I've noticed that quite a few people have been using the JP wiki as of late, and, to my annoyance, they don't understand shit so they end up asking me about it anyways.
So, here's a guide that should tell you enough about the basics of Japanese to be able to use google translate and actually understand what it means.
Feel free to let me know if things seem unclear to you, or you feel as if more information needs to be added.
Table of Contents
- Basics
- Introduction
- Connector words (particles)
- Tenses
- Commonly used terms that you shouldn't google TL
Absolute Basics
There are 3 alphabets. Generally, katakana (the rough looking one) is used for words from non-Japanese langauges, and each string of katakana is generally a single word. Hiragana is curlier than katakana, and is used for a wide variety of words. It's also used to implement quite a bit of grammar. Kanji are chinese characters, and are what make up the last alphabet. Note that these characters, unlike the other two, are technically words on their own, and have meanings. They're generally more complicated looking. It may help to learn how to distinguish these from each other at the very least.
Introduction
Okay, first of all, I'd like to point out that google translate does provide you with semi-decent translations under the condition that whatever you're translating is both short and simple. For example, dumping 「お前はもう死んでいる」 into google translate will give you an accurate translation. However, that doesn't mean that this is always the case. Google translate looks over many idioms and compound words. Unlike in English, compound words in Japanese do not always derive their meanings from the words used to make them up... In fact, compound words to mean something else entirely. The same applies to many other phrases, whose literal meanings have long been thrown out the window. One such example would be 「お生憎さま」, which could be interpreted literally as "raw hatred", but actually means "That's too bad for you then." (Google translate happens to spit out "unfortunately one", which makes no sense whatsoever.)
In other words, it's important to determine when words start and end. Once you're done with that, you should determine the meaning of each individual block of words, before finally combining them back into a sentence. Luckily, windows has a solution that has you covered in a large number of cases (but not the one above.) If you have your cursor at the start of a sentence (in typing mode), and you press control + the right arrow key, it should tab you exactly one word to the right. In most cases, this catches compound words, and allowing you to identify where things begin and end.
Here's an example of this in action:
We first begin with the Japanese sentence 「自嘲的に吐息し、髪をかき上げていた」. Note that google translate spits out nonsense for this sentence. (Snorting manner is sigh, it had raised oysters hair)
Using the method I mentioned above, we are able to split the sentence into parts as follows
「自嘲|的|に|吐息|し、|髪|を|かき|上げ|てい|た」
----A----B--C--D-----E-----F---G--H----I-----J---K
(Note that again, Microsoft doesn't' do it perfectly, but just helps you get a general idea of it.)
If we use google translate on each individual word, we can kind of get a bit of a better understanding of what's going on.
A - Self derision
B - Target
C - To
D - Sigh
E - Tooth
F - Hair
G - The
H - Oysters
I - Up
J - Apparently google translate just spits out the sound for this lol (so it gives you Tei)
K - It was
So, this obviously doesn't seem right, nor does it make alot of sense. However, that's only because neither google nor microsoft seem to understand Japanese grammatical structure. The above example actually has an error that's caused half by a lack of kanji, and half by Microsoft's algorithm. H through K should actually just be one part. If thing's don't seem right, try holding control and shift over a certain section. This should allow you to create a compound word by highlighting both parts. Part of google translate's UI should show up and describe what that the translation of that specific part means. However, even when this doesn't work... there are still other tricks that do. For example, you could type in the roumaji provided underneath the Japanese text into an online dictionary, such as nihongodict.com. In this case, we type in kakiage, as that's the part that seems to make the least sense, which gives us the following:
Although there's a lack of kanji and context, you can still see how some of these would possibly fit better than oysters going upwards.
But anyways, Now that we understand how to split words in general, we'll move onto the next part. We will come back to this sentence later, and use it as an example throughout the entire guide.
Connector Words
One major part of the Japanese language is particles. These indicate what something is referring to, and Japanese would not make alot of sense without them.
Some common particles you'll see are
は - A は B means that A is B in general. It can also mean A is doing B, A is at B, and some other stuff like that.
に - A に B generally indicates belonging, or is used in relation to location. Can be used to have an action refer to something as well.
を - A を B generally indicates that there was a target of some sort, along with an action.
が - A が B also generally indicates that something is something else. It's similar to は, but is used in a more declarative sense. As the goal of this guide is to get you to understand the basic meaning behind whatever it is you're reading, you do not particularly need to mind the difference between these two.
の - A の B Indicates belonging or of relation to.
