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Question About a Sentence - TaylorSan - 2009-05-19

I mined this from The KO2k1 smart.fm sentence list.
グループの中で意見が分かれました。

ぐるーぷ の なか で いけん が わかれました

Opinion was divided within the group.

Just wondering how they got the "divided" part in the sentence.

I don't put the given translation in my deck. I just look up each word in WWWJDIC and paste the E definitions (still a newbie, not ready for J-J)

I get -
Group - within - opinion - understood -

From those words I don't see the where the interpretation gets the divided part. I just get that inside group there were opinions, and that these opinions where understood- maybe if they were divided it would be 分かりませんでした...?

I usually glance once at the translation, and learn the sentence by it words. I just try understanding/getting the feel for them as Japanese, so I don't translate it in my head. I do realize there will be Japanese meanings sometimes that may not translate well from the literal words.

So in this case....which is it? Bad Translation by smart.fm? Inferred meaning that's a Japanese thing? Or maybe my problem is that with out a contextual story, there is a disadvantage to understanding the true meaning of the sentence. Perhaps this is a con of mining this way. Or am I just a newbie idiot (LOL). Just curious if anyone cares to enlighten me.


Also curious about what people who are experienced with Japanese think about smart.fm's translated sentence accuracy. I've chosen to mine from there because audio is super important for me right now. I'm using Nukemarine and co.'s KO2k1 compiled lists, so I'm not using the same sentences from the real KO sentences (right?). Is there a significant drop in quality in the smart.fm sentences?

Maybe I'm over analyzing this one
Still a newb, so any feedback is appreciated.

ありがとうございます

Question About a Sentence - kerosan41 - 2009-05-19

You looked up the wrong word.

分かれる means to branch off, split.

Don't forget to check the listed words in your KO books (^_−)−☆

Question About a Sentence - nac_est - 2009-05-19

分かる means "to undestand", but there's another completely separate verb, 分かれる, which means "to get divided". You sentence is using the latter.

This is a good example of why I warmly suggest not using 1-word translations like you are doing. Remember: the Japanese words that can be translated exactly into English with one word are extremely few and far between. In all other cases the translation is simply wrong.

So use full definitions from good dictionaries (not WWWJDIC), and start using Japanese-Japanese dictionaries as soon as you can.

Question About a Sentence - bombpersons - 2009-05-19

Use Rikai-chan ! Makes things much easier. Turn it off when to you got J-J though...

Question About a Sentence - blackmacros - 2009-05-19

I don't have much more to add that hasn't already been said (分かれる means to get divided), other than to remark on how similar the sentence is that you guys found for the KO smart fm lists.

The book itself contains almost that exact same sentence (which I went through yesterday, which is why I know the answer to his question Smile )

Question About a Sentence - harhol - 2009-05-19

nac_est Wrote:分かる means "to undestand", but there's another completely separate verb, 分かれる, which means "to get divided". You sentence is using the latter ... So use full definitions from good dictionaries (not WWWJDIC), and start using Japanese-Japanese dictionaries as soon as you can.
I know WWWJDIC is frowned upon in these parts but this is simply a matter of the OP misreading the sentence. Using Rikaichan reveals that the word in question is the polite past of split/branch off/divide into. A "good" dictionary and/or a "full definition" wouldn't have made a difference in this case.

Question About a Sentence - TaylorSan - 2009-05-19

Wow - Excellent responses thank you all. Obviously a silly blunder on my part (れ, り whats the difference! LOL ばか!)

nac_est Wrote:分かる means "to undestand", but there's another completely separate verb, 分かれる, which means "to get divided". You sentence is using the latter.

This is a good example of why I warmly suggest not using 1-word translations like you are doing. Remember: the Japanese words that can be translated exactly into English with one word are extremely few and far between. In all other cases the translation is simply wrong.

So use full definitions from good dictionaries (not WWWJDIC), and start using Japanese-Japanese dictionaries as soon as you can.
I do want to go J-J ASAP, but I think it would cause more harm than good at this point (I would be LOST in a sea of confusion I think). When I look up words I don't usually translate it from one of the definitions, I paste the entire definition, and get a feel for the meaning of the words as they work together in the sentence (that's why I use WWWJDIC, and not the one word definition on smart.fm). I don't use a given translation, or make up my own. My cardｓ are just Kanji -> Kana with pasted definitions/ audio and some times a few example sentences and maybe a picture for fun. I don't focus too much on one word definitions per-say (I did do that in posing the question, just to make it to the point). But I do need some kind of definition of course. And something there to reference when I fail the card. I also like getting to see alternative kanji/kana spellings and such....

