning | newspaper=The Japan Times | date=2002-08-30 | url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2002/08/30/language/cyberspace-the-final-frontier-of-kanji-learning/}}{{cite web |last1=Morales |first1=Daniel |title=At 180,000 entries, Jim Breen's freeware Japanese dictionary is still growing |url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2018/06/25/language/180000-entries-jim-breens-freeware-japanese-dictionary-still-growing/ |website=The Japan Times |access-date=22 January 2021 |date=25 June 2018}}

His EDICT dictionary and WWWJDIC server have been described as "reliable and close to comprehensive". The 195,000-term lexicon is used by popular apps such as [http://www.imiwaapp.com/ ImiWa] (iOS) and [http://www.aedict.eu/ AEDict] (Android), and has been used to build other Japanese language learning sites such as Rikai and Jisho.org.

He remains a board member of the Japanese Studies Centre at Monash University.{{cite web | title=Welcome to the Japanese Studies Centre | publisher=Monash Asia Institute, Monash University | date=7 December 2012 |url=http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/jsc/ | access-date=2014-12-05}}