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Although certainly not web-specific, such an application should be pretty important to tourists and other visitors to Japan; I'm sure there's something out there somplace. However, I can't seem to find such an application. Anyone here have any ideas or suggestions on how to find such a whizz-bang?
Thanks for your help!
Duncan Kunz
Some of the tools on Jim Breen's site [csse.monash.edu.au] will add romanji to translated text, and are widely used in the machine translation of Japanese. However, I haven't seen a BabelFish type of translation that will take in a block of English text and spit out a Japanese translation all in romanji.
If you know about Japanese language then you know that there are lots of words that are pronounced the same, but can have completely unrelated meanings. The meaning ofttimes is derived from the kanji. I know several sites like the extremely helpful Rikai [rikai.com] that adds yomigana to kanji compounds. This assumes that you at least know hiragana and katakana. If you know how the kanji compounds are read, then you can read anything in Japanese, but that's not saying you'll understand anything you're reading. ;) Unfortunately I think the type of tool you're looking for would be of limited use and may not exist purely in the format you've described. You can use the Jim Breen dictionary to get word by word definitions in romanji though.
