Dictionary of the Spoken Language? | Page 1 | The Japanese Student Guild | Guild Forums

Michael Noire

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Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 5:28 am

Horror story here. I've got an older copy of Rosetta Stone with no dictionary, a Random House Dictionary, and vague familiarity with around 500 kanji (I practice about 300 per day), and I decided to take a crack at translating lyrics one day.

It was practically impossible. While Rosetta Stone uses non dictionary form words about 50% of the time, I'm able to get the jist of it between the pictures, my own lame dictionary, and some grammar guide called Japanese the Manga way (save your money, it's a 'little brown handbook' for Japanese).

But when I tried translating lyrics from the Visual Kei band Gazette, I almost died. Even with some understanding of the differences of Dictionary and Spoken form, I was only able to locate/identify ONE in NINE words.

Please, for the love of all that is Japanese,

is there a dictionary that has the words these people actually speak?

Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:58 am

Lol, there are some (well, dictionaries you can use to look up stuff that's spoken a lot), but it really also comes from being here for a while (or listening to a LOT of Japanese music) as you hear a lot of things and words repeated. I once made a list of the most common words found in most J-Pop/J-Rock songs. And sadly enough, I think it would still hold true now.

I personally have moved on from most books though. I love using my electronic dictionary over the DS kanji program because it forces me to remember the rules to radicals and such and I learn kanji much easier than writing them once for the reading then being done with it.

And you poor, poor soul....using Rosetta Stone as a last desperate attempt...

Note: www.alc.co.jp has one of the best dictionaries I've seen. It's online (obviously) so if you want the feel and resourcefulness of a paper dictionary, it's kind of not the same thing.

And if you're talking about things such as 可愛いじゃん　for 可愛いじゃない　then, I am not sure if such a dictionary exists for such stuff like that, though chances are the above website will have examples of such things like that (it searches the web for known instances of that word with translations).

IdiotbyDefault
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Michael Noire

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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 4:43 pm

how do I type the stuff into that machine?

my whatever IMESNMHE program doesn't always generate the right kanji when I type in words.

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 12:38 am

Is it the Global IME program that you get installed on your computer (windows only)?

Here's a website that shows you how to install Global IME on all windows platforms: http://www.declan-software.com/japanese_ime/

With XP, no add-ons/downloads are required. For some reason, the software is an extra thing installed in the windows folder, but not added on automatically.

Oh, but if you have it, then it's decently easy to get the kanji you want. When you enter something then hit the spacebar, it brings up a pop-up of various kanji/kana that it thinks you want to use. You should be able to find the the right kanji you're looking for in that context window.

IdiotbyDefault
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electr0 xi

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Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 4:08 am

do take heed that Ruki (vocalist of the gazettE)'s lyrics are usually poetic, so it might be hard working out how to put them into understandable english! ^^

Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 6:45 am

electr0 xi

do take heed that Ruki (vocalist of the gazettE)'s lyrics are usually poetic, so it might be hard working out how to put them into understandable english! ^^

i basically need a printed "NOT dictionary form" dictionary. I left a lot of my textbooks in another state when moving here (NY) because you get charged for lots of baggage when flying. Or a dictionary with all the forms. I don't care if its like 3000 pages and costs a fortune.

Michael Noire

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IdiotbyDefault
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Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:19 pm

Michael Noire

electr0 xi

do take heed that Ruki (vocalist of the gazettE)'s lyrics are usually poetic, so it might be hard working out how to put them into understandable english! ^^

i basically need a printed "NOT dictionary form" dictionary. I left a lot of my textbooks in another state when moving here (NY) because you get charged for lots of baggage when flying. Or a dictionary with all the forms. I don't care if its like 3000 pages and costs a fortune.

You mean a dictionary that has all the forms of conjugation? Hold on, I might have a website for you....

http://jgram.org/pages/viewList.php?lv=4

There's a list on the side that says something like "JLPT Level " on it. JLPT stands for Japanese Language Proficiency Test. The closer you get to level one, the more complex grammar it has. But, this site should have the grammar forms you need, but it might take a bit of searching through the levels. Most songs I would think would use forms from JLPT 4 all the way to 2, but might sometimes use something from 1, though mainly with the Verb (verb-stem) + Verb = New Verb forms.

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