Bit Silly... Any Japanese Speakers/ Those Learning Japanese Who Might Help?

[Saber-Toothed Crow]

So yes... an absolutely silly request, but I am ridiculously bad at anything to do with foreign languages.

My karate instructor has asked me to post at least once a week on our website a word/ phrase in Japanese, with both the original kanji and the english pronounciation of it. The thing is, I have no idea where to start looking, and what sites will actually provide reliable, accurate translations 

If anyone could point me towards the right direction it would be very appreciated!

[melodys_angel]

I could poke my brother but I don't think he would know the Kanji of the words.

He went to Japan for 3 months as well as was with someone there so he learnt quite a bit.

[ringwraith10]

Google Translate (https://translate.google.com/#en/ja/) will translate from English to Kanji, but it's not always a great translation. I'm sure it would be easy to find a site that will then translate the Kanji into a romanized version of the language.

And here's a silly suggestion: you could browse Japanese bands on Last.FM and find bands that have full sentences as their names. Then you can find both the Kanji and the other spellings. (http://www.last.fm/tag/japanese/artists) Of course, that's a very silly idea.

[rosierjay]

what kind of words are you hoping to use?
foods, locations, words used at the post office?
that will help with where you can look.
does your computer have the Kanji setting on? not sure if this is standard or not..
are you writing in the furigana too?
there are lots of people on this site that japanese, so i know you'll be able to get help.

[Nonnavlis]

Jisho.org is an excellent dictionary to use for Japanese to English or English to Japanese, that also gives accurate characters for the way they are written. Selecting a word also gives example phrases in Japanese characters (kanji/katakana/hiragana), romaji, and an English translation.

Honestly I'm of the opinion though that if neither you or your karate instructor are Japanese or can understand the language (and your client base presumably can't either?) then there's no need to use it like some exotic decoration just because it looks cool or something. But that's your call to make, there.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

 Jeffrey's Japanese<->English Dictionary Server is my favorite!

http://rut.org/cgi-bin/j-e/dict

[banditpony]

I would look for a kanji a day app and/or website.

I just quickly browsed and I thought this one is pretty cool: http://kanji-a-day.tumblr.com

It *explains* what what each part of the kanji character means.

So silly example.
木  tree.
林 two trees together = woods/forest

It's really fun when you can break it apart.

[Dragonflitter]

Jeffrey's Japanese<->English Dictionary Server is my favorite!

http://rut.org/cgi-bin/j-e/dict

I absolutely love Jeff's site. I've been using it for all my Japanese language ref needs for almost a decade.

[kaoskat]

Hopefully one of those sites will help. Will your whole class be doing this or just you?

[Saber-Toothed Crow]

Jisho.org is an excellent dictionary to use for Japanese to English or English to Japanese, that also gives accurate characters for the way they are written. Selecting a word also gives example phrases in Japanese characters (kanji/katakana/hiragana), romaji, and an English translation.

Honestly I'm of the opinion though that if neither you or your karate instructor are Japanese or can understand the language (and your client base presumably can't either?) then there's no need to use it like some exotic decoration just because it looks cool or something. But that's your call to make, there.

Thank you everyone for the excellent suggestions! Sorry this took a while to answer back to.I guess I should have been more clear - this isn't for an official website that we'd be using to draw clients, it is a private Facebook page for existing students. Honestly we would just be using it as a discussion/learning tool, but I guess I tend to over think and worry about these things. I know the language is quite different from anything I am accustomed to, so I wanted to minimize any mistakes I might make out of respect to the other students and the culture. I will add more later, typing this on my new phone right now, I'm not accustomed to it yet

[Princess Lala]

Hey there *chimes in* Im sort of in a similar boat! I wish i could help with kanji, but it looks like you already got lots of help!

I recently started learning Japanese as I'm visiting there next year for about a month with my friends who live there, and I daydream of being a teacher there for a little while so we are looking into that in the future. Japan is so beautiful, including their language so I see it as a form of verbal art. If you plan on visiting Japan, definetly try to learn some of the language because my bff Keiko tells me all the time not many people speak English unless they are of high school age where it's a little more common to find English speakers. I haven't touched any material with Kanji, I have only just started to memorize the hiragana alphabet over much practice, getting ready to work on katakana characters! Learn to write it while you are learning words- it will help! This sounds silly but I have several books that I have been using: Japanese for dummies and "hide this Japanese phrase book". If I need help pronouncing a word I type it into Google translate just to hear the word. This also sounds silly but I'm looking into a language school course (either college class or after-school programs) I can possibly take that have a native speaker. I think my community college has a Japanese course!

I'm sure a calligraphy book may help you out!! I have a few I can take pictures if that have some kanji in them!

Good luck and have fun! Let's learn Japanese together! x3

[pony_magick]

I've been doing an evening class for 2 years (this is my 3rd) so I know a little bit but I don't know any script (characters) as it was too late and held after the speaking class and I didn't have the brain power left...

Sometimes your Japanese consulate website will have good links and so should your libraries (at least here in NZ/Christchurch they do). Try there first.

[Taffeta]

I think that if you can associate a language with a subject you like, then it's easier to learn, so go for it and good luck The jisho is a decent site but I don't know about it's pronunciation...I don't remember if it has a soundbyte function?

There used to be a site which did, but I can't remember the URL. I think Nihongo o Narau had some basic ones though...if it's still up? (Try googling it?) Tae Kim's site might have some as well...

The problem with google translate is that Japanese grammar is completely different from English grammar and so things get very lost in translation at times. Individual words can work but there are a lot of homonyms in Japanese and the word that seems to be the right one might not be.

Some people learn Japanese without the characters and such but I think it's better to begin with them as well, just don't try and rush it too much. It makes sense to focus on Hiragana and Katakana first, and then the kanji, but Kanji are categorised by 'radical' and though that sounds complicated, when you start to see the patterns it helps. For example, many water related characters (lake, waterfall, etc) have three splashes on the left hand side that marks out the character is to do with water. So if you are serious about learning Japanese, I'd think about finding a system to learn a bit at a time with the script.

Learning random words is ok but makes more work for you. Trust me, I did it that way xD.

The reason it's better learning the characters from the start is that there are some words with long vowels and some with short (eg yuki is snow but yuuki is courage) and in roman script people often omit the long vowel, thus making it harder later on to distinguish these words. If you know from the start that one is written with three characters (yu-u-ki) and one with two (yu-ki) in phonetic script, it helps you to hear the difference. It makes more work for you in the long run otherwise.

I've done 9 years of Japanese now, and I think it's always a language you can learn new stuff about My mediaeval warrior vocabulary is still better than my modern day food vocabulary mind you...