Best online translation sites

[showercapbear]

I was just wondering what sites/services folks here use to translate toku or entertainment related websites from Japanese to English?

Google translate is certainly serviceable, but sometimes the translation still comes out unintelligible (to me at least).

If GT is the best there is, that's cool but I was just wondering if anyone knows of any good alternatives?

Thanks!

 

[sgtrudolfs]

well i usually use this to convert kanji -> hiragana only
but it can also translate japanese characters to romanji too

http://nihongo.j-talk.com/

though you still need to use dictionary to translate the actual meaning of the language :laugh:

 

[kuroihikari]

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.

 

[Painted_Outlaw]

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

If you're just gonna do all the work yourself (by going through the 25 years ......or so of learning Japanese), why even bother using a website? >>

 

[kuroihikari]

25 years? :laugh: More like a week. It takes only a couple of hours to learn kana. Tenses are not that much complicated.

It's the vocabulary which is really difficult and what you need a website for.

 

[showercapbear]

Thanks, guys! I'll check those out