I think over time, with massive exposure/input, multiple encounters of words, I will get a truer feel for the meanings of words and their Japanese nuances. And of course the J-J leap will be much better. People seem to say 500-1000 sentences is the jump off. I'm at about 300 now, but I really don't know when I'll be ready for that.

bombpersons Wrote:Use Rikai-chan ! Makes things much easier. Turn it off when to you got J-J though...
Isn't Rikai-chan only a pop up dic for web pages? Forgive me for another stupid question (I'm not too savvy with computers) but how can I use it to make anki cards. It's great for getting a definition when reading on the fly but I don't know how to copy/paste from it.

harhol Wrote:I know WWWJDIC is frowned upon in these parts but this is simply a matter of the OP misreading the sentence. Using Rikaichan reveals that the word in question is the polite past of split/branch off/divide into. A "good" dictionary and/or a "full definition" wouldn't have made a difference in this case.
Yeah I think I just typed the wrong word in....I misread　"分かれました" as 分かりました, and typed in the stem 分かる　in WWWJDIC, as they don't usually accept conjugated words. I made a quick assumption about the word and fracked it up (I made an ASS out of U and ME LOL).

I had no idea WWWJDIC was frowned upon? Anyone mind enlightening me as to why?
I looked up the real word there, and fixed my card -

分かれる 【わかれる】 (v1,vi) to branch off; to diverge from; to fork; to split; to dispense; to scatter; to divide into

Seems like a good definition to me...in fact it's word for word the same as Riachan's.

I like WWWJDIC because it has audio now. But it is a pain in the ass when it comes to looking up a conjugated word (Although it does force me to figuring out the stem, that is when I read the word right....this is my first misread, I swear!). And I don't know a good J-E alternative (Breen's all I know).....maybe I'll have to go trolling the forum for the answer.

Sorry for all the Newbie ishh......and thanks for the help.

Question About a Sentence - harhol - 2009-05-19

TaylorSan Wrote:I had no idea WWWJDIC was frowned upon? Anyone mind enlightening me as to why?
Simply because it's nowhere near as a comprehensive as a proper dictionary. Kenkyūsha's, for example, has nearly 500,000 entries, better definitions, and example sentences which you can rely upon. There's also an element of elitism: it's only natural to prefer a $350 "official" behemoth to a free online project (of course the age of the internet means that "$350 + four days shipping" now equates to "$0 + ten minute download").

However, I do think the shortcomings of WWWJDIC/Rikaichan are overstated (Rikaichan is just a browser-based version of WWWJDIC, in case you didn't know: they're based on exactly the same definitions). It's fine for 99.9% of lookups, especially beginner material, and it's more user friendly than an electronic dictionary.

Given a choice between the two, I'd go for Kenkyūsha's every time for obvious reasons. But if you don't have access to Kenkyūsha's, for whatever reason, there's nothing wrong with using WWWJDIC... just don't mention it in public Tongue

Question About a Sentence - travis - 2009-05-19

[Removed, oops my bad]

As for the KO sentences on smart.FM, they're probably more useful if you use the book first. The sentences in the book are better ordered to reuse previous vocabulary and compounds etc, and the grammar starts at an easy level and becomes more (slightly) difficult. On smart.FM the sentence is usually just the first audio sentence for each word in the book. There may be repeated compounds or not, and the grammar could be complicated or not so you don't get the nice automatic review of previous compounds from doing more sentences. If you can afford the book, it's definitely worth getting.

Question About a Sentence - harhol - 2009-05-19

Can you give an example of, say, five entries which are incorrect?

By the way, I'm uploading EBWin & Kenkyusha to Sendspace now for anyone who wants to try them out. EBWin is Windows-only, in case you hadn't guessed by the name, so Linux & Mac users will need to download a different dictionary reader.

Update: it's done. Click here to download the 124MB RAR file. Enjoy! Smile

Question About a Sentence - Tobberoth - 2009-05-19

travis Wrote:It's not that it's not comprehensive, it's because lots of the entries are incorrect.
I think you're mixing up edict and tanaka corpus. The edict has no incorrect entries, though it could be said that since it's Japanese -> English, they can be vague. Tanaka corpus however, which most edict dictionaries such as wwwjdic and jisho.org gets sentences from, has a lot of incorrect entries.

Question About a Sentence - travis - 2009-05-19

Tobberoth Wrote:
travis Wrote:It's not that it's not comprehensive, it's because lots of the entries are incorrect.
I think you're mixing up edict and tanaka corpus. The edict has no incorrect entries, though it could be said that since it's Japanese -> English, they can be vague. Tanaka corpus however, which most edict dictionaries such as wwwjdic and jisho.org gets sentences from, has a lot of incorrect entries.
You are indeed correct.

Question About a Sentence - bombpersons - 2009-05-19

harhol Wrote:Can you give an example of, say, five entries which are incorrect?

By the way, I'm uploading EBWin & Kenkyusha to Sendspace now for anyone who wants to try them out. EBWin is Windows-only, in case you hadn't guessed by the name, so Linux & Mac users will need to download a different dictionary reader.

Update: it's done. Click here to download the 124MB RAR file. Enjoy! Smile
Thank you =D

Question About a Sentence - sethg - 2009-05-19

harhol Wrote:EBWin is Windows-only, in case you hadn't guessed by the name, so Linux & Mac users will need to download a different dictionary reader.
Anybody know of good Linux readers? I'm running Ubuntu Jaunty.

