I’ve been learning kanji by translating them to Korean. I do this to avoid seeing the English translation/definition which can pop up even on Japanese sites. Once I’ve got the reading of the kanji I’ll look up the definition in this [children’s dictionary](https://amzn.asia/d/c4Rwn3x) and see if I can understand it. [Sample of the inside.](https://www.teacher.ne.jp/jiten/jiten/dpm/kokugo2019/HTML5/pc.html#/page/1) It has furigana on pretty much all of the kanji, lots of simple example sentences/phrases and pictures and explainers to go a little more in depth for some words. When the meaning is completely lost on me I’ll use Google translate.
It’s probably easier and more efficient to use an online dictionary but I like the simple explanations and examples with pictures. Plus it feels like having to physically go through the book gives each word a sense of “place” instead of just clicking through links.
I think if you can read hiragana and katakana you can start studying like this. The definitions are short and simple enough that you could probably translate them in parts to guess the meaning and try to understand the sentence structure. There is enough kanji that you can usually tell when words end and begin. Even the definitions where it might not be so clear where words end and begin Google translate is pretty good at picking those out.
At first I only did it to learn Japanese but then I figured I might as well try to learn all the Korean words. I’m thinking of trying to translate simple Japanese phrases and sentences to Korean then altering them slightly and seeing what words and patterns I can remember. For example りんごを食べます→りんごを食べた→りんごを食べたい and taking note of the differences.
I appreciate any feedback or suggestions.
3 comments
I don’t exactly understand what exactly you’re doing after reading through the post, but if you’re a beginner (presumably) – you don’t have enough knowledge/experience to verify the accuracy of what machine translations say. Don’t use it, if you ask me.
If you have enough skills to use a children’s dictionary, you almost certainly have the capacity to check a J-E or J-K dictionary in place of Google Translate. Machine Translators are still shit despite having been around far longer than the time it takes human learners to get good. Post this to r/gatekeeping if you like, but I’d say machine translators are strictly for people who are not actually learning the language. Once again, I reiterate that dictionaries still exist for a really good reason.
Your title says you’re using google translate but your post says you’re using a childrens dictionary? I don’t get it.