から - effectively means from, but can mean "because" based on it's use.
し - can be used to list things.
*Note that not all meanings of all particles are covered, and only general stuff is since the wiki won't really require that much knowledge of Japanese to browse.
Let's flesh out some examples to demonstrate what these mean.
Ex. 1: AはBの友達です
Here, 友達 means friends, and です acts as the verb "to be".
There are two particles to be concerned about, both of which can be seen in the first four characters. So, like I mentioned above, the は effectively acts as the word "is", while the の indicates that something relate's to something else.
That is, A is B's ____. As the last little bit is already given, we can conclude that the above sentence means that A is B's friend.
Ex. 2: AはBを殺しました
殺 is the kanji for the verb to kill
殺しました is the past tense conjugation of the verb (hence, killed.)
Again, the particles lie in the first part of the sentence. The は holds the same meaning. The other particle, を, indicates that A did something to B. In this case, A killed B.
Ex. 3: スーパーに行きます
スーパー = Supermarket
行 is the kanji for going
行きます is the present tense conjugation for this kanji
に is being used as a reference to a location here, hence, the implicit subject is going to the supermarket.
Ex. 4: Aを倒せ
倒せ is to defeat something
Do 倒せ to A. Hence, defeat A.
Ex. 5: Aからプレゼントを貰った
プレゼント - Present
Aから - From A
を - Determines the topic, and that something is being done to the present
貰った - past tense of recieved
I got a present from A.
So, now let's apply this to the previous example from the earlier part.
「自嘲的に吐息し、髪をかき上げていた」
自嘲的 doesn't seem like a place, so the に should either indicate an action or belonging.
髪を refers to having something done to the hair in some way.
Combine this from what we saw earlier, and you should be able to come to the conclusion that someone is either writing the hair, or combing it upwards. Naturally, only the second of these two makes sense.
Finally, we look at the し particle at the end of the first half, and understand that it is effectively linking the two parts of the sentence. Hence, we consider it to be an "and."
So, the sentence now looks like this:
自嘲的に吐息 and combs back (the subject's) hair た.
The た will be addressed in the next section. For now, let's try figuring out what the first half of the scentence means.
自嘲 = Self derision
的 = Target as per google translate. Dictionary says that this can also mean - like if appended onto something.
We can hence deduce that the に implies that some sort of action is being done since we know the second half of the sentence.
吐息 is given to be "sigh" by google translate.
Hence, we can conclude that it is saying
"Sighs self derisional-like."
Now, the thing is Japanese has implicit subjects. I'm going to just make things easier and state that, in this context, the line is referring to a girl. Normally, you should be able to figure this out by looking at the sentence around said sentence. Hence, we can say
"She sighs self derisional-like"
Even without the explicit subject though, you should be able to understand that some sort of subject is sighing in way that is similar to self derision.
Common sense -> She sighs in a self derisional manner.
Combine this with the second half, and replace the (the subject) with a she since we know that the subject is female, and we get
She sighs in a self derisional manner and combs back her hair た.
Tenses
Japanese is one of those annoying languages that forces you to conjugate verbs when you use them. Normally, you will see a kanji that represents the verb's action, followed by the hiragana conjugation indicating the tense, and potentially slightly altering the meaning.
Seeing as how this is not intended to actually teach you Japanese, I'd say that all you really need to know is the following:
Things ending with an e tend to be a command.
Things ending with a tend to be in past tense
anything ending with imasu is present or future tense.
Use google translate's roumaji interpretation to help you figure out what things end with.
Based on the fact that た ends with an "a" sound, we conclude that it is in past tense. Hence, the sentence means
She sighed in a self derisional manner and combed back her hair.
Now, let's edit this line, and replace the Japanese sentence structure with a more natural English flow, as well as remove derisional which was a temporary made up word ;D
She combed back her hair while sighing, as if mocking herself.
Requires a bit of practice, but you should be able to figure out what most things mean by following these general guidelines.
Common Issues, Misunderstanding and Nuances
Implicit subjects are common place. People often don't use a subject when just talking amoungst a group of 2.
Most things don't have plural forms. You have to guess whether or not people mean one or many. There are a few exceptions to this.
Some people like to add random particles or use various dialects. They're assholes.
One last tip...
NEVER FEED GOOGLE TRANSLATE ANY LONGER PHRASES OR SENTENCES. IT CAN AND WILL FUCK UP.
Some practice examples and solutions to come later, but that's pretty much it.
