Source for better (ie, more Japanese-like) meanings?

I actually used this weblio page the first time I searched it up which seems to be confined to JE dictionaries, hence the confusion. Seems like they have multiple different dictionaries available though.

Re: dictionary discussion, you’re probably right. I appreciate your humoring thus far – maybe we’ll revisit this in a year :stuck_out_tongue:

I see. They have ejje in the URL for that one, the regular one doesn’t. The EJ/JE one comes with the usual caveats about doubting things that come from certain sources.

It’s a good habit to ditch the JE/EJ dictionaries in the long run, so hopefully that works out.

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Isn’t できる intransitive though? We run into the whole transitivity thing again: “to be able to understand” versus “to be able to be understood.” Well, I’ll figure it out!

Hmmm … Out of interest I found that there is also a transitive 出来す (でかす) :smile:

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But correct for translation also != useful for grammar comprehension.

I would stand by “to be understood” or some other intransitive translation as the best for understanding the nature of 分かる as a piecemeal bit of language, but still say “私は英語がわかる” should be translated as “I know English.”

It’s the same nuance that applies to 届く in the vein that it’s intransitive and means “to arrive,” but I would translate お知らせが届いた? as “Did you get a notice?” Same for 音が聞こえる? becoming “Can you hear/do you hear a noise?”, even though 聞こえる itself might be something like “to be audible” (and indeed “audible” is the definition WK picks).

It’s not an all-or-nothing thing. The less literal translations absolutely display the usage better and are better actual translations in full sentences, but the literal translations for the single words go a lot further in clarifying Japanese grammar. (For instance, understanding the transitivity would make it clear early on that you can use a は topic and が subject marker for a pretty flexible sentence structure; the standard learning obviously frontloads a ton of these structures, but never really explains how they work, and they’re a huge part of the language.) WK currently goes 50/50 on these anyway, because plenty of its intransitive verbs are translated explicitly as such, while 分かる and a few others aren’t because … ???, really, but mainly because English learning tools have always backed away from that distinction for some reason.

You would not believe, by the way, how many early learners, but past Genki I and even II, are surprised when I point out that 分かる and 見える are intransitive. It’s that easy to miss during the fast pace of courses, and all it would take to drill home is some resource, at some point, being like, “Hey, buddy, this is techincally ‘to be understood.’”

…None of this relates explicitly to WK at this point.

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In this case, your verb isn’t できる, it’s 理解する in its potential form, which can be used transitively.

Also, be careful with how you map transitivity in your mind when it comes to Japanese (you used a passive voice to express your idea of “understand” being intransitive). Because the languages are so different it’s sometimes hard to render Japanese intransitivity in English. WK does that a lot too (using passsive to “grammarly define” intransitive verbs), but it’s not exactly right and sometimes complicate things.

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I think this is part of the trouble too–getting people to realize that the transitivity/intransitivity of Japanese verbs will not always make for a 1:1 usage parallel with English, despite the distinction being necessary for Japanese grammar, particle selection, etc.

I guess I’d basically argue for more resources just making both clear early on. As in, presenting transitives and intransitives clearly to help with Japanese sentence-construction and comprehension, while also presenting in big bold letters that situations where the intransitive/transitive is used will often be reversed from English (and just have to be remembered). Situations in which passive or active voice is more natural are also often reversed from English.

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Appreciate the pointer. I try to envision transitivity in terms of whether the subject is acting upon themselves (or allowing something to happen) or acting upon something else. You’re right that the English passive doesn’t always accurately capture an intransitive verb’s meaning, but as people earlier in the thread have stated sometimes we just have to make do with approximations (at least at first).

KKLC has some pretty interesting mnemonics that do play on the different meanings and how they work together at times. I use these rather than the WK mnemonics but ultimately I use or add a more common meaning or one that I know I will remember from any source. For instance if a character is given a meaning in WK and then in all compounds could be seen as something similar then it’s worth using that as the meaning of the kanji also (even more so if it’s given as a meaning in jisho or wherever)

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I’ve heard great things about Kodansha. Would you say it’s worth using in conjunction with WK?

Personally I wouldn’t be without it. I used to use WK mnemonics then look for something better on Kanji Damage or elsewhere if I didn’t like it. I now only read the WK mnemonics if I don’t like the KKLC one (very rare). I intend to go through the book on its own once I’ve burned everything in WK.

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I started going through KKLC from front to back, it is a great book. In many aspects I think it is superior to WK. It is not so dogmatic to use “a story of radicals” for everything, it sometimes uses the “traditional” meaning when it is more clear, or just offers a one-off explanation specifically for a single kanji. It is also inheriting meanings and readings from a kanji dictionary from Kodansha, it feels more “correct”. But it does’t have reading mnemonics or mnemonics for vocab though (there is just a list of 1–6 things).

Not sure if going in parallel on a low level is worth it, though. It has a completely different ordering than WK, and searching a book can become tedious. Just buy it anyway and browse a bit for starters :slight_smile:

Edit: there are also “KLC Graded Reader Sets” that are not that expensive as ebooks, it includes lots of sentences using the previous kanji only, with some grammar pointers.

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I’m not sure what you’re saying, the dictionary I used is 大辞林 one of the most authoritative Japanese dictionaries out there. Yes went Weblio has an abridged version but that is irrelevant.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daijirin

Also, Weblio does not only have EJ, JE dictionaries, it has J-J dictionaries, Kobun dictionaries, CJ dictionaries, a thesauraus.

Some examples. Here’s even a JSL dictionary for you https://shuwa.weblio.jp/

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Yes, Leebo corrected me. I wound up in one of the EJJE sections without realizing it which resulted in some confusion, and Stanford and stuff on their own pages reinforced my error because I didn’t look super hard at the original page.

@acm2010 @anon52074655

Just wanted to thank you both for recommending KKLC to me. It arrived in the mail today, and while I’m still making my way through the introduction, there are a handful of example mnemonics in there that have really just blown me away. I’m thinking of picking up one of the Kodansha dictionaries – both receive good reviews – but was wondering if either of you had thoughts as to whether I should pick up the Learner’s Dictionary or the Kanji Dictionary?

links to both
Learners: https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Dictionary-Expanded/dp/1568364075/
Kanji: https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Dictionary-Jack-Halpern/dp/1568364083

I have the Android app version of the Learner’s Dictionary. It’s nicely formatted but a bit of a luxury as the content is available elsewhere. A nice to have but not essential as far as I’m concerned. The app is essentially the book but cheaper.

I am making my way through the Graded Reading Sets https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0747ND2VK/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o09_?ie=UTF8&psc=1 which are good.

I love the format of WK and feel that if it used the KKLC mnemonics it would be amazing. I do like looking up the kanji though in KKLC (and other sources) and taking it from there. I feel this makes the meanings stick more. The book combined with the Anki deck of it is where I’m heading after I complete WK.

Glad you liked the recommendation.

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I don’t use a paper dictionary, I just look up vocabulary and example sentences in a JE dictionary to get a better feeling how the words are used. I don’t even know what I would look up in a specialized dictionary :smiley:

I can only speak for myself, but I try to go fast over the content and repair mistakes later. When you revisit things after a few months things are much easier to understand and remember. For me a “single pass” learning (getting everything right on the first try) is too exhausting.

For example I like that you only get a single reading in WK, and more later in vocab. If the lesson would contain all reading I would learn all and remember maybe none.

I would recommend to remember only a few things per kanji at first, when you know enough kanji to read revisit the vocab again when you see it in the wild and then look for the nuances :slight_smile:

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