Monolingual Guide¶

Intermediate Learners

This is a guide targeted at "intermediate" learners.

This guide will go through what the monolingual transition is and why you should do it, different mediums to access monolingual dictionaries and also ways to approach getting used to monolingual dictionaries. This guide is long. But it is still simple, it’s just the initial setup that just feels long.

What is the monolingual transition¶

The monolingual transition is when you “transition" into getting used to a monolingual dictionary, often with the help of a bilingual dictionary as an aid. A monolingual dictionary is a dictionary that defines words of the language in that language. For example, the Oxford Dictionary is a monolingual English dictionary. Sites such as Jisho.org use the German-English bilingual dictionary known as “JMdict (English)”. Jisho.org is not its own dictionary, it is only a portal that accesses JMdict. So keep that in mind.

Why you should use a monolingual dictionary¶

Monolingual dictionaries help you avoid making false associations with words from your native language (probably English) to German. You may think, oh, what if I’m not even English? If you don’t use a monolingual dictionary, then you will make false associations anyway, no matter what your native language is. What if I’m German and I use the Wadoku (German-German bilingual dictionary)? Same thing. You will still have this problem. There is no language that can express German better than German itself.

What exactly do you mean by “false associations”?¶

Definitions in bilingual dictionaries are often too brief and tend to reduce a foreign word to a familiar label in the learner’s native language. As a result, learners may believe they understand a word, while in reality they are only projecting an English concept onto a German word. The following example illustrates this problem.

peinlich

First, let us look at how this word is typically translated in a German–English dictionary.

peinlich – embarrassing, awkward

Now compare this with a definition from a monolingual German dictionary.

peinlich: ein unangenehmes Gefühl verursachend, besonders weil man sich vor anderen schämt (causing an unpleasant feeling, especially because one feels ashamed in front of others)

When this definition is translated back into English, it becomes clear that peinlich is not simply “embarrassing”. It also includes the idea of a socially uncomfortable situation, often involving exposure, loss of face, or violation of social norms.

If you learned peinlich only through the English word “embarrassing”, would you fully understand how Germans actually use this word? Probably not.

The other reason why you should use monolingual definitions is because they help you think in German. Like I said before, there is no language that can express German as well as German itself can. Dictionary definitions are a way of thinking about words. I’m sure dictionary authors (who are native speakers) put thought into each of their definitions when they wrote their definition, so by reading the definition and memorising it, you will have something at least close to what a native speaker may think of the word. You can still get a true understanding with immersion, it just takes a lot longer than if you learned those words monolingually.

Monolingual dictionaries are very powerful, and you will only realise this once they become second nature to you.

Why people find it hard to go monolingual.¶

Two reasons:

They don’t know the words.
Are not used to the written German.

Monolingual transition myths¶

A profound belief that "dictionary vocabulary" exist.

The truth: “Dictionary vocabulary” = words you don’t know because you don’t read enough.

Yomichan - the better way to go monolingual.¶

I recommend doing the monolingual transition with Yomichan.

Yomichan is a browser extension that allows you to look up German words on a webpage by holding Shift and hovering over it. It is supported by any Chromium or Firefox based browser. You can find out how to set up Yomichan here

Optimizing Yomichan Settings¶

First you need to ensure that Advanced options is enabled.

Second, we want to remove any and all scan delays because we will be making heavy use of this extension and wouldn't want to be slowed down by anything.

Now we will enable scanning within pop-ups, this is very important, as we want to be able to look up any words we don't know within a definiton.

You may want to increase the size of your Yomichan pop up window because by default it is pretty small and will become a hindrance when using monolingual dictionaries. To make enough headroom to use Yomichan dictionaries comfortably we are going to edit the following settings.

Here's how our pop up looks now:

Next, if you want, you don't need to but I recommend it, enable automatic audio playback, so we know how to pronounce a word correctly the moment we look it up. Also add the extra audio source because surprisingly it adds extra audio!

You can also add the Forvo audio source in Yomichan. See Yomichan Setup Tutorial for more info.

I will touch on dictionaries in the next section.

Getting and using monolingual dictionaries¶

Again, I recommend you use monolingual dictionaries with Yomichan. I will talk about alternatives later.

Before we continue, have a read on recommended dictionaries and what they are exactly.

