Using Google as a Japanese English Translation Tool Tips

Keeping with the theme of Google tricks to help with language learning, here’s another one.

This trick works especially well when trying to figure out the proper English or Japanese word for a scientific term.

For example, say I want to know what 再帰性反射型液晶 is in English… Definitely not on JLPT 1.

Enter the term you are searching for, the string “CiNii”, and one more English term that you expect is either part of the answer, or appears in the same document… For example, I know that 液晶 is LCD, so I’ll include “LCD” in the search.

My search results look like this [Google Link].

The results will bring up pages from a website called CiNii. Click one, and you’ll probably find the title of an abstract to a scientific paper published in a journal in both English and Japanese.

We see that whoever wrote this journal decided that “再帰性反射型液晶” was best translated as “Retro-Refrective LCD.”

あれっ… he spelled Reflective incorrectly. That’s embarrassing. Well, we know it should be Retro-Reflective LCD.

Anyway, remember that the essays and abstracts available on CiNii are written by Japanese speakers, so sometimes the English translations are a bit awkward. However, it’s better than nothing, and I have found a lot of difficult terms this way!

Just watch out for the spelling mistakes.

On a similar note, if you include the Japanese term “用語集” or “glossary” in your search it can also help you hit on vocabulary lists that other translators or people in the industry have created for their own use.

Happy hunting!

- Harvey