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  • hello. i was just wondering... how hard would it be for a complete novice to assist you with the translation? Also, do you just use google translate, or do you translate it yourself? D:
    foolish-ferret

    I did two years of Japanese in high school, which have me enough of a grounding in the language to start translating. Once you have a proper understanding of the grammer, translating just becomes a matter of looking up Kanji and learning the vocabulary and rearranging it until it’s not awkward to read. I do use Google Translate just as a way of looking up some individual words, in conjuction with a few dictionary tools I have. I’m a long way off actual reading comprehension (which would certainly speed things up a lot), but I am confident that i’m translating accurately, regardless of how slow i’m going. If you put whole sentences or passages of text into Google Translate, all it’s going to give you is a garbled mess. You have to know the grammer to understand how all the bits and pieces slot together. There’s a lot of little nuances that online translators haven’t figured out yet. If you’re looking to learn japanese on your own, I’d recommend Tae Kim’s grammar guide (http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/). There’s also loads of basic reading resources all over the internet and /a/ even has daily japanese threads if you need any help.

    • December 26, 2012 (9:20 pm)
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