Question About a Sentence - bombpersons - 2009-05-19

sethg Wrote:
harhol Wrote:EBWin is Windows-only, in case you hadn't guessed by the name, so Linux & Mac users will need to download a different dictionary reader.
Anybody know of good Linux readers? I'm running Ubuntu Jaunty.
Yay, more linux users =D I'm installing it now, so I don't know how good it is, but Ebview runs on linux. On Ubuntu you can sudo apt-get install ebview

*Edit*
I cannot for the life of me figure out how to add the dictionary to ebview? Anyone figured it out?

Question About a Sentence - Tobberoth - 2009-05-19

I'm running jaunty as well. I ran Slackware before and tried to get a decent ebviewer... it's actually why I moved back to Ubuntu, I couldn't stand all the problems I had. Tons of dependency problems and it just wouldn't compile for me, regardless.

I might try Ebview myself, I have kenkyuusha in EPWING format.

Question About a Sentence - sethg - 2009-05-19

Perfect! Thanks so much Big Grin I would hate to boot into Windows every time I wanted to use the dictionary. Thanks so much, really! I just installed every dictionary in the repositories trying to get it to work Tongue

Edit: :: Moments later :: How do you get it to work with EBView? Sorry.. Just not seeing it :/

Edit Edit: Nevermind, just saw you can't figure it out either. How confusing...

Question About a Sentence - Tobberoth - 2009-05-19

Don't worry guys, Tobberoth is here to help you Wink

Here's the basics: You need a dictionary group and you need a dictionary added to it. So open ebview and go into options, dictionary groups. At the bottom, enter a Group Name and press add. Then, in the path window just below it, enter the directory where the epwing dictionary resides. (This will usually be an iso of a CD rom.) Pick a proper search level (the higher it is, the more folders it will jump into and look. As long as the path you specified doesn't contain TONS of stuff, be sure to put that level high enough for it to find the dictionary). Now, press Search disk. Your dictionary will pop up in the list below your added dictionary group. Now, simply drag and drop the dictionary into your added dictionary group and you're done, you can now search in that dictionary.

Remember, if your epwing dictionary is on an ISO, you need to mount it, which can be somewhat complicated if you don't know how mounting works. On Ubuntu, you can install an application called gmountiso which is a frontend which let's you simply pick the iso, a directory to mount it in, and press mount. (To add a mount directory, you can simply use the terminal, go to /media and write "sudo mkdir isoa" or something like that).

EDIT: Note, you can probably just extract the iso somewhere and point ebview to that directory instead. That way, you won't have to mount the iso every time you want to use the dictionary.

Question About a Sentence - sethg - 2009-05-19

Thanks, Tobberoth. I have the dictionary now kind of installed, but it's not working. :/ I type in a word, I've tried both English and Japanese, and it does nothing but light up one of the arrows beneath the dictionary list. :/

I hope I'm not overlooking something really simple.

Oh, and as a note to anyone else adding the dictionary, do the full path. For me, it crashed every time I did otherwise.

Question About a Sentence - Tobberoth - 2009-05-19

sethg Wrote:Thanks, Tobberoth. I have the dictionary now kind of installed, but it's not working. :/ I type in a word, I've tried both English and Japanese, and it does nothing but light up one of the arrows beneath the dictionary list. :/

I hope I'm not overlooking something really simple.

Oh, and as a note to anyone else adding the dictionary, do the full path. For me, it crashed every time I did otherwise.
That sounds odd, you should get a "no hit" message if you search for something it can't find.

Are you sure ebview properly found the dictionary you wanted and that you placed it in the chosen group?

Question About a Sentence - sethg - 2009-05-19

I'm fairly sure. But nothing shows up in the large white window. If I do a search in the Internet pane, I get "No Hit" and a "Launching Browser" message down in the status bar. I'm running 64bit... I wonder if I'm missing a required repository? I don't know.

After restarting the program, when I do a search, it brings up, in the left pane, a number of 研s. When I click them, though, I get nothing :/ How frustrating.

Question About a Sentence - Tobberoth - 2009-05-19

Then I'm sorry, seems it has installed the dictionary but can't properly search in it. Since I didn't use the dictionary provided here, there's not much I can do.

Personally though, I found that I for some reason can't use the dictionary unless i mount the iso. I tried extracting it, but epwing can't find any dictionary there, even though it finds it immediately on the CD when mounted. I assume it's some form of copy protection.

Question About a Sentence - Jarvik7 - 2009-05-19

I've never had any problems opening any epwing in kotonoko, including ones I just copied directly from the CD/DVD. There is no copy protection that I know of.

Perhaps whatever viewer you're using is an older version that doesn't support ebzip or newer versions of the epwing spec.

Question About a Sentence - sethg - 2009-05-19

I have the ISO, but I was using the file from this thread. I'll try mounting it and using it that way to see if I get the same result.

Update: Nope. Same exact problem whether I mount or not, whether I use this file or the ISO. :: sigh :: I really want to use this dictionary.

Question About a Sentence - nac_est - 2009-05-19

Thanks Tob, now I have my Japanese Wikipedia at offline disposal. (what for, it's a mystery... Tongue )