That site doesn't tell you that you shouldn't use a dictionary at all, it says you shouldn't read while looking up every word because it takes too long. It doesn't really mean anything to people using an SRS since we don't look words up more than once. We look it up, learn it and remember it. Then we stop looking it up.

That said, it's still a good idea to read without relying on dictionaries, because it's boring and slow.

@pm215

It's not like you know the typical usages and meanings of a word/phrase because someone teaches you them. You learn them through exposure and only through exposure. You don't learn the fact that 鉱物 doesn't include calcium on the "nutrition facts" printed on the back of a milk carton because I said so. You learn it because you don't come across such usage in real life. That's why I think learners need a massive amount of exposure.

Should we use translation or monolingual dictionaries? It's like arguing which foot you should step forward with first when you run a marathon. It doesn't matter if you jump off your right foot or push off your left foot first. It's just a small first step you'll have forgotten. What you need to do is run 26 miles and 385 yards.

You need to be exposed to an incredibly huge amount of native material. Translations and explanations are really really really insignificant when compared with the rest of the 26 miles and 384 yards you should run to learn a word.

If you have a good systematic learning method to take advantage of translation for the first step, it's good to exploit English. Your second step will be smoother that way. If you're already used to use monolingual dictionaries and stuff, it's good to use them for the exact same reason. Either way, they're just small steps. Different strokes for different folks, and there is no such thing as the best use of an SRS.

Personally I use multiple monolingual dictionaries when I look up a new word. But they're just a second opinion. I don't believe them. I believe what I'm hearing/reading now. I believe what I have been exposed to. Most of the time my understanding is not accurate or simply wrong at first. But I can fix that as I consume native material. This fixing process is my definition of "learning." Reading entries in a dictionary is a tiny, insignificant part of learning I couldn't care less about.

I haven't read this thread, except for the OP's post, so I apologize if I repeat anything.

Anyway, I find that if you have and electric dictionary, attempting to use a monolingual dictionary takes almost no time. At least with my Casio, you can do it as follows. First you type the word into the monolingual dictionary. The definition comes up, and it takes less than a second to realize if the definition is close to your level of easy understanding. If it is, you read through it quickly. If there's just one (or even sometimes two) words you don't know, you look them up in the Japanese to English dictionary and then reread the original definition and hopefully understand it.

However, if the initial definition it obviously outside your level, or if there's two or more words you don't know, you just click the button for your Japanese-English dictionary. On mine you don't even have to retype in the word, and it will give you the English definition. Attempting a monolingual dictionary took you less than 5 seconds, and usually around just 1 second.

Even though it doesn't take very much time, I still do it only when I feel up to it. If your tired or have had a busy day, it's better to just get it down as quickly as possible and not frustrate yourself.

That's my stategy anyway, hope it helps.

I agree with magamo, learning the dictionary definition of a word is only a tiny part of truly learning a word. You don't really know a word until you've seen it in many different contexts, learned collocations using it, understand how it differs from similar words/synonyms, etc. Ultimately, whether you learned the word through a monolingual dictionary, bilingual dictionary, from a picture, or purely through context, will not end up really making that much of a deal, because you won't truly understand that word until you've seen it many more times in several different contexts.

IceCream Wrote:

shirokuro 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. If I could get one to work with stardict that'd be brilliant.

I'd be wary of monolingual thesauri. I think they could maybe help with understanding monolingual definitions, but using them by themselves could easily lead to misunderstandings.

i think thesaurases are really helpful actually... it gives you an overview of the meaning, and is often easier than the japanese entries. It just kind of slims down the possible meanings you got from the context in the first place, and focus it in the right direction... its just another kind of memory hook if you need to glance at it after forgetting the word in your srs...

I'd say it's the opposite, thesauruses makes the meaning way too broad, much broader than the context you found the word in. Just enter a word at dictionary.com's thesaurus and look at how you're bombarded with tons of words which barely even mean something similar.

I use English antonyms for new Japanese words. How 'bout that?

