How To Really Make the Transition to Monolingual Dictionaries
I know I’ve written on this topic before. FORGET WHAT I SAID. That explanation sucked; it was far too complicated. Just do this. This is all you need to do to smoothly make the transition to monolingual dictionaries. Are you ready? OK. Here it comes:
Look up definitions of words you already know.
You heard me.
LOOK
UP
WORDS
YOU
ALREADY
KNOW
In Japanese, that would be super, duper, uber, simple, kantan, remedial words. I refer to:
- 此処(here)
- 食べる(eat)
- 飲む(drink)
- 男(man)
- 女(woman)
- 行く(to go)
- 来る(to come)
- 大きい(big)
- 小さい(small)
- お前(you)
- の(“of”)
- ママ(Mama)
- は ([topic marker])
- 氈鹿(goat antelope) — what, you didn’t know this one?
- だ(is)
- よ([emphasis marker])
- ええっ？(huh?)
- 何？(what?)
- 殺す(kill)
- ぞ([emphasis marker])
- この(this)
- 野郎(rascal)
I think you get the message. So, all you cats worrying about “goin’ monolingual”, start with words you already know. No chance of misunderstanding there, right? Right. Good. End transmission.
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Read on:
Ceryni said,
July 16, 2008 @ 1:01 pm
Wow! I can’t believe i didn’t think of this, It seems so obvious when you think about it! 多谢 卡粗磨头 yea thats a really bad transliteration… think mandarin when you read it.
李洋 said,
July 16, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
Oh! That is a good way to transition. I will work on this! Thank you (^-^).
Agro Rachmatullah said,
July 16, 2008 @ 3:08 pm
>> 氈鹿(goat antelope) — what, you didn’t know this one?
That’s funny
Anyway, currently I mostly consult 国語辞書 when there are no corresponding entries on 和英辞書, mostly because it has an abundance of example sentences. Guess I should more and more force myself to use the monolingual one…
Eric said,
July 16, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
I stared at 此処 for a second and literally said out loud “That’s not the ******* kanji for ここ…is it?”
I hope no one at work heard me, haha.
Jadpan said,
July 16, 2008 @ 6:10 pm
Good idea. You are only acquiring when you understand what you are hearing or reading.
I might say, at first at least, stick with the concrete/meaning-carrying words you already know. The common words that are function words tend to have very convoluted definitions because the words themselves carry little meaning. So, the “definition” is really more of an explanation of how to use the word which may not be that clear in the first place since there are often many ways to use the word and many exceptions and the best way to acquire those words in the first place is through lots of comprehensible input which, since they are such common function words, will appear in the definitions of the other, meaning-carrying vocabulary.
And don’t forget the option of using a children’s dictionary. Not necessarily as a stepping stone to eventually using an adult’s dictionary, but in conjunction with. I find that first reading a definition in a kids jisho helps boost my comprehension of a definition in my electronic dictionary. Sometimes, I’m more in the mood to use the kids jisho since i know I’ll have an easier time of understanding the definition without having to look up too many definitions of words in definitions. Sometimes, I’m in a patient mood and I have a lot of time, so I like to stick with my electronic dictionary for the challenge and just jump from definition to definition until I finally understand.
The important thing is getting input that you understand without having to struggle too much. It should be fun.
Charles A. said,
July 16, 2008 @ 6:30 pm
Recently I’ve been throwing together a vocabulary flash card list (on Trinity via the RevTK site). The catch is these are words that are in my sentence pack list. Accomplishes a few things:
1. I find if I know a word outside the context of a sentence.
2. I get a rough idea of the size of my current On Yumi, Kun Yumi, and Vocabulary coverage (Trinity tracks all that).
3. Gives me some short term accomplishment I’ve been missing since finishing RTK1.
However, this post has given another benefit. Those cards in my 4th stack (remembered at least 4 weeks between reviews) are good candidates to go with this monolingual tip.
Tkyosam said,
July 17, 2008 @ 8:22 am
WHAT!?!?!
LOOK…UP….WORDS….I….ALREADY…………KNOW?!?!?!
