Transition to monolingual dictionaries etc

Just wondering about the transition to monolingual stuff, as I use websites like jpdb.io and such for srs which are bilingual dictionary based, just curious how I would make the transition to srs with monolingual, thanks in advance

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Are you already using a monolingual dictionary for general dictionary lookups? If not, start there. Personally I would not start using a Japanese definition in the “answer” side of an SRS card unless/until you can read it as fluidly as an English sentence. For SRS reviews you want to go fast, which means you want to be able to quickly scan the answer side to confirm whether you were right or not. If it takes you 5 or 10 seconds to read a Japanese definition of a word, that’s going to make your SRS review sessions a huge chore.

For general dictionary lookups, set up a system where it’s easy to refer to both the JE dictionary and a JJ dictionary. Get in the habit of looking at the JJ definition in cases where the English definition seems to have a lot of unrelated senses or when you get the impression that there might be a single underlying concept that gets split into multiple different English words. (Those are the situations when a JJ dictionary is most useful, I think.) Eventually you can expand to looking at the JJ definition more often.

You don’t need to use a JJ dictionary for everything; for instance here are two definitions of シマウマ:

Daijisen: 奇蹄 (きてい) 目ウマ科の哺乳類の総称。アフリカに分布。体は白地に黒の縞模様があり、たてがみは立っている。

EDICT: Zebra

I know which one I want on my flashcard for this word :slight_smile:

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I have the same experience (mainly with other languages, I’m not good enough in Japanese to use J-J dictionaries comfortably). Native dictionaries effectively get better and more useful when you’re looking at complicated words, but they’re almost hopelessly obtuse for basic vocab.

For instance the definitions of “eccentric” in an E-E dictionary:

Not at or in the centre; away from the centre.

Not perfectly circular; elliptical.

(of a person) Deviating from the norm; behaving unexpectedly or differently; unconventional and slightly strange.

Perfectly workable. Meanwhile for the arguably much simpler “center”:

The point in the interior of a circle that is equidistant from all points on the circumference.

Followed by 11 other definitions, including:

(geometry) The point in the interior of any figure of any number of dimensions that has as its coordinates the arithmetic mean of the coordinates of all points on the perimeter of the figure (or of all points in the interior for a center of volume).

Chances are that, if you don’t understand the word “center” in English, you also won’t find these definitions very useful.

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