I am trying to make the jump and use monolingual dictionaries. However, I don't really understand the process. They say you use a Japanese definition when you find a word that you do not understand. If you don't understand all of the definition how will you understand what the new word is? This really has me troubled. I have been doing the sentence method for a while and I believe that its time to make the transition to J-J sentences but i feel the process of doing so is unclear. Anyone have any pointers?

Search the unknown words. You'll have to do constant searches at first, but they'll eventually lessen and stabilize.

You can use the monolingual dictionary as your main dictionary and use a bilingual dictionary to look up words you don't understand from monolingual definitions.

Have any of you guys made the jump if so what are the ups and downs of it?

jordan3311 Wrote:Have any of you guys made the jump if so what are the ups and downs of it?

Various thoughts here: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=8244

I'm definitely of the "non-absolutist" school here. I'm looking up a number of words in 日本語 only, but I still use J->E quite often, esp. if the Japanese definition isn't clear for me.

If you use Rikaisama, you can switch easily between the Japanese and English definitions with a single keypress, as a user in the other thread suggests.

jordan3311 Wrote:Have any of you guys made the jump if so what are the ups and downs of it?

As I basically said in the linked thread, I don't see the point. Obviously using a J-J dictionary is a skill you have to develop at some point, but the idea of switching over to J-J completely strikes me as kind of silly. I still use a J-E dictionary sometimes, and I've used J-E ever since I started learning, and I never felt like it harmed my progress.

Now, EDICT/rikai-chan is useful but there are better J-E dictionaries out there. Even just in the free realm, goo.ne.jp and alc.co.jp are both superior dictionaries to EDICT and I'm sure there are others as well.

Japaneselevelup.com has a long walkthrough to aid you during the transition... It ha helped me loads.

I don't really see the need to use a monolingual dictionary. In my view, your word search should be as efficient as possible, which means it should be clear, simple and fast. Unless you are quite advanced, that's not going to happen with a monolingual dictionary. Of course, if you have time and you want to be exposed to other words, that's fine, but if your main purpose it to look up a word, I think you're just making your life harder.

jordan3311 Wrote:Have any of you guys made the jump if so what are the ups and downs of it?

I started using monolingual dictionaries around JLPT N2 level, and I think it's best started around that point.

Usually my work flow goes like this:

1. Look up word in Meikyou or Dajisen, looking up any words that really hinder my understanding.
2. If I can't understand it, look up word in other monolingual dics (Koujien, Daijirin,etc)
3. If I still can't understand it (not that often), use Kenkyuusha or EDICT (sometimes EDICT has a word that none of the other dictionaries do, but I avoid it otherwise)

These days I usually stop after step 1, and the times I need to go to step 3 decreased as I got more comfortable with monodics.

It really helps to have an EPWING reader with a bunch of dictionaries installed to make switching between dictionary definitions quick & easy.

AlexandreC Wrote:I don't really see the need to use a monolingual dictionary. In my view, your word search should be as efficient as possible, which means it should be clear, simple and fast. Unless you are quite advanced, that's not going to happen with a monolingual dictionary. Of course, if you have time and you want to be exposed to other words, that's fine, but if your main purpose it to look up a word, I think you're just making your life harder.

In my experience, that's especially true if you're using a tool like Rikaisama to load up Anki. If you're not adding new words quickly, you can run out of new vocab to learn before you know it. I'm currently adding 30 new terms/day to my workload, and only have about 800 words in my unseen queue; I'll exhaust those in less than a month if I can't add new terms quickly.

yudantaiteki Wrote:Now, EDICT/rikai-chan is useful but there are better J-E dictionaries out there. Even just in the free realm, goo.ne.jp and alc.co.jp are both superior dictionaries to EDICT and I'm sure there are others as well.

I like using the Yahoo! 国語辞典 these days. But again, I think EDICT-based tools are fine when your goal is vocab-loading.

AlexandreC Wrote:I don't really see the need to use a monolingual dictionary. In my view, your word search should be as efficient as possible, which means it should be clear, simple and fast. Unless you are quite advanced, that's not going to happen with a monolingual dictionary. Of course, if you have time and you want to be exposed to other words, that's fine, but if your main purpose it to look up a word, I think you're just making your life harder.

This makes sense if your goal is to look up a word. However, looking up words is a secondary purpose for me when I use a monolingual dictionary. My primary purpose in using monolingual dictionaries is for reading practice. In particular, using monolingual dictionaries have helped me learn the patterns used when defining words, which is incredibly useful for when I try to explain something for which I don't know the proper word or term.

vileru Wrote:In particular, using monolingual dictionaries have helped me learn the patterns used when defining words, which is incredibly useful for when I try to explain something for which I don't know the proper word or term.

I've heard this claim before as a benefit of monolingual dictionaries, but I've never heard someone define or explain a term in speech the way they're written in dictionaries.

yudantaiteki Wrote:

vileru Wrote:In particular, using monolingual dictionaries have helped me learn the patterns used when defining words, which is incredibly useful for when I try to explain something for which I don't know the proper word or term.

I've heard this claim before as a benefit of monolingual dictionaries, but I've never heard someone define or explain a term in speech the way they're written in dictionaries.

◯◯の一つ。

yudantaiteki Wrote:

vileru Wrote:In particular, using monolingual dictionaries have helped me learn the patterns used when defining words, which is incredibly useful for when I try to explain something for which I don't know the proper word or term.

I've heard this claim before as a benefit of monolingual dictionaries, but I've never heard someone define or explain a term in speech the way they're written in dictionaries.

They're also pretty mediocre for reading practice compared to an article, book, manga etc.

I've used 大辞林 for quite a while. The advantages are full definitions (sometimes with a meaning(s) not included in EDICT), pitch code and example sentences. These features allow me to get a full understanding of a word when my J-E leaves me unsatisfied, which is usually when it doesn't have examples.

I find the times 大辞林 has a nice definition without examples just as useless as a standalone English translation. Definitions are nice, but how do I use the word? People forcing themselves to use monolingual dictionaries when they can't even read should probably be asking themselves this questions.

I agree that there's much better material available for reading practice, but I enjoy using monolingual dictionaries and it's not like they're my primary reading materials. I prefer reading definitions and example sentences in Japanese than in English. Furthermore, I maintain my study rhythm much better when I use monolingual dictionaries, i.e. I'm more focused for more time. In sum, it's more fun and motivating for me to use monolingual dictionaries. Therefore, I don't see why we should recommend against using a monolingual dictionary if someone is interested in giving it a try.

I should note two things though:
(1) I still use J-E dictionaries sometimes, but much less than before.
(2) I didn't start using monolingual dictionaries until I was beyond the N2 passing level.

To come back to this - @jordan3311, do you ever read http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/? I like this site a lot, and it seems like a good way to ease into J-J definitions. The articles highlight terms that they think students of Japanese might not know, and supply pop-up definitions in Japanese. E.g., here's the definition of 直径 from a recent article (http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/20120924...31000.html):

円または球の中心通って、円周や球面上の２点を結ぶ直線。さしわたし。

I find these definitions more direct and less circular than many of the definitions in a 国語 dictionary, as they're specifically intended for Japanese kids and foreign students of the language.