YOU SIR, ARE CRAZY! HOW CAN I EXPECT TO LEARN JAPANESE THIS WAY?!?!? MY LIFE IS SOOOO HARD ALREADY! NOW YOU GO AND TELL ME TO LOOK UP “WORDS” IN A “DICTIONARY”??!?!?
bubble said,
July 18, 2008 @ 2:56 am
Good idea. I looked up several words yesterday and couldn’t understand the definitions very well (if at all), but today I was pleased to be able to understand (and read) the following:
いえ（家）
（１） 人が住むための建物
Daniel said,
July 18, 2008 @ 8:07 am
I do a variation of this… I look up user reviews on amazon.co.jp of movies that I have seen
godai said,
July 18, 2008 @ 10:20 am
Hey Katz,
This one was like your shortest post ever!
Are you sick, or something like that?
Thanks for the input, anyway.
Ryan said,
July 18, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
「勝元：ザムービー」は？
Chiro-kun said,
July 18, 2008 @ 8:52 pm
Ryanの言う通りだぜ！
どこだろう…「18ヶ月間の坊主の武者修行」のムービー版は…
Stephen said,
July 19, 2008 @ 8:13 am
Thanks. Not quite there yet, but I’ll keep it in mind.
Rokii said,
July 19, 2008 @ 10:04 am
This is a good idea, especially with simple nouns. Also this might be a no brainer for most but it took me a while to figure out: give definitions their own entries! A lot of vocab gets repeated in dictionary entries. Also they’re a nice length, so this definition from the デジタル大辞泉
【使い分け】場合に応じて使い方・使う物などを区別すること。
yields two entries:
【使い分け】場合に応じて使い方
【使い分け】使う物などを区別すること
A nice side effect is you learn the word in question really well.
nacest said,
July 19, 2008 @ 4:28 pm
I don’t usually use the definitions because they can be a little boring, except one case: when they’re descriptions of a specific object/thing.
I’ve created a “Quiz” tag in anki, and when I find a word I want to learn and of which I don’t have a good sentence, I put the definition in the Question Side, and the word in the Answer Side. For example:
Q: 種から芽が出たばかりの植物：？
A: 苗（なえ）
Q: 水が浅くて泥が深く、自然にできた池：？
A: 沼（ぬま）
Q: き の かん や えだ の さき：？
A: 木の幹や枝の先：梢（こずえ）
Of course one can do it both kanji>reading and the other way around.
Brian said,
July 19, 2008 @ 6:31 pm
cool thing that you put this little article up because it was basically the first way I started experimenting with japanese-only dictionaries. I would just look up words I already know and after a while you realize that the dictionaries, like english ones, have the same grammatical syntax and same words used over and over again to describe things and so far, using a japanese-only dictionary isn’t a problem at all. After a while, it just all builds up until you pretty much know like 80% of the words that the dictionary uses to describe new words….it’s like a big long endless circle of getting smarter.
Rob said,
July 23, 2008 @ 11:02 am
Does anyone know of a good freeware J-J dictionary to install on my computer so I don’t always have to rely on online dictionaries? Thanks in advance.
ジェームズ said,
July 26, 2008 @ 9:00 am
俺； お前のママは氈鹿だよ
勝元； ええ、殺すぞこの野郎
Thai Wikipedia Excerpt #1 « Learn Thai from a White Guy said,
August 15, 2008 @ 9:43 pm
[...] Wikipedia Excerpt #1 Khatzumoto of AJATT offered a really good suggestion recently – when you want to start using a monolingual dictionary in the language you are learning, [...]
Mallory said,
August 21, 2008 @ 1:17 pm
YAY! I love it!! I understand the definition! ありがとうございます
Paula said,
June 26, 2009 @ 11:32 am
Look what I found, thanks to that link to 三省度 Web Dictionary:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=298900721&mt=8
Sanseido for iPhone/iPod touch. $16 USD. I’ll be using this <3 Now I don’t have to rely on the one on my computer =/
All Japanese All The Time Dot Com: How to learn Japanese. On your own, having fun and to fluency. » When Will I Get Funny? said,
October 6, 2009 @ 12:36 pm
[...] You will get there. But to get there, you need to let go of both your starting point (English) and your goal (Spanish) and just focus on the road — doing Spanish things here and now. Let go of the wall of the rink, and forget about the other side. Just skate on the ice you’re on now. That means, it may well be high-time for you to go monolingual. [...]