@magamo: your post seems to have the form of an argument but I completely agree with it :-)

*Waits for magamo to come in and explain in minute detail the extreme differences between 見地 and 立場*

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! it would be like dumping an Australian primary school student in a classroom in China and crossing your fingers.

People have already explained what happens with the ALTs. But babies don't learn languages from listening to tapes either; they hear things in the context of relevant real-life interaction with their family. It is possible to teach adults a language in a similar way, though adults can also take advantage of many other methods that babies can't use.

This thread is related:
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=4032

Going to monolingual methods forces yourself to stop translating. Using a difficult dictionary forces you to stop looking everything up. Both are more important than whether or not there's English in your SRS.

Perhaps another technique would be to set a quota for dictionary look ups. Be an SRS perfectionist for 20-30 words a day and live without a dictionary for the rest.

I can see also see monolingual study as a huge confidence boost, and imagine you could learn circumlocution from reading dictionary definitions.

On the bilingual side, bilingual lookups get out of your way quickly, allowing you to better appreciate whatever you're reading. Bilingual vocab lists are very fast to acquire.

Tobberoth Wrote:*Waits for magamo to come in and explain in minute detail the extreme differences between 見地 and 立場*

Thanks god someone can

@IceCream: I think the way you're using monolingual thesauri is OK. I definitely agree that they can be helpful. I'd written "I'd be wary" because I think they can easily lead to misunderstandings, not because I think that they should necessarily be avoided altogether. And I can understand using a simple thesaurus entry rather than a complicated monolingual dictionary definition when making a new card. However, I still think it's a bad idea to only use a monolingual thesaurus when learning a new word.

Here are my main objections to using a monolingual thesaurus for learning vocabulary:

1. They are usually less precise than dictionaries.
2. There are few, if any, true synonyms in the sense of two words that are always interchangeable for any possible situation.
3. It encourages thinking that different words with different usages and different nuances correspond exactly.
4. They're intended to be used when writing to help you vary your diction, not to help you learn vocabulary. Thesaurus entries are not even intended to give you a sense of the meaning of a word, much less to replace a real definition.
5. Monolingual does not necessarily mean better than bilingual. A bilingual definition that gives you a clearer understanding of a word is probably more useful than a vague monolingual thesaurus entry.

In the end, though, I don't think it's really that important how you first learn a word. A lot of monolingual definitions basically are the same as thesaurus entries, anyways. I don't think we should seek to memorize dictionary definitions verbatim, because that doesn't necessarily mean you understand a word. Your understanding of a word should be more informed by how you actually see the word used in real contexts than by dictionary definitions or thesaurus entries.

wildweathel Wrote:Going to monolingual methods forces yourself to stop translating.

Although this seems like a logical argument, I don't know if I agree with it, actually. I think only exposure/immersion can really stop you from translating. Learning a word from a monolingual dictionary doesn't mean that you're not going to think, Oh, so it's [word in English]. I still sometimes do that when I use monolingual dictionaries.

I used bilingual dictionaries almost exclusively when I was learning French, and I definitely don't translate in my head when I listen to or read French. I think where I really learned what words meant was from exposure (most of my classes were in French for four of the six years that I was in a programme called "French Immersion"). I had no choice but to stop translating in my head to be able to follow lessons. That said, I think that it's good to use monolingual dictionaries because it encourages more use of your target language, but I think that the actual benefits of monolingual vs. bilingual are sometimes exaggerated. You should be learning primarily from exposure. That's how you come to truly understand words. Exposure is the only way you will actually understand all the nuances of a word, how it differs from words with similar meanings, what situations the word should be used in, etc.

I used English definition during my whole learning process of Japanese. I speak basic Japanese fluently with my girlfriend daily.

I'd say that's proof enough that using English isn't detrimental to fluidity. There's no way I would be able to speak like I do if I had to translate anything at all in my head.

