Easy japanese translator, helpful

[Mrvontar]

If you use google chrome and search for rikaikun, it basically translates japanese into english. Useful if you want to increase your vocabulary and it's free! I hope this comes in handy to people, not sure if it's been posted before.

[furrykef]

It's a pretty well known tool, or at least its Firefox cousin (Rikaichan) is.

[phreadom]

It's listed right in the "Getting Started" guide.

http://thejapanesepage.com/getting-star ... -materials

They're the most basic and useful free tools for beginner learners in my opinion (software-wise at least), hence their inclusion.

[micahcowan]

This thread as it stands might be a bit misleading.

Rikaichan/rikaikun don't "translate Japanese into English" (even Google translate can't do that, though it tries). It does give dictionary entries (from Jim Breen's EDICT, I believe) for individual words. And often depends on you hovering over the start of the word for it to determine where a word starts.

IOW, the person using it still has to have some proficiency in Japanese in order to make use of it; someone who has had no training at all in Japanese would not be able to make effective use of the tool.

[phreadom]

Good point. Thanks for the clarification Micah.