Recommended Dictionaries¶

Every Dictionary Explained.¶

Continuation: Getting and using monolingual dictionaries¶

Let's continue. Import the set of dictionaries that best suits you in Recommended Dictionaries.

※ You can change dictionary priority so you can match the order by editing the number next to the dictionary. Higher the number = higher up in list.

Why do you say use a lot of dictionaries?¶

You need to have a lot of dictionaries and have every one of them enabled because there will always be some words that are in some dictionaries and not in others. We want to use monolingual dictionaries as much as possible here. Another reason is that different dictionaries will describe a word in a different way, and in many cases you may not understand one dictionary's definition, but understand another.

But you would have to do a lot of scrolling to get to the next word?

You should use the keyboard shortcut Alt+Down

Alternatives¶

Online Dictionaries¶

...

Offline Alternatives¶

You’re gonna be learning German for a long time, so it is possible that your internet may go out when you’re tryna nihongo grind! So you’re basically screwed right? Nope!

Yomichan Offline¶

You can still use Yomichan offline. Here’s how.

That’s how.

Approaching Monolingual Dictionaries¶

There’s a few ways to approach getting used to monolingual dictionaries. I’ll go through each one of them.

Primarily in the AJATT community, there’s this one piece of advice:

The “Throw away the bilingual dictionary forever, and start using the monolingual dictionary straight away!” Approach¶

This is something Khatzumoto of AJATT proposed.

I mean, if you read novels, this may be a pretty good approach, because you will already be familiar with the words, because novels generally just have more words than movies. If you only watch movies, this may prove to be quite frustrating. When this piece of advice was put out, Yomichan didn’t exist. So people in that time would have found this piece of advice terrible and tiring to constantly look up everything in the definitions.

This isn’t a fundamentally flawed approach, I think it’s pretty good how it says “just read the dictionary more!”, because that’s exactly what you need to do.

I just disagree with throwing away the bilingual dictionary completely, because you still need it in the beginning of the monolingual transition.

What you SHOULD do¶

How did I learn how to be comfortable with monolingual dictionaries? I read more. (novels)

When I read more novels I got more used to written German, and when I looked up words, they were in monolingual, so when I learned more words, I got better at using the monolingual dictionary. Huh? Yeah. It’s really that simple. Read more. Read the novel more = reading the dictionary more because you need a dictionary to read novels :)

>What did you do when you came across a word you didn’t know in the definition?¶

I looked it up with Yomichan. I tried reading the monolingual definition. If there were too many words I didn’t know in the definition, I just looked at the English definition (as a last resort) and moved on. You just need to keep doing this. REPETITION.
Read more books. You will get comfortable with the monolingual dictionary if you just read a lot. Yes. Read more. Read a lot. That’s all there is to it. Yomichan just makes the process easier, you don’t waste your energy manually searching, instead your energy goes into actually reading. That’s why I recommend using Yomichan.

>Soo… what’s the best way to approach monolingual?¶

Read more novels with a monolingual dictionary.

>What if I don't like reading novels? I hate reading novels!¶

Find something you like.

>But wouldn’t I be reading the dictionary more than the actual novel?¶

So what? It’s good that you are reading the dictionary more. Think of the dictionary as something FUN. It's fascinating in its own right.

10 Important Tips and Tricks¶

Read at least 1 novel (it can be a light novel or visual novel) before going monolingual.
Try to experiment with what dictionary order is the best for you.
If the word you look up with Yomichan is only in a bilingual dictionary, try doing a kana search for it, or a full kanji search (Alt+Insert to get to the Yomichan search page)
If you don’t understand the definition even if you looked up all the words, just look at/use the bilingual definition (last resort). You will get better at understanding when you use it more.
It is okay to check the bilingual definition to check that you’re getting the right basic idea.
Don’t worry about how much time it will take to “transition”
For monolingual Anki cards, just try to remember the gist of the definition. I tried to demonstrate this in German FAQ
Try to look up words you already know, in the monolingual dictionary, this is just to try to get accustomed to the dictionary at first hand.
Forget looking up very concrete nouns such as animals in the monolingual dictionary, you are better off just using Google Images instead.
Don’t overdo yourself! If it's too hard, try to use the bilingual dictionary until you feel confident again!

Have fun immersing!