pm215 Wrote:I was thinking about this the other day, actually. Sometimes the definition in a J-J dictionary is really helpful for pulling together a concept that in English is spread across multiple words and giving you a clearer handle on things. On the other hand for a word like 鉱物 I have to say that I suspect that using a definition of "天然に産する無機物。ほぼ一定の化学組成と通常ほぼ一定の結晶構造を持つ固体。まれに非晶質のものや液体（水銀）もある" leaves me with a much less clear grasp of the word than just saying "mineral".

At the moment I'm experimenting with:
* English single-word definition when there is a clear near 1-1 match
* Japanese sentence-length definition when it's straightforward
* English again when things get more complex

wccrawford Wrote:That's interesting. I would have thought the English single-word definitions would be the worst since that makes it really easy to translate inside your head. If you stuck to long english definitions only, I think you'd end up working a bit harder, but wouldn't end up translating internally.

mezbup Wrote:I love the idea of a j-j thesaurus. I have links to two but it's a bit of a hassle having to always load a webpage.

harhol Wrote:

mezbup Wrote:I love the idea of a j-j thesaurus. I have links to two but it's a bit of a hassle having to always load a webpage.

Do you use Firefox? If so, right click in the search box, then click "Add a Keyword for this Search". Then you can search the site(s) using your address bar by just typing the keyword before what you want to search for, e.g. if your keyword is "th" and you want to search for "食べる", all you need to type is "th 食べる".

vinniram Wrote:in my view, you cannot learn a foreign language IN that foreign language, at the very outset. babies can, but once you grow out of "babyhood", you lose the Language Acquisition Device, which allows you to just soak up language from the language itself. You can listen to a tape a million times, and may learn to distinguish words, and even guess some meanings, but a non-baby will not be able to miraculously learn the language. I'm not well informed on this, but it puzzles me that many people who go to Japan to do english teaching that I've talked to can't actually speak Japanese. It makes me wonder how they actually expect the poor kids to learn!

vinniram Wrote:I'm not well informed on this, but it puzzles me that many people who go to Japan to do english teaching that I've talked to can't actually speak Japanese. It makes me wonder how they actually expect the poor kids to learn!

mezbup Wrote:I love the idea of a j-j thesaurus. I have links to two but it's a bit of a hassle having to always load a webpage. If I could get one to work with stardict that'd be brilliant.

Gethin and Gunnemark Wrote:The only thing worse than a monolingual dictionary is a thesaurus. The native speaker sifts the 'synonyms' she finds in a thesaurus, and discards most - or even all - of them. She is able to do this precisely because she already knows exactly what they mean and can accept or reject accordingly. If she is not sure of the meaning and use of a word, she does not dream of using it. A foreign student cannot possibly discriminate in this way.

IceCream Wrote:As soon as it's possible, you should move to J-J only definitions in your srs wherever possible, or, for certain types of words, J thesaurus entries are better.

magamo Wrote:No. 鉱物 and "mineral" aren't the same. They're very very veeeeeeery different. The former is only found in rocks, earth etc. while the latter can be in food and drink. They might be referring to the same stuff in a scientific sense, but linguistically they're totally different.

By the same token, 大学 and "university" are different in many ways. りんご and "apple" are also different. Just because they mean the same thing doesn't mean what pops up in native speakers' minds is also the same.

I don't know if using translation helps learn a word. Maybe it does. Maybe it's detrimental. But I don't think it's important. I think you know a word only if you can come up with typical situations where the word is used and natural sentences native speakers would say in such situations. If you can't, you don't know the word yet. Whether it's translation or a monolingual definition doesn't matter. Ask yourself if you can give natural, typical example dialogues. You know the word only when you can confidently say, "Yes. I sure can."

In this sense, the difference between knowing an equivalent word or a monolingual definition is insignificant and irrelevant. They have absolutely nothing to do with "knowing a word."

Also, I do believe that the critical period thing is plain nonsense. It's an excuse for whiners. Maybe there are certain scientific differences in our language learning process between kids and adults. But it doesn't matter at all. I have more than one friend who started learning foreign languages after puberty and achieved fluency to the extent that no one can distinguish them from native speakers. What's actually happening in our brains might be different, but we can learn language the same way. The possible scientific difference means nothing to learners.

magamo Wrote:No. 鉱物 and "mineral" aren't the same. They're very very veeeeeeery different. The former is only found in rocks, earth etc. while the latter can be in food and drink. They might be referring to the same stuff in a scientific sense, but linguistically they're totally different.

By the same token, 大学 and "university" are different in many ways. りんご and "apple" are also different. Just because they mean the same thing doesn't mean what pops up in native speakers' minds is also the same.

Quote:I don't know if using translation helps learn a word. Maybe it does. Maybe it's detrimental. But I don't think it's important. I think you know a word only if you can come up with typical situations where the word is used and natural sentences native speakers would say in such situations. If you can't, you don't know the word yet.