Do you think it's wrong to enrich my vocabulary using google translate? Bear in mind that I'm only… - Feed Post by takitogr
Do you think it's wrong to enrich my vocabulary using google translate? Bear in mind that I'm only using it for single words not to translate sentences or anything like that. I use it at work when there's no work to be done. I'm coming up with single words to translate. For instance few days I was looking up any body parts I could think of (collarbone, spine, gums, eyelids, nostrils etc) I know translating with google translate is terrible but I can't think of anything else that I could use at work without raising any eyebrows from supervisors and colleagues. Nobody pays attention to google or Wikipedia. We actually do use these two at my workplace.
posted by takitogr
Comments 4
well, it's better to take words from texts or contexts. But it might be difficult for you?
You know it yourself: Japanese is complex language where one single english word can be translated in different ways to japanese, so I think learning words with google translator is wrong.
But you mentioned "body parts" which is somehow technical topic.
it's actually easy to search for word's packs for japanese, since japanese language is so popular. I recommend you to use google Search instead)
For example:
https://www.google.dk/search?q=anatomical+parts+in+japanese&espv=2&biw=1680&bih=935&source=lnms&sa=X&ei=QquhVM3aBKeqywPz6IDYCw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAA&dpr=1#q=anatomical+parts+words+in+japanese
Second link is pretty good.
I also use http://jisho.org/ which is a great english-japanese dictionary. And it's easy to use.
Anyway, why are colleagues are so suspicious? :D
If one word can be translated in many ways that wouldn't be a problem. You would enrich your vocabulary even further. I think you meant different meanings? In every language there are words that have double meanings and you can get the wrong translation even from a dictionary if you don't know the actual meaning of the word in the target language. Japanese is not the only language where this happens. I use google translate as something extra on my learning process when I'm at work and I'm finished with all my duties for the day. I'm not getting paid to learn Japanese at work :) so that's why I don't want to make it that obvious. I wouldn't visit anything other than google or wikipedia at work. I was just wondering if anybody else uses it to translate single words and their experiences with it. My experience has been positive so far but I wonder if there's anything to look out for. I even break down the kanji that come up in the translation to make sure that the translation that I get is what I was looking for. But if it's a single kanji how wrong can you get with elephant, chair, tiger, mouse etc. I found it an extra boost in my learning while at work. When there's more than one translations in your word it shows to the right all the available ones and you can check all of them out.
Thanks for the advice but jisho translates from japanese to english, not from english to japanese.
I think I understand what you mean. You want something that looks vaguely like you could be working, not something obviously unrelated to your job? :)
http://wiktionary.org isn't bad if you want something which looks like Wikipedia. If you enter an English word, the resulting article will have a "translations" area which nearly always contains a Japanese translation. You can click the Japanese word to read about it and find compound words and words with similar meanings. It also has some example sentences, interesting etymology and other stuff.
Or could just find a plain looking English-Japanese dictionary.
Jisho.org does also do English to Japanese and is very good. You need to type the English word in the text box marked "English", not the default "Japanese" marked one. You can also go to the "Find Sentences" section and type an English word, and it will find Japanese sentences which contain the Japanese translations of the word you typed, which shows different translations in different contexts. ^^- That's very informative thank you so much :)
