GT is not really something I would call serviceable.
What I suggest is grasping a bit of how Japanese sentence structure works (especially verb forms and tenses), and memorize kana then running it through WWJDIC's text glossing. http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi
It's not gonna give you a translation, but is gonna translate individual words and verbs (including telling you the tense). Even if you don't know the kana and how sentence structure works, at least you'll get to see what words are there and what tenses are used. Compared to GT which can utterly mislead you by translating verbs in the wrong tense, IMHO this is a better alternative.
What I suggest is grasping a bit of how Japanese sentence structure works (especially verb forms and tenses), and memorize kana then running it through WWJDIC's text glossing. http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi