Don’t understand Japanese but want to get a rough translation?
Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC is the best place to do this. Copy and paste the Japanese text into his translation tool (translate words in Japanese text).
I usually use babelfish for translations but I know they don’t do Japanese; Jim Breen’s site is one of those things you know about if you’re learning Japanese so I thought I’d share.
Babelfish
Actually, Babelfish has an attempt at translating Japanese these days, Google Translate has it too (marked BETA). The quality of the translations is pretty lacking though. (I don't speak any Japanese and even I notice the quality is terrible. 😉 )
tried google ?
translate.google.com does japanese too
Re: tried google ?
They do. To be honest, I think you really need to have some exposure to Japanese to understand the translation, though.
Comment
Hmm, trying to use a romanji text in the translation does not help much? Fortunately Fedora has SCIM where I wrote either hiragana and katakana text. Kanji is a bit challenge although I am very able to write. Now that I think about it, I should return to retake Japanese class. Speaking is not a problem but writing require a lot of practice.
Comment
Hmm, trying to use a romanji text in the translation does not help much? Fortunately Fedora has SCIM where I wrote either hiragana and katakana text. Kanji is a bit challenge although I am very able to write. Now that I think about it, I should return to retake Japanese class. Speaking is not a problem but writing require a lot of practice.
Luya
P.SP: too bad blogspot does not have openID =(
Altavista
I use Altavista's Babelfish, far better then Jim Breen for translating whole text, as I use both services on a daily basis I know what I am speaking about =D
Re: Altavista
how about rikaichan?
Re: Altavista
Sugoi! terrific!
translations
Any such thing as an Irish translator?!
CC
Re: translations
not that i know of. the best resource for Irish I've found is daltai.com, but they don't have a translator.
Re: translations
Thanks! I never expected anyone in America, knee deep in Fedora to be talking Irish, for some reason! Its well weird…!
Re: translations
I have taken a class in Irish and have been meaning to study more, but the pronunciation always KILLS me, lol. It's hard without access to a native speaker 🙁
Re: translations
Tell ya what. I'll pronounce sum stuff 4 ya if ya want sumtime on yahoo or sumthin. johnnyj2004@hotmail.com. Drop me a line.
CC
PS ya my names not Johnny!
Meaning and pronunciation
That's pretty cool, though it's only (heh) Japanese text -> English text. I'd also like some way to figure out pronunciation; I'm listening to the japanesepod101.com lessons so I'm building up the Japanese sound <-> meaning mapping but I have no clue how to read or write anything.
I can go read German or Turkish websites and since I know the ~25 letters in their alphabet (which looks remarkably similar to my own!) I can pronounce any word in the language. With Japanese it's all "squiggle that goes this way, then over there, with the boxy shape up there…" to me. 🙂
Re: Meaning and pronunciation
oh Japanese pronunciation is pretty straightforward i think – then again i have ~2+ years instruction under a native speaker lol. but ive found watching japanese tv shows from time to time, you hear and remember the pronunciations if you've heard them enough.
if you know the Japanese hiragana and katakana (i think ~47 characters in each) then you'll be able to pronounce most things that aren't in kanji – the hiragana and katakana are phonetic alphabets. Kanji are a bit more complicated 🙂 but they are not difficult to look up.
はながかゆい
http://gjiten.sourceforge.net/ is a gnome dictionary app that uses jims dictionary, very useful when I was learning Japanese.
but the best thing (after anime) is a Japanese girlfriend ：）
Jedi
There used to be a "Jedi Japanese" transolator that was the Bees Knees and so much more. Sadly it was brought offline.