Japanese of the day:

[elfs]

肉 (にく) (n) meat; (P);

そんだけ: (n,adv) only that; that's all (used in casual speech); (P);

言たって (いったって) (exp) even if I told you;

言 (げん, ごん, い(う), こと) (n) word; remark; statement; (P);

兄さん (にいさん) (n) older brother; (P);

Comments

[hlmt.livejournal.com]

What does the (P) stand for?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

(P): "Priority." A word you should know in order to be able read popular fiction and non-fiction Japanese text. If it helps, there are about 20,000 of these out of a dictionary of 110,000 entries in EDICT (http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/edict_doc.html).

[hlmt.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've used EDICT on and off for single kanji that I use on my cards... I really need to discipline myself to carve out time to start learning this language. I follow your entries on Japanese with interest and some modicum of envy!

[elfs.livejournal.com]

To be frightfully honest, my method is to pick a manga I like but can't read, and try to translate it. I have several tools: Gjiten (http://gjiten.sourceforge.net/), Kanjipad (http://www.gtk.org/~otaylor/kanjipad/), PaDict (http://padict.sourceforge.net/), and the Kodanshi Kanji Learner's Dictionary (http://www.kanji.org/kanji/dictionaries/learners/learners.htm). I use all of them in the course of translating a single page, but the Kanji Learner's Dictionary is probably the most useful.