I am nowhere near ready to start reading anything, but I’m trying to understand how this works given the fact that the English interpretation often seems to be not very obvious. For example, how would you differentiate, “it looks like rain” and “look, it’s raining?”
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I do either:
1. Read in Japanese, no English thoughts.
2. Read and have to figure it out, thinking with English.
easy sentences are 1, hard are 2, medium s
I want to move everything into category 1 some day but … not ready yet, gotta grind more books … Also my ability to analyze isn’t very strong in Japanese, which is also pushing some things into category 2.
> “it looks like rain” and “look, it’s raining?”
These are going to be pretty easy for you. E.g. 雨みたいですね or something will be “it looks like rain” and that’s gonna be easy for you to see. You even have that みたい grammar point or whatever to help you with that.
vs ほら！雨が降っている！ or something
Just learn grammar and vocab and that kinda thing will be not too bad, IMO.
The goal is to think in Japanese. Then the problem kind of goes away.
Edit: To be clear – you’ll need to translate to English first to understand it, but eventually you’ll do that less and less and find you just understand (conceptualize) what you read , rather than translating it in your head.
The trick is, you don‘t translate.
It‘s easier to grasp if japanese isn‘t your second language to learn, but the goal is to not think English while engaging in anything Japanese
And I‘d suggest trying not to translate individual phrases in your head, but rather a passage in context (Depending on your level of course, don‘t overdo and don‘t underdo it)
Generally, it’s straight Japanese, although I’m pretty quick at translating in a moment or two if it’s not especially difficult.
When starting out, translating things you read is expected for most adult language learners and not at all a bad thing or something to worry about. Keep on translating. Eventually you will find that you don’t need to translate things anymore in order to comprehend things.
Indeed, a good barometer for when you truly “comprehend” something is when you don’t need to translate it. You just read a thing and know what it means. Like you do when you read English.
As for your example, there are ambiguous sentences in all languages. But they usually only become ambiguous when separated from their context. Indeed, translating a sentence without knowing its context can lead to some real confusions. But knowing the context will often help you understand these “ambiguous” sentences and when they are used as such. There are no hard and fast rules here, just pure exposure to the language.
don’t translate at all, that’s the goal. obviously there’s a learning period with any completely new grammar or something where you have to work it out. but always aim to “understand it directly”. never insert a translation in your head, to the absolute degree that you can manage. it’s a horrible habit that is very hard to unlearn, and it also tends to drive people to try to translate word for word, and japanese does not function like english at all, so this leads to more confusion. try to “comprehend” one phrase at a time and move on. eventually they’ll combine.
Just read in Japanese. I thought it was hard at first but think of it like this.
When you read a book in your native language do you know every single word? Cause I don’t. You just assume it’s meaning by context. If you know your grammar and a character says （unknown kanji)したい
You’ll know the character wants to do something and maybe you’ll understand it if you keep reading it by pictures (manga) etc
Just read everyday and you’ll get the hang of it.
As a pretty fresh beginner, I think the goal is to ultimately not have to translate anything and be able to “switch” your brain back and forth as need be. Obviously easier said than done, but even at my <N5 level there are things that I don’t even think about in their English meaning because they have been so ingrained into my memory. Reason I’m giving my two cents is because there are things that I no longer need to actively translate in order to comprehend. For example, I listen to nihongo con Teppei a lot, and he introduces each beginner episode with “みなさん今日わ” I no longer translate this as “hello everyone/good afternoon everyone”. Same thing with introductions, such as “初めまして” or “よろしくお願いします”. While very common and basic, it’s cool to see things that already don’t need translation. Im not sure if I’ll ever get to the point where I don’t need to translate anything at all, but, as with anything it hopefully will come with just time and practice.
Eventually you read in Japanese and the image plays in your head like it does in English. That’s the ultimate goal.
But reading tends to progress in stages.
Beginners tend to do things like sight read kanji straight into English, read what they must, and piece things together on the go. Japanese word → translate to english → next japanese word → translate to English.
Then as the reading gets quicker they may internalize some simple sentences, and for other things they read the line, translate it to English in their head, and move on.
Then this becomes reading most things in Japanese and it translating immediately to what’s called “mentalese”, the pictures that form in your head. Mentalese is what your brain turns English or your NL into. It’s so streamlined you don’t even realize it’s 2 separate things. Anyway. You internalize more Japanese, it largely gets turned straight into mentalese except for newer words and kanji which you may sight read straight into English or otherwise still have to translate until you absorb it.
Last stage is ofc straight understanding. But new words are bound to come up so you’ll be oscillating stages regularly. It’s more a spectrum and less hard stages.
The two English sentences you listed are a great example of something that could be difficult to distinguish in English, but isn’t a problem at all in Japanese. The word “look” means two entirely different things in those sentences, and so you wouldn’t get them out of the same Japanese word anyway (in the first sentence it’d be like 降りそう, in the second it would be more of a ほら). As others are saying, what you want to do is simply read in Japanese and not route it through English at all. When you’re just starting out that can seem hard, but the more you do it, the easier it is.
dont worry about if you’re translating in your head, its no biggie
The two examples you give would not use the same “look” (in fact probably neither would use みる at all) and the grammar would be very different.
Grammar and sentence patterns is a lot of it. In your example in English, one sentence has the word “like”. An English learner would have to learn the pattern “looks like” to mean “looks like it is going to” for that to make sense.
In the flow of the text the context will often clarify the meaning. Again from your example:
Jim stared gloomily out the window. “It looks like rain.”
Jim gestured out at the alien landscape. “It looks like rain, right? Wouldn’t recommend putting your hand out the window though.”
I appreciate everyone’s insight. This is my first venture into learning a new language (of course, I chose the most difficult language on the planet.) I suppose it’s like anything else. 20 years ago, I became an electrician, having never worked in the field before. Now, today, after doing electrical work day in and day out for the last 20 years, I am able to process just about every aspect of the work to the point where I am considered an “expert” yet, I learn something new and/or encounter something I’ve never seen before almost on a daily basis.
It’s actually harder to read if I try to translate.