I've used J->E much more than monolingual and continue to rely on J->E quite a bit even now -- I pretty much only use J-J when the word isn't in my J-E or I feel like I'm not getting the complete picture. It's worked fine for me; I speak Japanese every day with coworkers and friends and I don't translate from English.

I don't use dictionaries outside of SRS (personal preference).

Still, I like Kenkyusha as a J-E dictionary (I use EBwin interface) not only for the example sentences, but some entries also have short J-J definitions akin to what that Tanuki list offers up. The Kojien J-J dictionary seems a bit too dense much of the time, but I am using it more often.

Magamo nails it perfectly though. The srs, dictionaries, thesaurus, threads on here, etc. will give you an idea about a word. However, you need exposure to grasp minutia in a way that makes sense to you.

I do wonder: with how we use an SRS if using J-E is really that bad at all. Like Tobberoth points out, you're probably not even using the English definition most of the time during reviews since the time you lean on it you're likely marking the card wrong. Granted, I'm assuming a person is not doing E-J srs cards (another reason among many I stopped using smart.fm).

With that, if you're looking up stuff that you don't SRS, then it seems using a J-J would be best. Otherwise, you're just getting false comprehension that'll soon fade.

Eh, there's too many study styles and experience on this forum to ever get a straight answer anymore.

One thing about the Genius J->E (which is what I use on my electronic dictionary) is that because it's trying to show a Japanese person how to translate the Japanese word into English, it explains (in Japanese) the different shades of meaning that the Japanese word can have and often provides example objects for the verbs, and then has a number of example sentences that are usually much better than the ones in the Koujien.

I agree with magamo's post above; I've said this on other threads but I'm highly suspicious of many of the putative benefits of J-J dictionaries as espoused on this site, and I just don't think it makes that much difference in the long run. Learning to use a J-J dictionary is an essential skill for reaching a high level of proficiency, but the notion that a J-J is always superior to a J-E or that use of English is always going to screw you up is not true in my personal experience.

yudantaiteki Wrote:One thing about the Genius J->E (which is what I use on my electronic dictionary) is that because it's trying to show a Japanese person how to translate the Japanese word into English, it explains (in Japanese) the different shades of meaning that the Japanese word can have and often provides example objects for the verbs, and then has a number of example sentences that are usually much better than the ones in the Koujien.

I agree with magamo's post above; I've said this on other threads but I'm highly suspicious of many of the putative benefits of J-J dictionaries as espoused on this site, and I just don't think it makes that much difference in the long run. Learning to use a J-J dictionary is an essential skill for reaching a high level of proficiency, but the notion that a J-J is always superior to a J-E or that use of English is always going to screw you up is not true in my personal experience.

re: genius j-->e - Yes! I use this all the time in Stardict. Very handy. To be honest, I didn't even notice it was because it was (edit: because it was made for Japanese ppl to translate into English? Ohhh, that explains why the explanations are in Japanese), I just was amazed at the useful sentences and variations that helped me pick out a fuzzy peg that best fit the Japanese context in question.

Well, it's made for Japanese people, at least. I guess I don't know that they specifically targeted it to translators, but that's kind of what it seems like the definitions are geared towards.

Like, for 買う, they have this (just an extract from the definition):

buy
[他]＜物＞を買う、購入する
get
[他][SVO1 O2/SVO2 for O1] O1<人>にO2＜物＞を買ってやる、手に入れてやる
purchase
[他]<<正式>>＜物＞を買う、購入する
「買う」という意で最も一般的な語はbuyで、getはbuyより口語的、purchaseはbuyより堅い語で、広告などではしばしばbuyの上品語として用いられる。

(EDIT: One of their example sentences is 厄介な手続き一切なしでバイアグラをオンラインで買えます - <広告>You can purchase viagra online without going through any hassles.)

I'm not sure that type of thing would be useful to someone not trying to translate into English. That definition is an example of one of the less useful ones for native English speakers; other words have a lot more helpful information for learners. The example sentences are also much better; the Koujien for 買う has two classical Japanese quotations and then just 家を買う and 切符を買う; not the most lively examples out there.