辞典 and 事典: reading two forms of じてん in context
Compare word or character dictionaries with plant and animal reference books. Use the lookup target and borrowed book to distinguish the two written forms that share じてん.
A shared reading and different written forms
辞典 and 事典 are both read じてん. The supplied meanings are dictionary for 辞典 and encyclopedia or reference dictionary for 事典, so the sound alone does not identify the written form.
The examples give words or characters on one side and plant or animal reference content on the other. Connect the spelling to what is consulted or borrowed, without adding unstated pictures or photographs.
辞典 for words and a character dictionary
「知らない言葉を辞典で調べた。」 — “I looked up the unknown word in a dictionary.” The lookup target is an unfamiliar word. 辞典 is the form used for the dictionary in that stated context.
「机に古い漢字辞典がある。」 — “There is an old dictionary of Chinese characters on the desk.” The example locates an old character dictionary on a desk. Its existence and location do not report that someone has already used it for a lookup.
事典 for a flower name or an animal reference
「植物事典で庭の花の名前を調べた。」 — “I looked up the name of the garden flower in a plant encyclopedia.” The lookup target is the name of a garden flower, and the reference is a plant encyclopedia. The lookup alone does not establish whether that book contains photographs.
「図書館から動物の事典を借りてきた。」 — “I borrowed an animal encyclopedia from the library.” The sentence reports borrowing an animal encyclopedia from the library. It identifies the book's content and the borrowing action, without reporting that the whole book was read or an animal identified.
Can the sound じてん alone distinguish 辞典 from 事典? Consider the unfamiliar-word lookup and the borrowed animal reference.
Show the answer and why
No. Both forms have the reading じてん. Read the actual target or content together with the spelling: an unfamiliar word looked up in 辞典, or an animal 事典 borrowed from the library.