I’ve just moved to Japan, and I’m using Google Translate for some restaurants, but I would like to be able to attempt saying the item in Japanese, although I haven’t fully grasped how to read Japanese as it is– is there a visual translator that will translate Japanese into phonetic Latin letters?Would be awesome and would really help me learn Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji faster, with real life and applicable examples.
PS: tried posting this in the Learn Japanese subreddit but couldn’t because of no karma in that sub
8 comments
Take a photo, upload it to Google translate, click “Send to translate home” and under the Japanese portion, Google will spell out everything in romaji. Be warned that it’s not always the correct reading (especially with kanji used as abbreviations, etc) but it’s usually close enough that you can then find it in the dictionary!
I use Google lens in my smartphone. It translate from image to text in real time. can select any language.
Honestly, start learning to read Hiragana, then Katakana and slowly pick up Kanji. It will probably take you less than a month each for Hiragana and Katakana then you can read a decent amount. After that just start working out the kanji you see often. I started with prefectures on license plates and slowly am building from there. I may not know specifically what each kanji means, but I can read them at least.
Google Translation app does it. Just put your smartphone camera on Japanese, and it will show translation on display. Like [this page](https://translate.google.com/intl/ja/about/) shows.
In the Google Translate app, use the camera function, take a picture of the Japanese text, the click “Go to Translate Home” and it will have the romaji of the Japanese text.
Keep in mind that anything that tries to automate adding furigana onto a text will get readings wrong A LOT of the time. A lot of kanji have several readings so it’s there’s not some easy 1:1 mapping to be done.
Take the time to learn hiragana. It should have been done before you moved here, but it’s not an intense learning experience. Plenty of online resources to help you out, too.
Also, the Google Translate app has the option to hear the word. Listen, repeat.
Don’t. Learn hiragana and katakana and use those instead.
If you try and say anything using romaji you’ll just end up with terrible pronunciation.